Lessons in Mortality: a New Catechism From the Pope (posted 03/05/13)
Quality Improvement Project Shows Major Improvements in Hospital Use for Medicare Beneficiaries in Communities (posted 02/07/13)
Funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and anchored by the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care (CFMC), this three-year project engaged 14 Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs). QIOs are contractors to CMS and do specified work to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, economy, and quality of services delivered to Medicare beneficiaries; the 14 participant communities had the potential to touch the lives of nearly 800,000 Medicare beneficiaries. Read full post
Helping Patients Do the Work: Minimally Disruptive Medicine Tries to Right-size Health Care (posted 01/08/13)
My Mother’s Broken Back: A Fall into the Quality Chasm (posted 11/13/12)
PBS Broadcast: Money and Medicine, Offers Opportunity for Insight (posted 09/24/12)
A Call to Action for Boomers as We Grow Old (posted 09/20/12)
In nearly 50 years of serving America, Medicare has provided important medical services to millions of Americans. However, it is like a house that no longer fits our needs when we become old and frail. Only a fundamental redesign will make it reliably useful and affordable, and that redesign requires an angry constituency of elders and caregivers demanding community-level coordination of efficient, reliable supportive services. And it may be that Boomers will have to insist upon designing and building that new structure – soon! Read full post
Baby Boomers and the Demographic “Cannonball” (posted 05/24/12)
Where I’d Put the Money: Quality of Life Investments for Frail and Disabled Elders (posted 05/22/12)
Getting the Right Medications Before and After Hospital Discharge (posted 03/29/12)
What Does It Matter to You: Patient Activation and Good Health Outcomes (posted 03/01/12)
Coalition Building for Care Transitions: Communities Work to Help Frail Elders (posted 01/31/12)
Tell Me About It: Clinicians Must Work with Patients To Develop Good Care Plans (posted 01/10/12)
After CLASS: A Long-Term Care Insurance System (posted 11/22/11)
Let’s not capitalize on or mourn the loss of CLASS for too long. We have work to do – and we do not have the luxury of time before forging ahead. Read full post
CLASS Act Gone, But Costs of Aging Remain (posted 11/01/11)
The Obama Administration abandoned the Community Living Services and Supports (CLASS) Act last month. This public long-term care insurance program was slated to be the country’s first attempt at dealing with an aging Boomer population that is in denial about what it costs to grow old in America. Read full post
Evidence-Based Interventions: Replicate or Adapt? (posted 10/27/11)
Carefully done research on small numbers in a few settings will not be enough to guide practical implementation of process redesign. Read full post
Where To For Hospice? (posted 09/02/11)
While hospice provides a good model of care for the cancer patients it was originally designed to serve, it does not deliver efficiently or comprehensively what the majority of us will need. Read full post
Hospitals and “Post-Hospital” Care (posted 08/11/11)
While hospice provides a good model of care for the cancer patients it was originally designed to serve, it does not deliver efficiently or comprehensively what the majority of us will need. Read full post
The Rhinestone Cowboy Shows Us the Way (posted 07/14/11)
Glen Campbell’s decision to put a face on Alzheimer's by continuing to tour is a mark of real courage and heart. Not many celebrities let us come so close. Read full post
Value-Based Health Care: The Issues (posted 06/16/11)
Addressing three dilemmas: Who defines value and how? How can value be measured? Can a value-based system also respect choice? Read full post
Progress Needed on End-of-Life Care (posted 04/21/11)
Palliative care is the thorough assessment and treatment of symptoms, attention to the whole person and support for the entire journey we each will face at the end of life. We know palliative care helps. Let's make it standard care. Read full post
Cheap Political Victories and End of Life Care: A Better End for Anyone? (posted 09/14/09)
As if just talking about dying weren’t hard enough for most of us, now comes the disinformation campaign about end-of-life care discussions waged by opponents of health care reform. Read full post
Health Care Reform: Decent Care as a Key Value (posted 02/10/09)
“Decent care” offers a new approach to health care that seeks to acknowledge and apply universal human values of decency. Just as the concept of “decent work” sought to name and redefine the conditions of work in the industrial age, decent care seeks no less than to redefine and describe values that are essential to primary health worldwide. Read full post