September 30th, 2011 by MatthewKuehnertMD in News
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Over the past few years, my team at the CDC looked into more than 200 reports of unexpected disease transmission through organ transplantation. Of the cases that were confirmed, some had fatal outcomes. Clearly, transmission of infections through organ transplants remains a patient safety concern that calls for action.
To help address the problem, CDC recently led a team of experts to develop the Draft 2011 Public Health Service (PHS) Guideline for Reducing Transmission of HIV, HBV, and HCV through Solid Organ Transplantation. The guideline was posted to the Federal Register last week, and I encourage your review and comment.
While recognizing the critical need for organs, our team also wants Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Safe Healthcare*
September 19th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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As we get closer to January 2012, the originally scheduled implementation date for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), the time has come to reexamine the showpiece of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010.
The final rules for ACO’s are now scheduled for release on January 2012. The implementation was originally scheduled for January 2012. As the original rules are being studied and interpreted the program for ACOs implementation became more confusing. Dr. Don Berwick (CMS Director) has refused to discuss the final rules until they have been published in the Federal Register.
“The ACO program is based on the hubristic assumption that the federal government can design the best organizational structure for the delivery of care, foster its development, and control its operation for the entire country.
The federal government has big-footed health system reform. Although there is no one right way to organize care, the federal government (Dr. Don Berwick and President Obama) thinks it has found one—and exerts top-down, bureaucratic control through PPACA to implement it.”
ACOs are supposed to be organizations that improve coordinated care. If an ACO decreases the cost of care Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
July 20th, 2011 by BobDoherty in Health Policy, Opinion
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Joe Scarborough reminds us that the divisions in American government are hardly new, paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin’s observation that “When you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble . . . all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?” (This comes from a September 17, 1787 speech by Mr. Franklin to urge ratification of the U.S. Constitution, read on his behalf because he was too ill to deliver it in person. The Constitution was ratified the same day.)
I suppose we should be encouraged that Congress’s prejudices, passions, errors of opinion, local interests and selfish views are as American as apple pie, and the Republic has somehow survived nonetheless. Still, I find it deeply troubling that today’s politicians can’t find their way to agree on the debt ceiling.
No one should expect a “perfect production” to come out of this Congress and this administration, given how far apart they are on the need for tax increases and entitlement reforms. But they need to agree to something, and they need to do it soon.
I will leave it to others, who know a lot more about global economics than me, to explain what likely will happen to the economy if the debt ceiling isn’t increased by August 2. Let’s talk about the impact on health care, something I know quite a bit about—and why physicians especially should be concerned: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
