How Do You Measure Success When You’re Driving a Clunker?

When you have as much money as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the question becomes “How do you spend it wisely?” The foundation’s answer? Prove that a strategy or approach works. But to prove it, you have to define the outcomes, then measure them. And as anyone who’s been in the quality management business over the […]

Transplant Networking

In a prior Health Politics program, I outlined the major disconnect between supply and demand in organ transplantation. The popular press since that time has shed light on the selling of organs and the various ethical and moral issues triggered by this often elicit practice. Jim Tosone, avid subscriber to Health Politics and expert at […]

The iPhone, Feature Creep, and Healthy Homes

Here’s a startling fact. According to a study by Philips Electronics, product returns in the U.S. cost $100 billion dollars a year; and over half of those products returned have nothing wrong with them. Why are they returned? In at least half of the cases, the customers either can’t get them to work or find them too […]

Human Capital, Downsizing, and Treating People Right

In an article titled "It’s the Workforce, Stupid!" in the April 30 issue of The New Yorker, James Surowiecki strategically dips into the issue of corporate downsizing. In the article, he mentions the work of Wayne Cascio from the University of Colorado, Denver, that assessed the performance of 300+ firms who had executed significant layoffs in the 1980s, but […]

Employers, Massachusetts and Health Insurance

David Wessel, in his Wall Street Journal column on April 12 hits on a recent HP topic — the future of the employer-based U.S. health care system. Here’s what he had to say: “The notion that requiring employers to provide health insurance is the best route to universal health care is fading. Sure, nearly 60% of […]

What is HPM?

Learn more about the new concept of Health and Productivity Management Health and Productivity Management (HPM) is a new way of viewing health in the workplace. It calls for companies to do more to keep employees healthy, like investing in health coaching programs, building on-site wellness facilities, and screening for and managing chronic disease. With […]

Can Academics Lead in an Era of Prevention?

Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) are signaling their intent to lead the movement toward a preventive health care system . AMCs have two choices: Either lead the transformation or be left behind by the transformation. Witness the recent release of the proceedings of the Johns Hopkins/Healthways 6th Annual Outcomes Summit. Fred Brancati, director of general internal […]

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