The Skinny: Top 5 Healthcare Reads

Happy Sunday everyone! It has been an absolutely crazy week. I attended a panel hosted by my local alumni chapter and got to hear about healthcare innovation from four unique speakers who each brought a different perspective. One speaker works with Congress to affect change using healthcare policy. Another has been a military doctor for 20+ years and has a special interest in infectious disease (he also works at DARPA, which is nothing short of awesome). Another is an assistant professor and cardiologist at Harvard. The fourth and final speaker has an MD and a JD - he works in venture capital specializing in healthcare investments.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending TEDxAmericanUniversity at the Katzen Art Center in DC with a college friend. The theme of this TEDx event was transformation - transforming society and culture, transforming oneself, and transforming technology. Enough of me summarizing the week, let's get on to the five most interesting reads/watches that I came across this past week pertaining to healthcare!

1. Why Your Doctor Should Care About Social Justice This is a wonder TED talk from Mary Bassett, who's done some really wonderful aid work abroad and speaks to the importance of having more physicians lean into their role as local, regional, and global community leaders and advocates for their patients.

2. Implementation Science: A Potential Catalyst for Delivery System Reform Fisher et al. review the four key elements of implementation science that can help stakeholders move forward in delivery system reform: (1) the external environment, (2) the structure of the organization, (3) the characteristics of innovation, and (4) the processes used within the system.

3. Integrating Predictive Analysis Into High-Value Care Interesting take on how EHR/EMR systems can be used to collect valuable predictive data. Those data can then be used to enhance peventive measures and hopefully enhance clinical outcomes.

4. Value Promotion in Healthcare: The Importance of Symmetry This article describes the current asymmetry in healthcare costing: high-value services are offered for a low price (to encourage their use), but low-value services are also offered for a low price. While this is an improvement from the past decade (wherein high-value services were offered for a high price while low-value services were offered for a low price), the asymmetry will continue to promote irresponsible practices in the clinical space.

5. These Doctors Want to Fix a Huge Problem With Drug Trials Really great piece about outcome switching and how unwilling the the scientific community (more specifically, the journal editors in the community) are to acknowledge the inherent flaws in this type of reporting.

Hopefully one of these articles sparks your interest! Other happenings this week included me finally getting the invites and thank you cards squared away for my mom's wedding reception! I'm really happy with how all the paper products turned out for the event. So what's on the docket for next week? Planning an epic Go Ape adventure with my pals, attending a Phillips After 5 event, and watching the Duke/UNC game on Saturday! Hope everybody has an excellent week :)