Many hospitals detain patients who can’t pay
In more than 30 countries around the world, there are hospitals that hold patients prisoner until they can settle their accounts, sometimes long after they should be medically discharged, according to an Associated Press investigation. Detentions were found…
Watchdog group to put focus on surgical centers
The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit watchdog organization that assesses how nearly 2,000 hospitals across the U.S. handle problems and assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their performance, is now turning its attention to surgery centers. An October…
Ongoing Ebola outbreak could take months to contain
A “perfect storm” of factors, including political violence and a misinformation campaign, could cause an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to spin out of control, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned at a September…
Boosting Junior Faculty in Public Health
The Burke Global Health Fellowship program has helped accelerate the careers of nearly 30 Harvard junior faculty in global health since its launch in 2009.
Female doctors may improve women’s odds of survival after heart attack
A new study of heart attack patients found that women treated by male doctors were more likely to die after a heart attack than either men treated by male doctors or women treated by female doctors.
Many doctors unaware of cancer’s ‘financial toxicity’
A study of hundreds of doctors and thousands of patients found that health care providers in the U.S. may often not be adequately addressing the serious financial burdens faced by many of their patients undergoing cancer treatment. For…
Vaccine safety scandal in China threatens parents’ confidence
A vaccine safety scandal in China has raised questions about the country’s pharmaceutical industry—and concerns that parents may opt out of vaccinating their children.
Using ‘social determinants’ data to improve health care
Some data-gathering companies have begun to scan public records for data on people’s “social determinants of health”—such as arrest records, bankruptcy filings, or marriages and divorces—and are offering it for sale to insurers and health systems, with the…
Opinion: At end of life, focus on care, not costs
Although some policy makers contend that spending on end-of-life care can be reduced, health policy expert Ashish Jha said the focus should be less on how to save money and more on how to improve the well-being of…
High healthcare spending blamed on hospital mergers, administrative costs
Ashish Jha of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health told the Senate Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee that he blamed high healthcare prices on administrative costs and the less-competitive markets created by hospital mergers.