All Posts By

Kevin Roche

The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry through Roche Consulting, LLC. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.

Aug 06 2014

A survey of health care-associated infections published in the NEJM finds that about 650,000 patients contracted  these during 2011 in acute care hospitals.  That is a lot.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1306801
Aug 05 2014

The Choosing Wisely initiative is an effort by the physician community to identify services that should be avoided due to lack of benefit considering the cost.  A critique in JAMA suggests improvements to the method and rationale for selecting services.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1857323
Aug 05 2014

A study in NEJM found that adverse events for patients hospitalized with heart attacks or heart failure declined from 2005 to 2011 but not those for patients with pneumonia or needing surgery.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1300991
Aug 04 2014

A review of breast cancer screening in JAMA summarizes current recommendations and outlines the need for further advances.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1853137
Aug 04 2014

Health Care Service Corporation released findings of a study which it says show that members who switched from traditional coverage to a high deductible plan had significant cost savings and used wellness and other health management tools more often.

http://www.benefitspro.com/2014/07/31/cdhp-analysis-shows-cost-savings
Aug 01 2014

Physical therapy is widely prescribed for patients with hip arthritis pain.  A study in JAMA suggests that this is probably a waste of money.  A sham therapy was actually more effective than real physical therapy, perhaps an extreme example of placebo effect.  I love these kinds of studies.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1872817
Aug 01 2014

According to ZS Associates, physicians continue to make themselves less accessible to drug company sales representatives, with 49% placing moderate to strong restrictions on access compared to only 23% in 2008.

http://www.physiciansbriefing.com/Article.asp?AID=690176
Jul 31 2014

PE firm Great Hills Partners has acquired a majority stake in Qualifacts, a provider of EHR and billing software for behavioral health.

http://www.pehub.com/2014/07/great-hill-invests-in-qualifacts/
Jul 31 2014

A ResearchandMarkets report says that the health care analytics market will see 25% annual growth over the next five years.

http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3l24ql/healthcare
Jul 31 2014

Pharmacy benefit manager Envision has acquired a competitor, MedTrak Services.

http://www.pehub.com/2014/07/tpg-backed-envision-agrees-to-buy-medtrak/