Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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quality

Health care reform: Wise allocation of resources key

Emory’s Chief Quality Officer William Bornstein, MD, PhD, says there are many issues that need to be tackled in order to achieve meaningful health care reform. He points out that one of the most fundamental questions that must be addressed is who decides about a treatment or diagnostic test that may be a little bit better than an alternative option but is much more expensive? If the patient has no “skin in the game,” he will almost certainly want the better/more expensive option.

William Bornstein, MD, PhD

William Bornstein, MD, PhD

The doctor has taken an oath to act in the best interests of the patient and this obligation takes precedence over any charge that society would like to impose to cast the Ray Ban Baratas physician in a fiduciary role for the national healthcare budget, says Bornstein, who also serves as chief medical officer for Emory Hospitals. And, the payer’s role is obviously conflicted, he says. If the patient does have skin in the that decision, Bornstein asks, are we prepared as a society to explicitly endorse the notion that “better” care that exceeds a certain cost threshold will only be available to those who can afford the additional cost?

There has been much talk about better care and preventative care being less expensive, but there are little data that support this as being a universal truth. Health care information ray ban outlet technology will also not solve this problem, he says. At some point in the near future, we need to have a national conversation about this challenge. In the past attempts to have such conversations have raised the specter of “rationing,” However, the time has come to confront the truth that our resources are finite and we need to allocate them wisely.

Bornstein is a recognized leader in quality, safety and the use of information technology in improving healthcare delivery. He has serves on national committees and advisory bodies in these areas including the University HealthSystem Consortium Clinical Evaluative Sciences Council Steering Committee, which he now chairs. He serves on the Professional and Technical Advisory Committee for the hospital accreditation process of The Joint Commission as vice-chair, and on the Information Architecture Steering Committee of the University HealthSystem Consortium staff leadership group of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Evidence Based Medicine.

Listen to podcasts with Bornstein on quality.

Posted on July 20, 2009 by admin in Uncategorized Leave a comment