BACK of the BOOK
Heard in the Blogosphere
New Prescription Drugs Help, But Their High Prices Harm
In the Los Angeles Times,
doctors and analysts
discuss the costs of
“groundbreaking”
drugs – to the
patients and
the pharmaceutical
companies –
and potential
solutions.
The Problem With Satisfied Patients
When the Department of Health and Human Services decided to base 30
percent of hospitals’ Medicare reimbursement on patient satisfaction survey
scores, many hospitals adopted the concept of “patient experience,” characterizing patients as customers. However, this misguided attempt to improve
health care has led some hospitals to focus on making people happy, rather
than making them well, according to experts interviewed in The Atlantic.
“Now we are told as nurses that our patients are customers, and that we
need to provide excellent service so they will maintain loyalty to ou r hospitals. The patient is NOT always right. They just don’t have the knowledge and
training.”
—Amy Bozeman, RN, registered nurse at MD Anderson Cancer Center
“Everybody would agree we want
a lot of investment flowing into
the search for better drugs. We
all have to agree it’s not a blank
check.”
—Steven D. Pearson, MD, MSc,
founder and president of the
nonprofit Institute for Clinical
and Economic Review
“The problem is everyone wants
to get the good drug at the
same price as the old drug. Why
should they be punished when
the drug is significantly better?
Shouldn’t they be rewarded?”
“Too often, the entire discussion
is about the cost of these
medicines and largely ignores
the tremendous value they
provide to patients. New
medicines are coming to the
marketplace that are completely
transforming how cancer is
treated in this country. Hepatitis
C is now cured in 90% of
patients. That is nothing short of
groundbreaking.”
—Robert Zirkelbach,
senior vice president of
Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America
—Michael Yee, a biotech analyst
“Focusing on what patients want – a certain test, a specific drug – may
mean they get less of what they actually need. In other words, evaluating
hospital care in terms of its ability to offer positive experiences could easily
put pressure on the system to do things it can’t, at the expense of what it
should.”
—Theresa Brown, PhD, BSN, RN, clinical nurse at the University of Pittsburgh
“Patients can be very satisfied and dead an hour later. Sometimes hearing
bad news is not going to result in a satisfied patient, yet the patient could be
a well-informed, prepared patient.”
—anonymous Missouri clinical instructor
Publish or Perish Culture Encourages Scientists to Cut
Corners
“In the end, science is a human endeavor. And like humans everywhere, those
who work in it will do what they are rewarded for, for better or for worse. So, we
need to make sure those reward structures are encouraging good quality research,
not the opposite.”
—Virginia Barbour, DPhil, chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics, in The Conversation
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@ASH_Hematology and @ASHClinicalNews
Facebook.com/AmericanSocietyofHematology
@ASH_Hematology
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ASH Clinical News
Breaking Good News Can Be as Hard as Breaking Bad
“The truth is that what physicians like to think of as good news may not be
shared by the patient. While a physician might think it is good news that the
patient is ready to be discharged to a nursing home, the patient may have bad
associations with nursing homes. … Teaching physicians how to break good news
is as critical as teaching them how to deliver news that is not. … Emphasize the
patient’s own role in overcoming adversity.”
—Haider Javed Warraich, MD, from Duke University Medical Center, in The New York Times
November 2015