Health Policy/Systems

Health policy efforts focus on improving health care delivery, quality, and equity while controlling costs.

FEATURED STORY

The art of getting things done
The single-payer health care plan in Vermont is just the latest of Bill Hsiao’s many health reforms.

Hitting the lottery
Oregon’s experiment with Medicaid gives HSPH economist Katherine Baicker a rare chance to analyze effects of extended coverage.

HEALTH CARE FINANCING

Can cost-effective health care=better health care?
Cost-effectiveness research pinpoints best values for limited health care dollars—and the results may surprise you.

Reining in health care costs
As commissioner of the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, Sarah Iselin, SM ’99, is responsible for implementing key provisions of state health care legislation—despite a budge deficit that in February 2009 exceeded $1.5 billion

Employer health incentives
Employee wellness programs prod workers to adopt healthier lifestyles

Doctoring in a digital world
Electronic health records could make care safer and save money. So why aren’t more doctors and hospitals using them?

LAW AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Drug companies at the crossroads
HSPH’s Michelle Mello explores the thorny issues at the intersection of public health, law, and ethics.

MEDICAL ERRORS/MALPRACTICE/QUALITY 

A simple checklist that saves lives
Fighter pilots use checklists to avoid deadly errors. Why not surgeons, too?

“We’re sorry”
The healing power of apology—and how two little words could make medicine safer

The pen and the scalpel
Atul Gawande is a surgeon and an award-winning scribe

HEALTH SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

Why IS health care reform so elusive?
HSPH health policy expert John McDonough discusses the revolutionary health reform law.

Talking health care reform
A conversation with Meredith Rosenthal 

China’s leaders, HSPH experts unite in reform effort
Keeping 1.3 billion people healthy

MICROFINANCE

The difference $100 can make
A Harvard undergraduate explores the macro benefits of microlending—and discovers a passion for public health.

OTHER

Death by violent means: Who’s at risk?
A CDC database piloted by HSPH is galvanizing prevention measures

What money can’t buy
For millions of Chinese, there’s more to well-being than income

 

Image: Kent Dayton/HSPH