REGISTER NOW! Ordeals in Health Care: Ethics and Efficient Delivery

Ordeals in Health Care: Ethics and Efficient Delivery
May 10-11, 2018 1:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East (2036)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
 

Economic ordeals are interventions that deliberately make access to products or services more difficult in an effort to improve resource allocation. In this vein, making patients wait in long lines to schedule an appointment with a specialist might discourage patients with needs that could be met by less qualified personnel from taking up the specialist’s time, thus freeing up time for those with complex needs. Similarly, putting brand-name medications at the bottom of a long list of options on clinicians’ computers might encourage them to prescribe a generic brand listed closer to the top.

Recent research in development economics, behavioral economics, and health policy suggests that some economic ordeals could help target health resources to patients who are more likely to utilize these resources, without the regressive effects of co-pays and other forms of financial participation on the part of patients. However, making health care deliberately less accessible raises ethical challenges. Is it not the case that ordeals discourage utilization by patients with acute needs? Do these ordeals affect some disadvantaged populations disproportionately? And do deliberate obstacles to health resource utilization violate the human right to health?

This workshop will bring together leading scholars in economics, ethics, health policy, public health, medicine, sociology, and law to explore these questions.

This event is organized by Nir Eyal, PhD, Associate Professor of Global Health and Population, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and Anders Herlitz, PhD, Visiting Scientist, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Researcher, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and registration is required. Register now!

Co-sponsored by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University; the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School; the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government; and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.

Register for and learn more about the event here!

Call for Papers: Wiet Life Sciences Scholars Conference

Loyola University Chicago’s nationally acclaimed Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy is pleased to invite original research submissions for the annual Wiet Life Science Law Scholars Conference to be held on Friday, September 7, 2018.

The conference is designed to provide an intellectual venue for life science professors, scholars, and practitioners to convene and discuss current research and scholarship.  The phrase “life science law” intends to capture diverse disciplines that involve significant issues of life science research and development, spanning food and drug law, health law, intellectual property (IP) law, biotechnology law, environmental law, administrative law, and antitrust law.  Our goal is to foster recognition of life science law as a cohesive, dynamic area of legal study and strengthen connections among national life science law scholars.

Loyola is currently soliciting 750-1,000 word abstracts reflecting early or mid-stage ideas for the purpose of workshopping with other conference scholars.  Modeled after successful events for law professors and scholars in other areas, we will organize scholars in topical panels of three to five authors with approximately 15 minutes allotted to each abstract presentation, followed by 15 minutes of intensive discussion with scholar attendees.  Author abstracts will be distributed one week prior to the conference to scholar participants; authors may also submit draft articles for distribution.  Scholars are expected to review materials of fellow panel members.

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The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness

The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness
April 18, 2018 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East AB (2036)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Decision aids can be highly-effective tools to promote shared decision making and support patients in becoming engaged participants in their healthcare.  Join us for the first-ever convening with leaders behind a Washington experiment in certifying decision aids, as state officials, health systems, and on-the-ground implementation experts share lessons learned and discuss policy recommendations for national or statewide approaches to decision aid certification.  

Program Overview

Person-centered care presents a unique opportunity to achieve the Quadruple Aim, especially during serious illness when people are the most vulnerable. Building on the work of NQF and others, it is now clear that healthcare purchasers (states, plans, care providers) committed to person-centered care should also be committed to shared decision-making.

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The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness

The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness
April 18, 2018 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East AB (2036)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Decision aids can be highly-effective tools to promote shared decision making and support patients in becoming engaged participants in their healthcare.  Join us for the first-ever convening with leaders behind a Washington experiment in certifying decision aids, as state officials, health systems, and on-the-ground implementation experts share lessons learned and discuss policy recommendations for national or statewide approaches to decision aid certification.  

Program Overview

Person-centered care presents a unique opportunity to achieve the Quadruple Aim, especially during serious illness when people are the most vulnerable. Building on the work of NQF and others, it is now clear that healthcare purchasers (states, plans, care providers) committed to person-centered care should also be committed to shared decision-making.

A number of policy initiatives have sought to increase the use of decision aids as an effective way to further shared decision making and person-centered care. Washington is the first – and so far only – state to recognize and act on this opportunity by establishing a process to certify decision aids across the health continuum, including during serious illness when people are the most vulnerable. The program will examine the Washington experience and also explore policy barriers for replication of the Washington model at the state and national levels.

This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and registration is required. Register now!

