Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Americans Say They'd Like To Talk To Their Doctors Via Email, Facebook
The Huffington Post: Communicating With Your Doctor On Facebook May Be The Future Of Healthcare
We communicate with our friends, our families and our coworkers via email and Facebook, and apparently, most Americans also wish that they could keep in touch with their health care providers this way. A national survey of 2,252 pharmacy customers conducted by Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health highlights the gap between what patients want from their health care providers in terms of communication and engagement, and what they're actually getting. ... Lee emphasized that of course, it's critical to safeguard patient information. But "Health care organizations need to figure out how to take advantage of resources like Facebook," she added.(Gregoire, 6/29)
The Huffington Post: The Quality Of Health Care You Receive Likely Depends On Your Skin Color
Unequal health care continues to be a serious problem for black Americans. More than a decade after the Institute of Medicine issued a landmark report showing that minority patients were less likely to receive the same quality health care as white patients, racial and ethnic disparities continue to plague the U.S. health care system. That report, which was published in 2002, indicated that even when both groups had similar insurance or the same ability to pay for care, black patients received inferior treatment to white patients. This still hold true, according to our investigation into dozens of studies about black health across multiple disciplines. (Schumaker, 6/29)
NPR: Medical School Hopefuls Grapple With Overhauled Entrance Exam
It's T minus four days until exam day, and Travis Driscoll is practically living at his desk. "Each day, I'm easily here for five hours," he says. "I haven't done much of anything else but studying for the last two months." Driscoll is one of 13,000 medical school applicants across the U.S. taking the new Medical College Admissions Test, or MCAT. He's got stacks of science books on his desk to help him prepare, and a rainbow of biochemistry charts pasted to the walls: glycolysis, citric acid cycle, electron transport chain, mitosis, meiosis and DNA replication. (Dembosky, 6/29)
