Health System

There is a significant rise in, advertised profit making, genetic and device based medical screening (e.g. BRAC1, whole body CAT scans, etc). What effects will this evolving industry have on healthcare? How do organizations like the American Cancer Society plan for the growth of this trend? The early market for innovative fee for service diagnostic testing will largely be the ...

The earlier post, “At what price?”, raised an interesting issue about the cost of cancer therapies that extend life at significant financial and social cost. It echoes a view expressed recently in an article entitled, “Aging Gracelessly: Can the US devise a rational economic model for health care?” It appeared in Acumen: Journal of the Life Sciences.

One last idea to think about from The Scientist. It was a sidebar to an article so I’m going to quote it in full here. It raises some questions about what the cost will be–financial and otherwise–with more targeted and presumably, more effective cancer treatments.

In the interests of fair and balanced information, here’s an article by Newt Gingrich about something to improve our health care. Actually, it’s an a-political piece about how IT could improve handling drug prescriptions and lower costs.