This event is part of the Project for Advanced Care and Health Policy, a collaboration between the Petrie-Flom Center and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), a non-partisan, non-profit alliance of over 130 national organizations dedicated to being a catalyst to change the health delivery system, empower consumers, enhance provider capacity and improve public and private policies in advanced illness care.

Learn more about the event here!

REGISTER NOW! Ordeals in Health Care: Ethics and Efficient Delivery

Ordeals in Health Care: Ethics and Efficient Delivery
May 10-11, 2018 1:00 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East (2036)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
 

Economic ordeals are interventions that deliberately make access to products or services more difficult in an effort to improve resource allocation. In this vein, making patients wait in long lines to schedule an appointment with a specialist might discourage patients with needs that could be met by less qualified personnel from taking up the specialist’s time, thus freeing up time for those with complex needs. Similarly, putting brand-name medications at the bottom of a long list of options on clinicians’ computers might encourage them to prescribe a generic brand listed closer to the top.

Recent research in development economics, behavioral economics, and health policy suggests that some economic ordeals could help target health resources to patients who are more likely to utilize these resources, without the regressive effects of co-pays and other forms of financial participation on the part of patients. However, making health care deliberately less accessible raises ethical challenges. Is it not the case that ordeals discourage utilization by patients with acute needs? Do these ordeals affect some disadvantaged populations disproportionately? And do deliberate obstacles to health resource utilization violate the human right to health?

This workshop will bring together leading scholars in economics, ethics, health policy, public health, medicine, sociology, and law to explore these questions.

This event is organized by Nir Eyal, PhD, Associate Professor of Global Health and Population, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and Anders Herlitz, PhD, Visiting Scientist, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Researcher, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and registration is required. Register now!

Co-sponsored by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University; the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School; the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government; and the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.

Register for and learn more about the event here!

The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness

The Development and Certification of Decision Aids: Promoting Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness
April 18, 2018 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East AB (2036)
Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Decision aids can be highly-effective tools to promote shared decision making and support patients in becoming engaged participants in their healthcare. Join us for the first-ever convening with leaders behind a Washington experiment in certifying decision aids, as state officials, health systems, and on-the-ground implementation experts share lessons learned and discuss policy recommendations for national or statewide approaches to decision aid certification.  

Program Overview

Person-centered care presents a unique opportunity to achieve the Quadruple Aim, especially during serious illness when people are the most vulnerable. Building on the work of NQF and others, it is now clear that healthcare purchasers (states, plans, care providers) committed to person-centered care should also be committed to shared decision-making.

A number of policy initiatives have sought to increase the use of decision aids as an effective way to further shared decision making and person-centered care. Washington is the first – and so far only – state to recognize and act on this opportunity by establishing a process to certify decision aids across the health continuum, including during serious illness when people are the most vulnerable. The program will examine the Washington experience and also explore policy barriers for replication of the Washington model at the state and national levels.

This event is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and registration is required. Register now!

This event is part of the Project for Advanced Care and Health Policy, a collaboration between the Petrie-Flom Center and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), a non-partisan, non-profit alliance of over 130 national organizations dedicated to being a catalyst to change the health delivery system, empower consumers, enhance provider capacity and improve public and private policies in advanced illness care.

Learn more about the event here!

Innovation Gaps on Life Science Frontiers

Join us in wonderful Copenhagen at our CeBIL Kick-Off Conference: ”Innovation Gaps on Life Science Frontiers? From Antimicrobial Resistance & the Bad Bugs to New Uses, AI & the Black Box”. The  Conference marks the start of the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Collaborative Research Programme in Biomedical Innovation Law which is carried out within a unique network of international core partners, including internationally renowned experts at Harvard Law School’s Petrie Flom Center, Harvard Medical School/Brigham & Women’s Hospital, University of Cambridge, University of Michigan, and UCPH’s Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO).

Leading international experts, including i.a. our distinguished Bill of Health colleagues Glenn Cohen, Aaron Kesselheim; Nicholson Price, and Kevin Outterson, will discuss legal, economic, societal and scientific aspects of selected Life Science areas.

Time: Monday, 5 March 2018 09:00 – 18:00 (followed by a reception in the Gobelin Hall)

Venue: The Ceremonial Hall (Festsalen), University of Copenhagen, Main Building, Frue Plads 4, DK-1168 Copenhagen K

More information on  speakers, agenda and registration is available here and here.

