NEHI maps out future of comparative effectiveness
Filed under: Government, Health care reform, Health policy, Studies, Tools
NEHI, a nonprofit research group that was known as the New England Heathcare Institute, has released a white paper mapping out a potential near future for comparative effectiveness research in the United States. We first noticed the report on the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Reform Source site.
The white paper’s authors, Tom Hubbard, Shin Daimyo and Karan Desai, make a strong case that proper dissemination will be the real key to the success of CER. Their argument hinges on the observation that, even today, good medical research rarely makes it into clinical practice without a hefty nudge. 
When it comes to delivering this nudge to all that stimulus-funded comparative effectiveness research, the paper’s authors have singled out the newly created Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. PCORI’s stated role is to help all stakeholders make informed health care decisions. It’s also, the authors write, uniquely positioned to become a key force in CER dissemination alongside the AHRQ’s Office of Communications and Knowledge Transfer. Unlike AHRQ, PCORI is an independent organization that’s free to form relationships and build consensus across the spectrum.
All in all, the report’s a quick and handy read. There are only 9 pages of text, and you’ll come out with a better understanding of the practical problems facing those who seek to apply comparative effectiveness research. If you’re looking for examples of successful implementation programs, head to pages 8 through 10.
See the Health Journalism 2011 program, speakers
We have been frantically updating the schedule this week for AHCJ’s annual conference with the names of speakers who will be there and the panels that will be offered in Philadelphia.
A Philadelphia-area and national programming committee helped review and distill the hundreds of session suggestions that we got from from AHCJ members and others. They also helped find great moderators and speakers.
There are sessions on public health issues, local hospital quality and finances, ethics and conflicts of interest in medicine, fraud in medical research, special events planned for our many freelance members, receptions and presentation of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism.
Take a look at the schedule and then make your plans to come to Philadelphia for Health Journalism 2011, April 14-17.
For those of you on Twitter, the hashtag is #ahcj11. Last year we saw more than 2,200 tweets about and from the conference, so we expect to see lots of action there again this year.
Senators join fight to open Medicare claims data
Filed under: Government, Health data, Health journalism, Public records
Two senators have joined the effort to open up the Medicare claims database that reveals what payments doctors get through the system.
Covering Health readers might remember that Dow Jones & Co. – parent company of The Wall Street Journal – filed a lawsuit in January in its attempt to overturn an injunction that “prevents the public from knowing how much taxpayer money individual doctors receive from the Medicare program,” according to a press release.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden from Oregon are pushing legislation to overturn the same 1979 injunction.
Neither senator, nor Dow Jones, seek the release of private patient data. The Medicare claims data has proven useful in fighting fraud and abuse in the system, allowing journalists or investigators to identify anomalies.
Grassley said “he was prompted in part” by articles in The Wall Street Journal about the Medicare database and fraud. Wyden, who spoke at Health Journalism 2009, said he plans to discuss joining forces with Grassley, saying, “I believe we can have a bipartisan bill on this.”
Preventing health care fraud was the subject of a Senate finance committee hearing on Wednesday, where Grassley and Wyden heard from the director of the Center for Program Integrity, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and from Daniel Levinson, inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Their statements, as well as video of the hearing, are available online.
Health care reform implementation glossary debuts
Filed under: Health care reform, Health journalism, Tools
HealthReformGPS, the George Washington University and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project aimed at making health reform implementation easier to understand, has come out with a glossary of more than 200 key reform terms.
It keeps each entry brief while still covering general ideas, such as “Patient Protections,” as well as more specific ones, such as “Urban Indian” and “Culturally and linguistically appropriate and competent services.” All of this makes it perfect for bookmarking, or for a quick refresher. Take a minute to scan the list and I’m sure you’ll stumble across at least a couple entries that make you say, “Oh, so that’s what that really means.” Chances are, you’ll also come away with a story idea or two to boot.
Hospital association official confuses news reporting with lobbying
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Hospitals
Blythe Bernhard and Jeremy Kohler have been writing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about Missouri hospitals’ unwillingness to publicly disclose medical errors.
So, when the St. Louis Metropolitan Hospital Council released a statement opposing public reporting of medical errors at hospitals, the reporters sent the statement to Missouri legislators and asked them for their comments.
I can only imagine the surprise Bernhard and Kohler felt when Daniel Landon, senior vice president of governmental relations for the Missouri Hospital Association, sent an e-mail to health professionals that characterized the reporters’ actions as coming “close to the definition of what constitutes lobbying, which is defined by the Missouri Ethics Commission and requires lobbyist registration.”
