Power to the Patient!
I was invited to attend a policy discussion at the White House complex tomorrow, June 3, 2025. The subject is important to me – access to our health data, plus some items about publishing data about quality of healthcare and about patient safety. These are things I’ve advocated on for years.
But I decided I can’t stomach the idea of attending, and I want to say why, plus say what I would say if I were there. The video is 12 minutes long. More notes below.
Recently I’ve posted about horror stories that have happened as investor-driven chains get into hospice (here) and nursing homes (here). More broadly, nursing homes and assisted living are called long-term care, aka LTC.
For our mother and family, LTC has meant Less Than Caring. Last night, I posted My family’s disastrous experience with a growth-driven long-term care company, starting with this:
As many of you know, my mother died in October. What we haven’t disclosed until now is that it happened in horror story #3: she passed after a single week of “respite care” provided by the local outlet of a growing chain of assisted living facilities.
Many people asked who it is, and we’re ready to say: the chain is Integracare, and the local facility near Mom’s home in Annapolis is Bay Village.
Here’s how they advertise themselves. It does not in any way match our experience.
This story is not unique. Read the many comments at bottom of even worse treatment others have suffered after paying for “skilled nursing” care.
I’ve been blogging recently about what happens in American healthcare when predatory investor-driven companies start moving into care industries because of, as Pro Publica puts it, “easy money and a lack of regulation.” My first two posts were about recent articles in The New Yorker on companies that are more interested in sales growth than in caring:
As many of you know, my mother died in October. What we haven’t disclosed until now is that it happened in horror story #3: she passed after a single week of “respite care” provided by the local outlet of a growing chain of assisted living facilities.
[Read more…]
On Tuesday I attended one of the most inspiring events in the annual calendar of health events: the Leapfrog Group’s annual meeting and awards ceremony. I could talk all day about what an important organization this is, because they don’t just do great work, they’re getting results in the world.
[Read more…]On Saturday I heard a podcast that gave me a deeper, more sobering version of a story I heard years ago: the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, the doctor who figured out that he could stop killing women (in obstetrics) by washing his hands. Of course they tie it to how important handwashing is in fighting COVID-19, and why.
I am way behind in things I want to blog about – I started this post eight weeks ago. It’s been a combination of crazy travel, lack of sleep, and a head-spinning disbelief about how messed up medicine is, on so many things, while in other cases it accomplishes stunning saves (like saving my life). Such wild swings in quality always mean a system is out of control, which means you better make a point of learning what you can about who manages things best.
Here’s one of those topics. I hope to be able to dump out all these thoughts, good and bad, in the coming weeks.