Getting to the Heart of Health Care Spending: What’s Been the Bang for the Buck?
How do medical advances in cardiovascular disease impact the health care spending picture? Find out during a Mar. 12 webinar with health policy experts from Harvard, Brigham and Women's Hospital, RTI Health Solutions and the National Pharmaceutical Council.
Health care spending continues to rise, putting pressure on all stakeholders including patients, physicians, employers, insurers and government. But is that increase inherently bad? It's imperative we understand what's at the heart of health spending before we seek solutions that could have unintended consequences. Key questions include:
- How much are we spending on health care in the U.S., and what factors are driving the increase?
- Has the cost of treating specific conditions (e.g., ischemic heart disease) increased over time? And, if so, are those increases commensurate with improvements in patient health?
Added to the concerns surrounding health spending are recent reports in the health policy journal Health Affairs that highlight "The Real Lesson Of ORBITA: The Remarkable Power Of Medical Therapy." How does the adoption of new evidence and the identification of low value care - in essence, clinical practice decisions - impact health spending and, more importantly, patient health?
During the webinar we'll share research that focuses on these key questions and explore the importance of multidisciplinary input and evolution of care needed to improve patient well-being and health system efficiencies.
Panelists (view bios):
- Robert W. Dubois, MD, PhD, Chief Science Officer and Executive Vice President, National Pharmaceutical Council (Moderator)
- David Wamble, PhD, MBA, Director of Health Economics, RTI-Health Solutions
- David Cutler, PhD, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Department of Economics, Harvard University
- Michelle L. O'Donoghue, MD, MPH, Cardiovascular Medicine Specialist, Brigham and Women's Hospital