The Last Shall Be First: Haitian Women Taking Steps To End Poverty (Forbes)

FORBES | How is it possible that the people of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere have to shoulder repeatedly the impact of one natural disaster after another?

And what can we do as one of its closest neighbors – and by far the wealthiest country in the hemisphere – to best empower the people of Haiti to respond and to rebuild and indeed eventually to prosper after disaster strikes?

These are the questions we ask today as we see a people struggling to recover from a devastating hurricane earlier this month and an ominous rise in cholera outbreaks.

These are also the questions that a delegation of faith-based influencers from Hope Through Healing Hands and CARE asked last month as we visited Haiti to see what’s working and what’s not in terms of social and economic progress since the destructive 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010.

Read more at Forbes.

Want a more resilient world? Give mothers access to the tools they deserve (The Hill)

THE HILL | In 2010, the world watched in horror as more than 200,000 people lost their lives to a devastating earthquake in Haiti. And we shuddered again earlier this month when Hurricane Matthew – the most powerful storm to hit Haiti in more than 60 years – killed hundreds of people and impacted more than 2.1 million.

As the country continues to respond and rebuild, and as the world mobilizes much needed relief and assistance, it’s instructive to understand how Haitians are making themselves more resilient to natural disasters. And it is important to believe that there are strategies for long-term answers for Haiti.

One way might surprise you: better family planning.

That might seem like a lower priority amid disasters such as Hurricane Matthew. But it is exactly in these situations that women and girls are often subjected to an increased risk of sexual violence, unwanted pregnancies due to a lack of access to contraceptives and an overall lack of control over their situation.

And the time for women and couples to really strengthen their family planning strategies is between disasters, something that was clear just a week prior to Hurricane Matthew’s landfall, when CARE and Hope Through Healing Hands hosted a Learning Tour to Haiti. During the visit, the group visited successful U.S. foreign assistance programs focused on supporting healthier mothers and families.

There, the group met a woman named Ermicile Joseph, a 49-year-old mother of twelve. Ermicile welcomed the group into her home and shared her life story. She explained how hard it was to feed and provide for her large family and her wish that she had been able to time and space her pregnancies.

Ermicile lives in rural Haiti in the Central Plateau region where access to quality health care and family planning services is practically non-existent. Haitian women are often marginalized and have unequal access to everything from education and land to health care. They often experience health challenges due to serious obstacles in accessing pre- and post-natal care and family planning services.

However, this all changed for Ermicile when a community health agent made a visit to her home as part of a new effort to give mothers the services they desperately need to live healthier lives. Until recently, her options were limited. But now, Ermicile has taken control over her life and has used this newfound knowledge to educate her 31-year-old daughter Raphael about her options to choose when to have a family. Given the struggles Raphael witnessed growing up, she has decided to delay her first pregnancy until she is more financially prepared.

The benefits of this decision will have a long-term ripple effect for Raphael, her family and her community. Family planning is a powerful tool to combat poverty, particularly for those women who are able to avoid adolescent pregnancy, finish their education and enter the labor force.

When another disaster strikes the poorest country in our hemisphere, Raphael and her husband will have more capacity to provide for themselves. She will be more resilient in the face of danger. And if she does become a mother, she will know how to space a future pregnancy to avoid falling further into poverty.

We know that if women had the means to time and space the births of their children, it could prevent one in three maternal and child deaths in the developing world. Family planning is literally a life-saving intervention.

Thanks to U.S. foreign assistance, maternal and child mortality rates have dropped drastically in the past decade, as more mothers time and space their pregnancies. At a time of budget constraints, we must ensure that all of our federal programs are effective and this is an investment that pays off in the short and long-term. We must continue to ensure mothers and their families have access to the tools they so desperately need and deserve. This is particularly important during times of crisis and disaster.

We applaud the Senate for passing international family planning at the level of $622.5 million in FY17, and we call on leaders in Congress to protect these funding levels when they finalize their appropriations work after the upcoming November election. We also urge the incoming presidential Administration and the next Congress to prioritize international family planning programs within their FY18 budget requests and appropriations bills next year.

The foreign assistance budget supports families around the globe through low-cost interventions – such as family planning – that generate high-impact results. Through investments in women and girls, these programs will help women fulfill their potential and build a more sustainable future for their families and communities. And in the face of danger, they will be able to better control their family’s destiny and face the future with strength and resiliency. As Haiti currently responds to Hurricane Matthew – including CARE’s efforts to provide clean meals, water and supplies to those in immediate need throughout the country – we must stand behind mothers like Ermicile and Josephine who are the promise of a more hopeful future for Haiti.

