COMMENTARIES
Statement on behalf of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; United States Senate on January 15, 2009
Investing in Health IT: A Stimulus for a Healthier America.
Congress should explore investing in the nation’s health care delivery system. KP HealthConnect securely connects 8.7 million people to their physicians, their health care teams, their personal health information, and the latest medical knowledge, leveraging the integrated approaches to health care available at KP. It’s not just about digitizing the visit: it’s about using visit data to inform and ultimately to transform care delivery.
article>> | pdf >>

Marketing, Media, Wishful Thinking, and Conflicts of Interest: Inflating the Value of New Medical Technology.
“Advances”—autologous bone marrow transplantation, Vioxx, arthroscopic debridement—were expensive, marginal treatments that became widely used without adequate scientific evaluation or comparison to competing treatments. “Newly approved” does not necessarily mean new and improved. Marketing, politics, media, and advocacy sometimes trump scientific considerations. “Jumping the gun” before rigorous evaluation makes it hard to practice evidence-based medicine. article>> | pdf >>