A nationwide shortage of primary-care doctors, especially in poor and rural areas, will make it difficult for many of the newly insured to find a personal physician. ER managers say they’re bracing for previously uninsured patients who came to the hospital when they needed acute medical attention to begin showing up, insurance cards in hand, for routine medical care. A study by Peter Smulowitz, HMS instructor in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is cited.
Innovations adopted and accelerated by the 2010 health care law will continue to force down overall Medicare costs, according to industry analysts and studies, even as the economy continues to improve. Michael Chernew, HMS professor of health care policy, is quoted.
Sanjiv Chopra, faculty dean for continuing education at HMS and professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and his brother, Deepak, co-wrote an article about immigration and their own experiences of coming to the United States.
As the fate of automatic, deficit-reducing budget cuts lay in the hands of a polarized Congress earlier this year, political pundits and academic authorities forecast a gloomy future for research powerhouses like Harvard, where investigators rely heavily on federal funding. Alan M. Garber, university provost and the Mallinckrodt Professor of Health Care Policy at HMS, is quoted.
Immigrants have contributed billions of dollars more to Medicare in recent years than the program has paid out on their behalf, according to a new study, a pattern that goes against the notion that immigrants are a drain on federal health care spending. Leah Zallman, HMS instructor in medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance, is the lead author of the study.
Using antibacterial soap and ointments to treat all patients in an intensive care unit — not just those who test positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA — reduced presence of the antibiotic-resistant superbug by 37% and blood-borne infections in general by 44%, researchers said. A commentary co-written by Richard Platt, chair of the Department of Population Medicine at HMS, is cited.