Landon said hospital association staff members planned to raise these concerns with legislators and had considered a complaint with the ethics commission.
“We think it is useful to put the Post-Dispatch on notice that someone is watching their actions in this regard,” Landon’s e-mail said. “Otherwise, the reporters will continue to push the envelope between reporting and promoting public policy changes to support their editorial positions.”
Another representative of the association later said the message was “regrettable.”
A Post-Dispatch editorial about the incident made clear to readers the difference between the editorial page and the news department, explaining that it “maintains strict church-state separation between the editorial page and the news department.”
When newspaper reporters or editorial writers communicate with legislators, we do so as journalists, acting in what we believe is the public interest. And regardless of whether public reporting of medical errors would serve hospitals’ interests, it clearly would serve the public interest.
Related
Kohler wrote an article for AHCJ about how he and Bernhard investigated medical errors and the lack of public information available to help consumers choose their health care providers: Public handicapped by lack of information on medical errors.
EWA winners include health-related stories
Filed under: Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
The Education Writers Association announced the winners of the 2010 National Awards for Education Reporting yesterday. Since education and health frequently intersect, I took a look at the stories mentioned and found some worth pointing out.
- A special citation went to Courtney Cutright, of The Roanoke Times, for “Autism: Breaking Down the Barriers.”
- Rebecca Catalanello, of the St. Petersburg Times, also earned a special citation for “His pills cause her pain.”
- Ann Dornfeld, of KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio, received a special citation for “Recess Disparities in Seattle Public Schools.”
Related tip sheets
Health and education: Two intersecting beats
Health and education: Reporting resources
Finding balance between daily reporting, narratives
Still basking in the glow of her AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, PLoS blogger and independent journalist Hillary Rosner returned from the AAAS annual meeting with some ruminations on preserving and expanding diversity in the science news ecosystem. She notes that she and many of her fellow award-winners earned their spots because publications gave them the time and space to create long-form narratives, pieces which she points out are powerful anecdotes to the quick-turn-around-no-follow-up churning so lamented by John Rennie in his recent (and justifiably well-circulated) column.
Rosner seeks to balance this apparent narrative supremacy with Charlie Petit’s assertion, over at the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, that the profession is suffering because so few publications can afford to send reporters to conferences like AAAS from which they can file fast-breaking reports. It’s an issue Petit called “the abandonment of daily science reporting. esp. when it requires expense account, by all but a handful of US newspapers.”
It’s a point Rosner acknowledges, but she’s not willing to concede that all is lost, especially if the decline in daily reporting frees up resources for long-term narrative work.
I agree about the general trend. But I’m not sure I agree that there’s anything bad about fewer reports from a conference where scientists are often presenting general findings as opposed to new research. Just because a scientist says something at a session or at a news conference doesn’t make it news. (And while I’m not a daily-news kind of journalist, I like to think I still have a sense of what’s newsworthy.)
Science journalism needs a mix of really well-done daily deadline reporting and longer, thought-out, exhaustively reported narrative stories. The two are completely different beasts occupying different niches, and we should make every effort to protect them both, by ensuring that there’s habitat to sustain them.
MedPage Today team gets 13 minutes with Sebelius
Filed under: Health care reform, Health journalism, Health policy, Hot Health Headline
The folks over a MedPage Today only had 13 minutes to interview HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on video, but they fit in discussion of yet another short-term fix for Medicare’s sustainable growth rate and cost control, electronic medical records, malpractice reform and, of course, health care reform.
MedPage News editor (and AHCJ member) Joyce Frieden came into the interview armed with questions on charged topics such as the aforementioned growth rate, pay-to-delay and reliance on pharmaceutical industry money. Frieden was joined by Washington correspondent Emily Walker and vice president/executive editor Peggy Peck joined the interview from Ohio by phone.
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Awards for Excellence in Health Care JournalismDeadline: Feb. 3
- How I did it: Falsified charts in nursing homes linked to patient care
- Access Denied: Looking at a lack of health care availability
- Transparency & medical errors: Public reporting of patient harm is a potent force
- Focus on freelancing: Tips for buying liability insurance
- Why do some patients get stuck in hospitals for weeks, months?
- Investigate health professionals and the boards that regulate them
- Presidents of AHCJ, SPJ call for more openness from Obama administration
