You would sometimes be forgiven for thinking that we are now living in the last days of the traditional medical journal. Everything from payment models, to access, and even peer […]
US healthcare
Gabriel Scally: Sweet black angel
Back in my early days as a radical medical student (a small, select group in the Belfast of the early 1970s) one of the international figures I admired greatly was […]
Gabriel Scally: If it isn’t controversial it isn’t important
A standing ovation greeted every paper delivered at one of the sessions I attended at the American Public Health Association annual meeting in San Francisco. I thought the first paper […]
Gabriel Scally: Obama cares, and so does public health in the USA
Having the opening day of a major health conference on a Sunday seems slightly unusual to a British or Irish conference goer but thousands gathered in the gorgeous autumn sunshine […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Training the next generation of NCD researchers in developing countries
Who will be the leaders working on the front lines in the battle against the rising tide of non communicable diseases in developing countries? Who will prepare them to take […]
Andrew Brunskill on Obamacare – can we keep politics out of this picture?
At a recent meeting in Washington State an attender denounced the evils of The Affordable Care Act (ACA), or as it has become known “Obamacare.” He argued that requiring compulsory […]
Andrew Brunskill: The strike zone—nothing to do with pensions in the USA
Doctors don’t strike about employee pensions in the USA. This is because many of them are not employees and few have defined pensions from the employers. Most doctors are in […]
Vijaya Nath: The secret of Kaiser Permanente’s success
Much has been written about the integrated healthcare system that the Kaiser Permanente health group makes possible in the eight states and nine regions which it serves in America. But […]
Muir Gray: How doctors working in systems could rescue healthcare
“We have nothing as bad as America’s worst, and nothing as good as America’s best,” wise words said to me by someone many years ago, and this principle has stood […]
Martin McShane: Integrated reflections concluded
Here is my third and final blog on the USA trip: After Seattle’s integrated care organisations, we visited CalPERS. They fund $6.7bn worth of healthcare for 1.3 million people (roughly twice […]