Commentary
by Laura DeStefano | Jul 27, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
American health care faces challenges in access, cost, and quality and in marked geographic and socioeconomic variability. While these challenges will require actions by federal and state governments, they also call for action by individual health systems. Actions by...
by Laura DeStefano | Jul 13, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
The policy drivers behind meaningful use are improving quality, enhancing safety, and increasing efficiency in our health care system. In my view, health care in the United States lacks “systemness”—instead relying on disconnected hospitals, clinician offices, labs,...
by Laura DeStefano | Jun 29, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
During the first decade of this century, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) played a major role in laying out a vision and strategic direction for change at all levels of the health system, including patients engaged as partners in their health and health care;...
by Laura DeStefano | Jun 15, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
For decades, using electronic health records (EHRs) and exchanging health information has been viewed as essential for modernizing health care and improving patient care. The 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provided...
by Laura DeStefano | Jun 1, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
In the next 10 years, data and the ability to analyze them will do for doctors’ minds what X-ray and medical imaging have done for their vision. How? By turning data into actionable information. Take, for instance, IBM’s intelligent supercomputer, Watson. Watson can...
by Laura DeStefano | May 18, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) release of the reports To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm in 1999 and 2001, respectively, were markers of a tipping point in U.S. health care. Prior to that time, “quality” in health care had largely been defined by...
by Laura DeStefano | May 4, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
Once again, the challenge of how to constrain rising health care expenditures has caught the public interest, stimulated by concerns over rising federal debt and limited ability to generate tax revenues. I recently chronicled my unsuccessful efforts at stimulating...
by Laura DeStefano | May 4, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
One session of the November 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) workshop Envisioning a Transformed Clinical Trials Enterprise in the United States: Establishing an Agenda for 2020 focused on the need to develop new economic models for clinical trials and to change the...
by Laura DeStefano | Apr 27, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
Health care in America is in crisis. Population health and patient outcomes are deteriorating relative to the rest of the developed world, and much of the health care delivered today is not based on rigorous scientific evidence. This is attributable, in large part, to...
by Laura DeStefano | Apr 20, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
Four years ago, UCLA’s medical center was ranked as an honor-roll hospital by U.S. News and World Report—but our patients would seldom “refer us to a friend.” We skillfully performed today’s health care miracles: organ transplants, complex neurosurgical repairs, and...
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