Viewpoints: Has US Maternal Mortality Rate Been Misreported?; Consolidation In Health Care Is A Bad Deal
Editorial writers discuss maternal mortality rates, health care consolidation, gender medicine, homelessness, and more.
Stat:
Maternal Mortality Is Too High, But Not Growing As Fast As Reported
Grave warnings of a crisis in maternal deaths are being slightly eroded by articles suggesting that advocates overreached and that the “crisis” was primarily a function of measurement error. (Eugene Declercq, 7/12)
Dallas Morning News:
Health Care Consolidations: Bad For Your Health And Wallet
Economic theory asserts that consolidation creates efficiency. It is the reason national consumer goods chains have purchasing power that ma and pa neighborhood stores lack. It’s the reason product choice is greater at chains than at smaller operations. In health care, however, consolidation has led to higher prices, less patient choice of facilities and doctors, and other monopolistic outcomes, according to a recent Wall Street Journal series. (7/12)
The New York Times:
In U.S. Gender Medicine, Ideology Eclipses Science. It Hurts Kids
Imagine a comprehensive review of research on a treatment for children found “remarkably weak evidence” that it was effective. Now imagine the medical establishment shrugged off the conclusions and continued providing the same unproven and life-altering treatment to its young patients. This is where we are with gender medicine in the United States. (Pamela Paul, 7/12)
Concord (N.H.) Monitor:
Criminalizing Homelessness Is A Heartless Response To A Complex Issue
Imagine you are a young adult struggling with a toxic, dangerous environment at home. You flee but there is no permanent, safe place to go. You couch surf for as long as you can, you can’t afford an apartment, and beds at youth-oriented shelters are hard to secure because they have limited space with no open beds. Your only alternative is to sleep in a park or on a city street. (Mandy Lancaster, 7/11)
Stat:
Adaptive Trial Designs Will Increase Clinical Trial Speed, Safety, And Effectiveness
Health care is undergoing an important and well-needed shift from a one-size-fits-all approach to more personalized, precise, patient-focused care. A similar approach needs to be implemented at scale for clinical trials. (Raviv Pryluk and Mike Walsh, 7/12)
