Tag Archives: transparency

Righting the Wrongs of Risk Based Algorithms

As we continue to address health inequities, understanding how algorithms impact races differently is important. One of these inequities revolves around the racial disparities in kidney disease, with Black individuals experiencing a 2-to-4-fold higher incidence of kidney failure than White individuals. Moreover, Black individuals have faced lower referral rates for pre-dialysis transplant evaluation, post-kidney failure transplants, and placement… Read More »

Do We have the Definition of Diagnosis All Wrong?

Almost daily, there are articles addressing the need for healthcare to be more consumer centric. We envision the topic within the context of service, access, and affordability. Yet, there remains a component that encompasses how we engage those we serve from a clinical perspective. Diagnosing and treating has been the primary focus of clinicians’ training. But, as we… Read More »

The Importance of Hope in Patient Care

Both for clinicians and patients, hope is a forceful emotional driver. The psychological benefits of hope are associated with improved physical and mental health, relationships, functional status, and coping. As with any type of emotion, extremes can be detrimental. Patients might become unrealistic, the same with clinicians. So, the question becomes, what is the right amount of hope… Read More »

Partnering with Faith-based Leaders to Improve Health Inequities

Out of the numerous learnings from the pandemic, COVID has highlighted several issues within our social structures; one of the most significant findings is the discrepancies in vaccination rates among minorities. For many appropriate reasons, there is a great amount of mistrust.  This behavior originates from historical occurrences leading to fatal outcomes. Another issue being that those that… Read More »

Taking a Deeper Look at Inequity within Our Scientific Process

As we continue to address health inequities, we must also consider underlying structural issues. If I am to deliver care focusing on equity, the basis for my treatment must be grounded in science. However, if my science is flawed due to underlying systemic biases and flaws in study design, we will never progress. Since inequities are pervasive and… Read More »

Understanding and Identifying Vaccine Hesitancy

As we continue to focus on optimally providing COVID vaccinations for as many people as possible, there has been a digression into labeling those that are not yet immunized, as being “hesitant.” This labeling oversimplifies the situation and is frankly, incorrect in many cases. Simplifying such language is detrimental to our vaccine success. Similarly, when we identify people… Read More »

Healthcare Can Be More Affordable if We Can Limit Waste

The cost of healthcare in the United States is exorbitant. There are multitudes of reasons for our elevated unit price. Many believe, waste, makes up a significant part of the problem. And the largest component of wasteful spending is what we identify as administrative costs. These are dollars that are not improving patient care, and yet, they impact… Read More »

Promoting Transparency for our Consumers

With the first month of the New Year nearly behind us, and new transparency regulations becoming law, Healthcare faces increasing challenges when it comes to consumerism. Using such a framework is appropriate as the persons to whom we provide services of our “goods” do “consume” them; however, compared to consumers of other types of products it is not… Read More »