Research Ethics and Quality Improvement

By chance, as I was writing about Atul Gawande’s New Yorker article about checklists for yesterday’s posting, the Sunday New York Times arri...

Medical Ethics and Medicare Politics

Two stories earlier this month tell a David and Goliath story about the U.S. health care system. Unfortunately, Goliath is winning. Atul Gaw...

Medical Ethics and Health Care Costs

The struggle between rational thinking about health care costs and fantasy about a Lala land with no financial limits continues. Yesterday’s...

Holiday Health Care

National health care, that is what Americans need, NO! vested interests said, rationing will come, We won’t be able to get the extra labs we...

Happy Holidays

I will not be posting again until Friday 12/28. I have very much enjoyed the first four months of "Health Care Organizational Ethics...

Physician Review by Patients

Physician review is a front burner policy issue. The hope is to provide prospective patients with guidance of the sort most of us seek out i...

Business Ethics and the Developing World

Consumers International , which defines itself as “the global voice for consumers,” has just published an important report : “Drugs, Doctor...

Good Ethics/Bad Law in Massachusetts

Last week the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court published its decision on Coombes vs Florio, a case with important implications for medi...

Follow up on "A Tipping Point for Pharma Ethics?"

Three weeks ago, in what I feared might have been a fit of pathological optimism, I suggested that reaction to the way Merck and Schering-P...

SCHIP veto, Rossi Response

Last month our illustrious president, George Bush voted not to provide health care for 900,00 low income children by vetoing the expansion o...

Health Plans and Health Care Costs

When the CEOs of two competing health plans write an op-ed together, we know that something important is cooking. Especially if they propose...

Catholic & Secular Values in the British National Health Service

Four days ago I discussed the conflict over reproductive health care at Lutheran Health Center in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. This posting is ab...

Medicare and Health Care Cost Containment

Suppose you hired a purchasing agent to represent you in making a vitally important purchase. The agent proposes making the purchase for hal...

Is Making Employees Pay for Bad Health Habits Ethical?

Employers are desperate about health care costs. Some are dropping health insurance altogether. Some are making employees put more “skin in ...

Religious Hospitals, Secular Hospitals, and Democratic Process

A fascinating hospital purchase drama with medieval undertones is unfolding in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth ...

The Ethics of the Hospital Safety Net

Yesterday the Galveston County Daily News published an educative but heartbreaking story about the ethics of the hospital safety net. The U...

Alternative Medicine & Hospital Ethics

In today's New York Times " The Ethicist " column, the always engaging Randy Cohen provides a model terse analysis of a compl...

The FDA Considers Giving Away the Shop

The FDA is considering allowing pharmaceutical companies to advertise off label uses of drugs by sending articles to physicians. The propose...

The Ethics of the Appeals Process

From time to time ( here and here ) I write about tools that organizations can use to strengthen the ethics of their enterprise. For medica...

Accountability for Reasonableness in Tanzania

Starting in the early 1990s, Norman Daniels and I conducted a series of studies on how U.S. health organizations made decisions about priori...

Physicians should not be Drug Company "Educators"

Psychiatrist Daniel Carlat’s article in today’s New York Times Magazine provides valuable insight into the ethics of drug marketing. Carlat...

A Tipping Point for Pharma Ethics?

Pharma is the Jekyll and Hyde of health care. At their best, drug companies develop research-based treatment breakthroughs and do well by do...

The Intimidation of Dr. John Buse

The Senate Finance Committee has jurisdiction over Medicare, Medicaid and the FDA. This makes it an important player in health policy and ov...

Barriers to Serving Vulnerable Populations

Anyone interested in the politics and ethics of health care resource allocation should read Christine Ferguson’s recent Health Affairs artic...

Eureka – A High Quality Public Debate on a Hot Medical Ethics Issue!

A page 1 article on the selling of kidneys in today’s Wall Street Journal is sure to trigger extensive public discussion. We will soon see ...

Organizational Ethics and Patient-Centered Care

I recently reviewed a Commonwealth Fund report on “ Patient-Centered Care: What Does it Take? ” Although the word “ethics” appears only once...

Why Incentives Will Not Control Health Care Costs

On November 1 and November 8 the New England Journal of Medicine published two important articles on rising health care costs by Peter Orsza...

What Counts More for Organizational Ethics – Infrastructure or Leadership?

This is a trick question. The answer is – both. In my view, infrastructure and leadership pretty much tie. Albert Schweitzer’s teaching – “e...

The Ethics of Medical Tourism

In July, the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Ethics Advisory Group (which I chair) discussed the ethics of health plan involvement with medical ...

Gary Wills on Abortion

Gary Wills, one of my favorite writers, has thrown a constructive bomb into the abortion debate. In a Los Angeles Times column “ Abortion i...