45,000 of the 223,000 jobs added in April were in health services, according to today’s Employment Situation Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This continues the trend seen in March. Jobs in ambulatory settings accounted for well over half of health jobs.
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Research and commentary from a former senior executive in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Friday, May 8, 2015
Thursday, May 7, 2015
Electronic Health Records Don't Help Stroke Victims; And More Bad News
New research on over half a million stroke victims admitted to hospitals from 2007 to 2010 shows that there was no difference in quality of care for those admitted to hospitals with EHRs and those without.
To be sure, this data is from a period just before the federal government mandated hospitals to install EHRs, juiced with $30 billion of payments. Still, it is hard to believe that the government’s artificially accelerating adoption of EHRs that did not do the trick has improved the situation.
This blog has criticized that government program pretty thoroughly. And we are not alone. Over at The Health Care Blog, Margalit Gur-Arie, hardly a right-wing advocate of reducing government’s role in health care, has a scathing indictment of the whole principle upon which the enterprise is based – “interoperability.”
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
To be sure, this data is from a period just before the federal government mandated hospitals to install EHRs, juiced with $30 billion of payments. Still, it is hard to believe that the government’s artificially accelerating adoption of EHRs that did not do the trick has improved the situation.
This blog has criticized that government program pretty thoroughly. And we are not alone. Over at The Health Care Blog, Margalit Gur-Arie, hardly a right-wing advocate of reducing government’s role in health care, has a scathing indictment of the whole principle upon which the enterprise is based – “interoperability.”
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Zenefits Raises $500 Million to Reinvent Small-Biz Health Benefits
Most of us buy small-business health benefits the way our grandparents did when they ran the hardware store. It’s a business in dire need of reinventing. Zenefits looks like the company to do it. The company that was one of the top venture deals in health care last year is looking to repeat, raising $500 million at a $4.5 billion valuation.
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Washington, DC: Rich World's Worst Capital for Infant Mortality
Save the Children has a new report ranking 25 of the world’s richest capital cities by childhood mortality. Washington, DC is the worst. Prague, Stockholm, Oslo, Tokyo, and Lisbon lead.
But I think the international ranking was just to get headlines. The real point of the report is to emphasize differences in infant mortality between rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods in these rich capitals.
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
But I think the international ranking was just to get headlines. The real point of the report is to emphasize differences in infant mortality between rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods in these rich capitals.
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Financing Breakthrough Medicine: Opportunities and Obstacles
Researchers at RAND Corporation have given a clear and precise description of a new financing mechanism for medical breakthroughs. The proposal would address a problem recognized about a year and a half ago, when healthcare payers launched high-profile complaints about the price of Sovaldi®, a miracle drug that effectively cures a strain of Hepatitis C.
In a nutshell, the problem is that Sovaldi® costs up to $84,000 per course, administered over a short period of 12 to 24 weeks. However, its benefits are lifelong: Hepatitis C patients live for decades with diseased livers. Transplantation is a $300,000 procedure followed by expensive drugs to prevent rejection of the new liver. However, payers with annual budgets do not have adequate incentives to pay in one year for savings that accrue over decades.
Read the entire column at Forbes.
In a nutshell, the problem is that Sovaldi® costs up to $84,000 per course, administered over a short period of 12 to 24 weeks. However, its benefits are lifelong: Hepatitis C patients live for decades with diseased livers. Transplantation is a $300,000 procedure followed by expensive drugs to prevent rejection of the new liver. However, payers with annual budgets do not have adequate incentives to pay in one year for savings that accrue over decades.
Read the entire column at Forbes.
Top VC-Backed Health Technology Companies
PitchBook has compiled a roster of 2015’s top venture-capital financed health technology companies.
The three largest valuations are Modernizing Medicine, valued at $316 million, which provides an electronic medical assistant; WellTok, valued at $216 million, which provides personalized guidance on healthy behaviors; and Crosschx, valued at $64 million, which sans patients’ fingers to create a unique, secure identifier.
Pitchbook has also listed the three biggest deals so far this year
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
The three largest valuations are Modernizing Medicine, valued at $316 million, which provides an electronic medical assistant; WellTok, valued at $216 million, which provides personalized guidance on healthy behaviors; and Crosschx, valued at $64 million, which sans patients’ fingers to create a unique, secure identifier.
Pitchbook has also listed the three biggest deals so far this year
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
75 Percent of Emergency Docs Seeing More Patients Since Obamacare
Three quarters of specialists in Emergency Departments are seeing more patients since January 1, 2014, according to a survey released by the American College of Emergency Physicians
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
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