Extended background:

Biomedical innovation is experiencing changes of epic proportions. Rapid progress in many scientific areas, such as gene editing, pharmacogenomics, artificial intelligence and big data-driven precision medicine, has greatly advanced the promises and opportunities of the health and life sciences. Nevertheless, the total number of truly new and innovative drugs receiving market approval is unsatisfactory. At the same time, some of the more innovative therapies that actually could reach patients have become extremely expensive or ethically problematic. These new technological possibilities raise many complex scientific, legal and ethical issues affecting many stakeholders, such as medical practitioners, regulators, patients and the industry.

To support the in depth study of these developments, the Novo Nordisk Foundation has awarded a grant of DKK 35 million for a new Collaborative Research Programme in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL). CeBIL’s overall aim is to help translate ground-breaking biomedical research into affordable and accessible therapies by scrutinizing the most significant legal challenges to biomedical innovation and public health from a holistic cross-disciplinary perspective. CeBIL is hosted by a new Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Law. The research is carried out within a unique network of international core partners, including internationally renowned experts at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, University of Cambridge, University of Michigan, and UCPH’s Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO). Moreover, CeBIL will collaborate with a broad network of stakeholder organizations and international experts within law, economics, life science, medicine, sociology and pharmacy.

This Kick-Off Conference marks the start of CeBIL which opened its’ doors on January 1st, 2018. Reflecting the research projects that will be at the focus CeBIL’s research during the first 5 years, leading international experts will discuss legal, economic, societal and scientific aspects of selected life science areas and debate future challenges and opportunities.

 

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Call for Abstracts: Wiet Life Sciences Law Scholars Conference

Loyola University Chicago’s nationally acclaimed Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy is pleased to invite original research submissions for its inaugural Wiet Life Science Law Scholars Conference on Friday, October 13, 2017.

The conference is designed to provide a new intellectual venue for life science professors, scholars, and practitioners to convene and discuss current research and scholarship. The phrase “life science law” aims to capture research and disciplines spanning food and drug law, health law, intellectual property (IP), biotechnology, environmental, administrative, antitrust, and other realms that involve the life sciences in some meaningful respect. Our goal is to foster recognition of life science law as a cohesive, dynamic, area of legal study and strengthen connections among national life science law scholars.

Loyola is currently soliciting 750-1,000 word abstracts reflecting early or mid-stage ideas for the purpose of workshopping with other conference scholars. Modeled after successful events for law professors and scholars in other areas, participants will be organized in topical panels of three to five authors with approximately 15-20 minutes allotted to each abstract presentation, followed by discussions with scholar attendees. Abstracts from the authors will be distributed one week prior to the conference; authors may also submit draft articles for distribution to conference attendees.

SUBMISSION AND REVIEW TIMELINE: The deadline for 750-1,000 word abstracts, including author contact information is June 15. Submit via email to health-law@luc.edu with subject line Wiet Life Science Law.

Authors will be notified of speaker selections by email on or before July 15.

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ACA Repeal and the End of Heroic Medicine

By Seán Finan

Last week, I saw Dr Atul Gawande speak at Health Action 2017. Healthcare advocates and activists sat around scribbling notes and clutching at their choice of whole-food, cold-pressed, green and caffeinated morning lifelines. Gawande speaks softly, lyrically and firmly; the perfect bedside manner for healthcare advocates in these early days of the Trump presidency. He calmly announced to the congregation that the age of heroic medicine is over. Fortunately, he continued, that’s a good thing.

Gawande’s remarks echoed a piece he published in the New Yorker. He writes that for thousands of years, humans fought injury, disease and death much like the ant fights the boot. Cures were a heady mixture of quackery, tradition and hope. Survival was largely determined by luck. Medical “emergencies” did not exist; only medical “catastrophes”. However, during the last century, antibiotics and vaccines routed infection, polio and measles. X-rays, MRIs and sophisticated lab tests gave doctors a new depth of understanding. New surgical methods and practices put doctors in a cage match with Death and increasingly, doctors came out with bloody knuckles and a title belt. Gradually, doctors became heroes and miracles became the expectation and the norm. This changed the way we view healthcare. Gawande writes, “it was like discovering that water could put out fire. We built our health-care system, accordingly, to deploy firefighters.”

But the age of heroic medicine is over. Dramatic, emergency interventions are still an important part of the system. However, Gawande insists that the heavy emphasis on flashy, heroic work is misplaced. Much more important is “incremental medicine” and the role of the overworked and underappreciated primary care physician.

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