Featured series 
Tag: Health Care
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Campus & Community
A System Breeding More Waste
The fear of lawsuits among doctors does seem to lead to a noticeable amount of wasteful treatment. Amitabh Chandra — a Harvard economist whose research is cited by both the American Medical Association and the trial lawyers’ association — says $60 billion a year, or about 3 percent of overall medical spending, is a reasonable…
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Campus & Community
Doctors Don’t Agree On Letting Patients See Notes
The medical record has traditionally been viewed by the medical establishment as something that they own,” says Dr. Tom Delbanco of Harvard Medical School. “They think: ‘It’s my private notes. This is my stuff.'”
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Campus & Community
What the end-of-life conversation can bring
Professor Holly Prigerson, director of the Center for Psycho-oncology and Palliative Care Research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, has confronted the issue professionally and personally. Last fall Prigerson and her co-investigators published a study in The Journal of the American Medical Association examining how end-of-life care discussions between doctors and terminal patients affected the…
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Health
Patients expect computers to play major role in health care
As President Obama calls for streamlining heath care by fully converting to electronic medical records, and as Congress prepares to debate issues of patient privacy, one question has largely gone unasked: What do patients want?
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Campus & Community
Family Van helps drive medical assistance for communities in need
In 1989, Nancy Oriol, now the dean for students at Harvard Medical School (HMS), had a vision: to establish a program that could provide basic health services to individuals in Boston who are unable to access primary health care.
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Campus & Community
HMS professor receives first Thomas H. Lee M.D. Award
Michael Aaron Lambert, assistant professor of medicine in Harvard Medical School, received the inaugural Thomas H. Lee M.D. Award for Excellence in Primary Care on April 3. Lambert is the medical director of Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center in Boston.
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Campus & Community
Blumenthal is national coordinator for health information technology
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced March 20 the selection of David Blumenthal as the Obama administration’s choice for national coordinator for health information technology.
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Health
Attendance grows at Dental School’s ‘free care day’
Despite historic increases in health insurance coverage in Massachusetts, fewer than 20 percent of the commonwealth’s dentists accept patients insured through public programs such as Medicaid. Although state-subsidized insurance programs include dental care, the insurance mandate does not require employers to cover dental care. Dental schools are considered affordable sites for treatment, but even reduced…
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Campus & Community
Robert Blendon awarded Warren J. Mitofsky Award
Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), has received the Warren J. Mitofsky Award for Excellence in Public Opinion Research for 2008. Blendon, who is also a professor in the Harvard Kennedy School and director of…
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Health
Hansjörg Wyss gives $125M to create institute
Engineer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss, M.B.A. ’65 has given Harvard University $125 million to create the Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
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Campus & Community
NHGRI/NIH awards Harvard researchers $6.5M
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), awarded a $6.5 million grant (over four years) to a team of Harvard University researchers to further develop electronic sequencing in nanopores. The grant is part of more than $20 million in total funding given by NHGRI/NIH to spur innovative…
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Campus & Community
HUCTW childcare fellowships available
The Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) has announced that applications for the 2009 Childcare Fellowship are now available for download at www.huctw.org/fund_childcare/2009_application.pdf. The fund covers a portion of day care, after-school care, and vacation/summer day camps.
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Campus & Community
HBS team wins big — and twice
A Harvard Business School class, a 12-year-old competition, and the collaboration of some of the University’s sharpest scientific and business minds have yielded a company that could save countless lives. A six-member team recently won both the Harvard Business School (HBS) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) business plan contests for their work on…
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Campus & Community
Newsmakers
CLC honors Shinagel, Haynes; Dumbarton Oaks Library announces new director of studies; Department of Commerce honors Michael E. Porter; Sohigan, Yeghiayan attend Energy Globe Awards; Raiffa named recipient of Schelling Award; Woolhandler to present at council on Bioethics
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Health
HSPH student takes aim at AIDS with statistics
Bethany Hedt has always been in love with numbers. Her challenge has been finding a way to feed that love while fulfilling an equally strong drive to help the people around her.
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Health
HMS Health Care Policy Department marks 20th anniversary
There have been many changes in the health care landscape over the two decades since Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) Department of Health Care Policy was inaugurated, but much work remains to ensure equitable, effective health care for all. That was the message of speakers at the 20th Anniversary Symposium of Harvard Medical School’s Department of…
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Health
Paul Farmer: One patient at a time
Paul Farmer remembers his patients and the lessons they’ve taught him, even the hard ones.
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Health
Haiti clinic makes real gains
“13 October 2003.” Saintyl Louistess remembered the exact date she found out she had AIDS.
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Health
Louise Ivers: A higher purpose
It was January 2008 and the baby – the youngest of four children – had been brought into the clinic Ivers heads at Boucan Carré, Haiti, after a period of vomiting and not eating well.
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Health
Feminist pioneers discuss women’s health policy
More than three decades after publication of the taboo-shattering book on female health, “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” activists are still struggling to bring attention to women’s health issues amid the national debate over medical insurance coverage, said one of the book’s authors and feminist pioneer Judy Norsigian.
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Health
Symposium addresses American Indian health
Sunshine Dwojak, a fourth-year Harvard Medical School student, was 26 when her mother died of heart disease, leaving behind three children. Dwojak’s mother was 48.
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Campus & Community
In brief
The Science Center will screen a 30-minute preview of “The Naturalist,” a film biography of Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus E.O. Wilson, on Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. Harvard employees who work at the Holyoke Center are invited to participate in the eighth annual group art exhibit, to be displayed Dec. 7, 2007, through Jan. 2,…
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Health
1.8 million veterans lack health coverage
Of the 47 million uninsured Americans, one in every eight (12.2 percent) is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household, according to a study by physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance who are also Harvard Medical School researchers. The study is published in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Approximately 1.8…
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Health
Improving women’s health key Indian strategy
Detailed research of Indian health disparities has revealed that significant differences in access to health care exist even within families, with the health and nutrition of women and girls taking a backseat to that of men and boys.
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Arts & Culture
Edelman pumps up Memorial Church crowd
On Oct. 19 at the Memorial Church, while a heavy rain pelted down outside, Marian Wright Edelman pelted a near-capacity audience with facts about America’s social failings. An American child is abused or neglected every 36 seconds, said the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, and every 42 seconds a child is born…
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Campus & Community
Newsmakers
Katherine Swartz, professor of health policy and economics at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Swanee Hunt, founding director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the School, was inducted…
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Health
At HMOs, Medicaid patients fare worse than others
Once viewed as a panacea to the nation’s health care problems, HMOs have fallen out of favor. Commercially insured patients who flooded into HMOs, or managed care, in the early 1990s left in droves by the end of the decade. Medicaid patients, however, don’t always have the luxury of choosing their health plans, and the…
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Nation & World
Labor and management, together at last
Harvard University hosted “The Future of Labor Forum” last week (Oct. 2), a first-ever conference that brought together prominent voices from the sometimes adversarial worlds of management, unions, government, and the academy.
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Nation & World
Farmer, Magaziner: Get involved!
Physician and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer and Ira Magaziner, a one-time policy adviser in the Clinton White House, brought humor, counsel, and cautions to a public conversation on student engagement Sept. 20.
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Nation & World
Changes to system and self necessary for health reform
Major changes, including personal and market-based reforms, are needed in order to bring health coverage to every American, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt told an audience at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum on Tuesday (Sept. 25).