Our Abysmal Maternal Health Statistics And How To Improve Them (Forbes)

FORBES | This past year, the United States received the dubious distinction of being one of only 7 countries in the world, including Somalia and Afghanistan, which have seen an increase in maternal mortality.

While countries with far fewer resources such as India and Brazil have made great strides to decrease the number of women who die each year as a result of pregnancy, our nation has more than doubled its rate of maternal mortality in the last twenty-five years (28 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in 2013, up from 12 in 1990). Since 2005, it has increased more than 20%. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as many as half of these maternal deaths are preventable. This begs the question: How can we lead the world in cutting-edge health innovation and medical discoveries, yet fall behind in this telling public health metric?

The reasons for the increase are complex.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2016/10/12/our-abysmal-maternal-health-statistics-and-how-to-improve-them/#7b12711033b5

Hurricane Matthew & Haiti A Week Later

Hurricane Matthew, a category 4 storm, made landfall at about 7am this morning on the southwestern tip of Haiti.  Tracy and I just left Haiti a week ago, where we traveled with Hope Through Healing Hands and CARE to assess progress made since the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck in January 2010, resulting in 300,000 deaths and 1.5 million displaced people.

The full impact of Hurricane Matthew is not yet known, as the storm continues to linger over the island nation.  However, reports indicate communities under water, buildings stripped of roofs, and homes damaged or destroyed.  At least one citizen is dead and others are missing, although no formal figures have been released yet on the toll taken on human lives.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and much of its population still lives in shanty towns and tents following the earthquake.  Some Haitians were hesitant to evacuate for fear of leaving their homes and having their only possessions stolen.

Rapid emergency response following a disaster of this magnitude is vital to saving human lives, preventing spread of disease, and mitigating damage to infrastructure.  Hope Through Healing Hands is taking action to provide emergency relief and support again for our Haitian friends in Port au Prince and surrounding areas. You can help by donating to the HTHH Hurricane Matthew emergency relief fund here.  The funding we raise will be distributed, as we did after the earthquake, with trusted beneficiaries whom we know allocating directly for various relief efforts.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Haitian people today.

The Newborn Illness That Nobody Is Talking About – And It’s Not Zika (Forbes)

FORBES | Nothing can prepare a mother for seeing her newborn seize multiple times an hour, refuse to eat or sleep, and shake uncontrollably. That’s what Julia found herself facing after severe chronic back pain from a car accident left her dependent on opioids. Julia had been a college student from a middle class family with a bright future, and never imagined she would end up an addict with a newborn diagnosed with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS).

Read more at Forbes.

Back to Haiti

NOTES FROM THE ROAD | It’s no secret that I believe investing in global health is absolutely essential, and investments in women and girls—particularly maternal and child health—does nothing less than change a country’s trajectory.

Next week, Tracy is joining me as I lead a delegation from all over the United States on a learning tour to Haiti to see firsthand the changes being made in the lives of women and how those changes are building communities.

This will be my fourth trip to the country. I first visited immediately after the earthquake in 2010. Two days after the 7.0 magnitude quake hit right outside Port au Prince, I joined Samaritan’s Purse on a medical mission. At the same time, Hope Through Healing Hands—our global health nonprofit led by Executive Director Jenny Eaton Dyer PhD—launched the Haiti Disaster Relief Fund to provide medical services, equipment, and support for those who needed immediate clinical attention. We raised over $160,000 which was donated in full to trusted beneficiaries already on the ground.

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In the six and a half years since the earthquake, Hope Through Healing Hands has stayed vitally connected to Haiti. I was part of the founding board of the Clinton-Bush Haiti fund that raised over $60 million to help facilitate the long-term rebuilding and healing in the country. Hope Through Healing Hands has been sending midwives and nurses to serve in the country through our Frist Global Health Leaders program. Just last year Laurent Lamothe, the former Prime Minister of Haiti, joined me in Nashville to share a bit about Haiti’s future.

But next week our traveling group will see firsthand some of the things Hope Through Healing Hands has been sharing for the past several years.

In Haiti, we’ll be meeting with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), faith leaders, and the U.S. Mission. We’ll visit groups with longstanding efforts on the ground in Haiti including World Relief. We will meet with women and girls and hear from them how healthcare can break the cycle of poverty, and how education builds communities. We’ll tour a rural health clinic, a maternity ward, and a regional hospital.

