Healthcare Innovation: Policy and Financing Issues Last December, a consumer watchdog group questioned the legality of advertising medical devices on YouTube, and called on regulators to crack down on such promotions. The videos tout the benefits of the devices but do not mention the risks, according to the group, in contravention of US Food and […]

The US may not remain the leader in healthcare innovation as the Human Physiome Project, the International HapMap Project, the Allen Institute’s Brain Atlas, the Cancer Genome Atlas and similar advances — made accessible at no cost to the global research community — begin to help other countries contribute innovations. The US can hold its […]

The cost of managing longer-lived patients with multiple chronic diseases is likely to rise — an intuitively obvious statement now backed by research. Telehealth monitoring could attenuate the cost, but the US Congress, the Bush Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are doing precious little to stimulate telemedicine. They may be doing […]

Some economists seem to be getting the message that technology may not be the main cause of runaway US healthcare costs, and that the cost of medical technology is worth it for its demonstrable improvement to outcomes. Still, it obviously wouldn�t hurt to bring down the cost of medtech, and we have suggested before that […]

Whether or not the US is slow to pick up on personalized medicine (see the section under that heading), there’s no doubt it is falling behind the rest of the world in failing to quickly approve hip resurfacing as an effective but cheaper and less invasive alternative to hip replacement. US patients are therefore cashing […]

FDA Speeds Drug Clearances; Increasing Life Span; Regulation of Embryonic Screening and Reproductive Cloning; US Losing Its Edge FDA Speeds Drug Clearances money.cnn.com/2005/03/24/news/fortune500/fdadrugs/index.htm?section=money_latest The US Food and Drug Administration approved 474 generic drugs in 2004, up nearly a third from 364 the previous year, and cut the approval process to a “record time” of 15.7 […]

While one healthcare megatrend—toward self care—appears to be starting to bite at hospitals’ financial prospects, another is gearing up in the wings: At least one journalist and newspaper have got the message about the impending robotic revolution’s impact on jobs and therefore on society. The question is, will policymakers get the message, and will they […]

A well-known technologist has rebuked President Bush’s “Stalinization” of science in America, drawing provocative parallels between presidential science adviser John Marburger and Stalin’s science lap-dog Viktor Lysenko. The comparison is no doubt over the top in many respects, and seems intended to shock a complacent scientific community into joining the 20 Nobel laureates who recently […]