by Elisabeth Rosenthal, Published: 2017
In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries – the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers – that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before…
by Steven Brill, Published: 2015
A book on how the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was written, how it is being implemented, and, most important, how it is changing – and failing to change – the rampant abuses in the healthcare industry. It’s a fly-on-the-wall account of the titanic fight to pass a 961-page law aimed at fixing America’s largest, most dysfunctional industry. It’s a penetrating chronicle of how the profiteering that Brill first identified in his trailblazing Time magazine cover story continues, despite Obamacare. And it is the first complete, inside account of how President Obama persevered to push through the law, but then failed to deal with the staff incompetence and turf wars that crippled its implementation.
by Elizabeth H. Bradley, Lauren A. Taylor, Published: 2015
For decades, experts have puzzled over why the US spends more on health care but suffers poorer outcomes than other industrialized nations. Now Elizabeth H. Bradley and Lauren A. Taylor marshal extensive research, including a comparative study of health care data from thirty countries, and get to the root of this paradox: We’ve left out of our tally the most impactful expenditures countries make to improve the health of their populations—investments in social services. In The American Health Care Paradox, Bradley and Taylor illuminate how narrow definitions of health care, archaic divisions in the distribution of health and social services, and our allergy to government programs combine to create needless suffering in individual lives, even as health care spending continues to soar
by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Published: 2015
The definitive story of American health care today—its causes, consequences, and confusionsIn March 2010, the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. It was the most extensive reform of America’s health care system since at least the creation of Medicare in 1965, and maybe ever. The ACA was controversial and highly political, and the law faced legal challenges reaching all the way to the Supreme Court; it even precipitated a government shutdown.
by Mike Stobbe
Published: 2014
What does it mean to be the nation’s doctor? In this engaging narrative, journalist Mike Stobbe examines the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, emphasizing that it has always been unique within the federal government in its ability to influence public health. But now, in their efforts to provide leadership in public health policy, surgeons general compete with other high-profile figures such as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Furthermore, in an era of declining budgets, when public health departments have eliminated tens of thousands of jobs, some argue that a lower-profile and ineffective surgeon general is a waste of money
by Elisabeth Askin , Nathan Moore, Vikram Shankar, Published: 2014
The Handbook is now used by hundreds of academic programs and health care companies. Each section of the book includes an introduction to the key facts and foundations that make the health care system work along with balanced analyses of the major challenges and controversies within health care, including medical errors, government regulation, medical malpractice, and much more. Suggested readings are included for readers who wish to learn more about specific topics.
by Martin Makary, Published: 2013
A Johns Hopkins surgeon and professor of public health, he can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he’s also been a witness to a a system that frustrates doctors and patients alike. Dr. Makary describes the problem and presents disruptive innovations from success stories around the U.S. The ideas are powerful, but even more important, they are home-grown by the doctors on the front-lines of American healthcare. Unaccountable is a powerful, no-nonsense, non-partisan diagnosis for healing our hospitals and reforming our broken healthcare system.
by Jeff Elton, Anne O’Riordan, Published: 2016
An in-depth look at the disruptive forces driving change in the the healthcare industry and provides guide for defining new operating and business models in response to these profound changes. Based on original research conducted by Accenture and years of experience working with the most successful companies in the industry, healthcare experts Jeff Elton and Anne O’Riordan provide an informed, insightful view of the state of the industry, what’s to come, and new emerging business models for life sciences companies play a different role from the past in to driving superior outcomes for patients and playing a bigger role in creating greater value for healthcare overall. Their book explains how critical global healthcare trends are challenging legacy strategies and business models, and examines why historical leaders in the industy must evolve, to stay relevant and compete with new entrants.
by Eric Topol, Published: 2016
A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery. You’ll make an appointment months in advance. You’ll probably wait for several hours until you hear “the doctor will see you now”-but only for fifteen minutes! Then you’ll wait even longer for lab tests, the results of which you’ll likely never see, unless they indicate further (and more invasive) tests, most of which will probably prove unnecessary (much like physicals themselves). And your bill will be astronomical.In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, one of the nation’s top physicians, shows why medicine does not have to be that way. Instead, you could use your smartphone to get rapid test results from one drop of blood, monitor your vital signs both day and night, and use an artificially intelligent algorithm to receive a diagnosis without having to see a doctor, all at a small fraction of the cost imposed by our modern healthcare system.The change is powered by what Topol calls medicine’s “Gutenberg moment.” Much as the printing press took learning out of the hands of a priestly class, the mobile internet is doing the same for medicine, giving us unprecedented control over our healthcare. With smartphones in hand, we are no longer beholden to an impersonal and paternalistic system in which “doctor knows best.” Medicine has been digitized, Topol argues; now it will be democratized.
by David Goldhill, Published: 2013
Goldhill explodes the myth that Medicare and insurance coverage can make care cheaper and improve our health, and shows how efforts to reform the system, including the Affordable Care Act, will do nothing to address the waste of the health care industry, which currently costs the country nearly $2.5 trillion annually and in which an estimated 200,000 Americans die each year from preventable errors. Catastrophic Care proposes a completely new approach, one that will change the way you think about one of our most pressing national problems.
by Clayton Christensen, Jerome H. Grossman, M.D., Jason Hwang, Published: 2016
Our health care system is in critical condition. The Affordable Care Act has insured more Americans than ever, yet deductibles keep rising and costs continue to climb. Now more than ever, the industry needs a shot in the arm. It needs The Innovator’s Prescription, the now-classic approach to efficient, affordable health care
by Otis Webb Brawley MD, Paul Goldberg, Published: 2012
How We Do Harm exposes the underbelly of healthcare today―the overtreatment of the rich, the under treatment of the poor, the financial conflicts of interest that determine the care that physicians’ provide, insurance companies that don’t demand the best (or even the least expensive) care, and pharmaceutical companies concerned with selling drugs, regardless of whether they improve health or do harm.
