Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Maybe not. That is the answer from a study by Thompson et al. (2016). Using data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) State Inpatient Databases (SID) for six states (AR, FL, IA, MA, NY,WA) from 2011 to 2013, the authors measure hospital performance reliability for the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP). The define reliability as follows:…
How do Euroepan countries reimburse for pharmaceuticals? A paper by Pauwels et al. (2014) provides an nice summary. I review that article today. With the exception of Germany, most countries had a national and/or regional drug budget. Germany is also unique in that only Germany and the UK allow for free pricing, whereas other countries…
How do you do cost effectiveness the right way? Peter Neumann–a colleague of mine at Precision Health Economics–edits a book to explain how to do just that. Neumann and Gillian D. Sanders, Louise B. Russell, Joanna E. Siegel, and Theodore G. Ganiats have produced a second edition of their classic text Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine. The…
All or nothing FDA approval. Value of G-CSF. GMOs. “The curious have won.” Clinical trial disclosure. Barriers to value-based agreements. What is NexusACO?
Berkson’s paradox happens when given two independent events, if you only consider outcomes where at least one occurs, then they become negatively dependent. More technically, this paradox occurs when there is ascertainment bias in a study design. Let me provide an example. Consider the case where patients can have diabetes or HIV. Assume that patients have a positive probability of…
Many people have feared that robots, computers, and other forms of technology will take people’s jobs. Conventional wisdom holds that healthcare workers have been largely immune from these technological changes to date. However, a new paper from Lu, Rui and Seidmann examines whether technological advances–specifically computerized provider order entry (CPOE)–affects employment at nursing homes. Using…
On this election day, let’s take a look at a video showing what the limitations of voting are. It’s Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem made easy. HT: The Browser
Health technology assessments (HTAs) aim to measure the cost effectiveness of a given treatment or set of treatments for a specific patient populations. Often, these assessments are conducted from the point of view of the payer–either a national health system or the individual insurer perspective. This payer focused perspective can often focus largely on treatment costs rather…
Brad Wright has posted Health Wonk Review: The Game 7 of Politics Edition at Wright on Health. His post skillfully ties two of America’s favorite and most contentious pastimes together: sports and politics.
My daughter recently went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Not only did she enjoy seeing all the marine life, but she learned that the oceans also help humans in many ways. For instance, many pharmaceutical firms are looking to the ocean to see if there are compounds created by sea plants,…