3 Big Lessons from ProPublica’s “Top Doctor” Shocker

Even by the knockout standards at ProPublica, this recent headline was a shocker:

“I’m a Journalist. Apparently, I’m Also One of America’s ‘Top Doctors.’”

The story is just like it sounds. Somebody got their wires crossed at the company that offers “Top Doctor” awards, and they wanted to give one to Marshall Allen, one of ProPublica’s investigative reporters.

To his credit, Allen tried to correct them. He called a Top Doc representative to explain he was a journalist, not a doctor.

No problem, the representative said. He could still get the award. But only if Allen would cut them a check for $99.

Crazy, right? Read more »

When Dr. Gawande was named CEO of the new joint health venture from Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway, it was big news. At the time we said that, while Dr. Gawande was a solid choice, much would depend on who he picked for COO.

Now that decision has been made. Dr. Gawande selected Jack Stoddard, former director of digital health at Comcast, for the #2 position.

Those who don’t know about the cable giant’s reputation might be thinking — “Comcast? Interesting.”

But as the New York Times recently covered, Comcast has been a dogged crusader for better healthcare for its employees. As Brian Marcotte, chief executive of the National Business Group on Health put it, Comcast “is the tip of the spear” for health innovation.

What makes Comcast so good at employee healthcare? And how might Comcast’s current strategies foreshadow Stoddard’s work at ABC? Read more »

No one in their right mind looks forward to a colonoscopy. But a recent study might make you hesitate even more before getting one. It found that colonoscopies are far riskier than anyone thought.

To make this disheartening discovery, Susan Hutfless and her team at Johns Hopkins University pored through medical data from 2014. They tracked how many patients went to the emergency room for an infection within seven days after a colonoscopy.

The results stunned them. Previous studies found the risk of a colonoscopy-induced infection to be about one in a million. Huftless and her team’s findings at outpatient specialty centers: it’s more like one in a 1,000.

Most of these infections are fairly minor. In rare cases, however, they can lead to extremely dangerous complications, like sepsis. Read more »

The joint healthcare venture from Amazon, Berkshire-Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase (sometimes called “ABC”) has a grand vision for healthcare. But until now, nobody’s been quite sure what it is. While still a bit ambiguous, the new company’s ambitions are beginning to take shape.

That’s because Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon announced that Dr. Atul Gawande would be ABC’s leader.

Journalists have wasted no time weighing in on Dr. Gawande’s merits. Verdicts range from raving applause to cool skepticism.

Our position? That it might be too early to judge. But we are certainly rooting for him, and we see the potential for a transformative change in the industry. Read more »

Just like that, the healthcare industry is poised to change forever.

Three of the most eminent figureheads in American business — Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett — have announced their intention to form a healthcare company. Whatever this new firm looks like, its impact is all but guaranteed to be massive.

In his statement about the new venture, Buffett had some choice words for the industry as a whole. “The ballooning costs of healthcare,” he said, “act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy.” Read more »