By Arthur Caplan Art Caplan has a new opinion piece up at NBC News on the suggestion, in a recent JAMA article, that handshakes should be banned in healthcare settings. From the article: Now, the handshake ban might make sense if it were not for the fact that the constant touching of microbe-laden things by providers and patients is likely to…
By Deborah Cho We often determine the value of a particular medical intervention, product, or protocol by weighing its risks against its benefits. If the risks are outweighed by the benefits, then the measure is given the green light. However, risks and benefits are not easily measured nor are they readily comparable. Countless issues arise…
By The Petrie-Flom Center The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Food and Drug Law Institute are pleased to announce an upcoming collaborative academic symposium: Emerging Issues and New Frontiers for FDA Regulation Monday, October 20, 2014 Washington, DC We are currently seeking…
By Michael Young Recent Center for Medicare & Medicaid regulations incentivizing reductions in 30-day hospital readmission rates have prompted a flurry of research into how clinicians and administrators can optimize patient health following hospital discharge. Preventable hospital readmissions in the U.S. are estimated to account for up to $15 billion in annual healthcare spending. In considering this problem, many analysts and innovators…
[Ed. Note: On Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3, 2014, the Petrie-Flom Center hosted its 2014 annual conference: “Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy.” This is an installment in our series of live blog posts from the event; video will be available later in the summer on our website.] By Matthew L Baum In this next installment of today’s live-blogging of…
By Timo Minssen Following the approval of the European Parliament (EP) earlier last month, the Council of the European Union (the Council) adopted on 14 April 2014 a “Regulation on clinical trials on medicinal products for human use” repealing Directive 2001/20/EC. As described in a press-release, the new law: “aims to remedy the shortcomings of…
By Arthur Caplan Art Caplan has a new opinion piece up at NBC News on the increasing use of condoms as evidence of a crime by police in the United States. From the article: Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot when it comes to public health? The latest example of what not to do in the…
By The Petrie-Flom Center Petrie-Flom Center 2014 Annual Conference: Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy May 2-3, 2014 Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East ABC, Harvard Law School, 1585 Massachusetts Ave. Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein’s book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness brought behavioral economics to the masses, beginning a discussion of libertarian paternalism and the many…
By Nathaniel Counts High school health classes that are effective in preventing high-risk behaviors employ two educational models: the social influences model and the life skills model. The social influences model teaches children about social norms and techniques for resisting social influences. The life skills focuses on developing child autonomy, self-esteem, and self-confidence to help…
By The Petrie-Flom Center We are pleased to announce that Rachel Sachs will be joining the Petrie-Flom Center later this summer as an Academic Fellow for the 2014-2016 fellowship term. In 2013, Rachel earned her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was the Articles Chair of the Harvard Law Review and a student fellow with both…