Haiti has the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the Western Hemisphere. Just imagine how addressing those problems will strengthen families, stabilize communities, and support the entire nation.

We are particularly excited to be partnering with CARE on this trip. CARE has been actively fighting poverty in Haiti for more than 50 years, investing in programs of economic and food security for women and youth, sexual and reproductive health, and education.

I’m looking forward to sharing what we learn. It promises to be an eye-opening week.

(If you want to check out some videos from my very first trip, it’ll be amazing to compare how far the country has come!)

Systems Strategies for Better Health Throughout the Life Course: A Vital Direction for Health and Health Care (National Academy of Medicine)

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE | Health and health care outcomes for Americans should be better for most, and much better for some. This should be possible with currently available knowledge and resources. Capturing the potential will require adapting our strategies and approaches to the reality that health is not immutably determined at birth, but shaped by different factors over time. Similarly, caring for health cannot be confined to singular interactions within the walls of the health care system, but must fully engage powerful determining influences residing in other systems—e.g., education, employment, justice, transportation—which are natural parts of our lives. Exploring the nature and strategic opportunities inherent in these intersecting influences is the focus of this paper, and the implications for societal attention and resources suggest the promise of shifting emphases across the life span, across systems, and within the health care system.

Our assessment begins with an overview of the prominent health and health care challenges for Americans, and they are many. U.S. life expectancy at birth ranks 43rd in the global community, and has even recently declined among some specific groups. Unacceptable disparities in health outcomes and access persist among certain populations, in particular African Americans and Native Americans (Pearcy and Keppel, 2002). The U.S. health system ranked in a World Health Organization assessment only 37th in performance among 191 member nations (WHO, 2001), and in a recent study of 11 highly industrialized Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, the United States ranked last (Davis et al., 2014). These deficiencies are all the more glaring in the face of health expenditures that are clearly the highest in the world, about 50% higher than the country next behind us, and requiring investment of nearly 18% of our total economic productivity (GDP) in 2015 (Squires and Anderson, 2015). Why are we performing so poorly relative to our potential? A major reason lies in the fact that the primary foci of our attention, our resources (Murray, 2013) and our incentives, are too narrow and too late: despite an increasingly strong and specific understanding of the preventable elements in the development of many of our health challenges— social, behavioral, environmental—our investments are primarily directed to their biomedical manifestations, well after the problems have taken root.

Read more at The National Academy of Medicine: https://nam.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Systems-Strategies-for-Better-Health-Throughout-the-Life-Course.pdf

Thank you and best wishes to Risa Lavizzo-Mourey

Earlier today Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, the first woman and the first African American to lead the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), announced that she was stepping down from her role as President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

I have been honored to serve with Risa on the RWJF Board. Her leadership is unparalleled: visionary and strategic, but with compassion and strong conviction. Risa is the origin of the “Culture of Health” movement that is sweeping the country now and will continue for years to come. She has put a face on the public health needs of the most vulnerable in this country, and made clear the essential role the private sector plays in building healthier, more equitable communities.

As an outspoken advocate of looking at health not just as healthcare, but as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and play, Risa and RWJF are transforming our nation’s approach to wellness. Her work as CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has personally touched thousands and will impact millions. She will be sorely missed, but her legacy will live on in the countless life-changing initiatives she has cultivated at the Foundation.

I wish her all the best.

Risa’s inspiring good-bye letter and charge for the future.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation press release

Congress Must Preserve Quitlines and The Tips Program (Forbes)

FORBES | Smoking is the number one killer and public health challenge today, causing more deaths each year than automobile accidents, firearm-related injuries, HIV, illegal drug use, and alcohol abuse—combined. As a surgeon, it was the primary cause of the heart and lung disease that I operated on every day for 15 years.

In my home town of Nashville, Tennessee, approximately 110,000 people smoke—21% of the adult population. Each is cutting on average seven to ten years from their lifespan. Their habit is costing them years lost from family, friends, and loved ones. I take this issue seriously, and we recently launched a broadly supported, collective impact initiative called NashvilleHealth, which is rallying the community to address smoking as the number one health challenge to the vitality of our county.

Read more at Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2016/09/09/congress-must-preserve-program-that-has-helped-nearly-a-half-million-americans-quit-smoking/#72fd6c785841

The right prescription for biomedical innovation (The Hill)

THE HILL | If you were a patient suffering from a disease, and you read about a treatment option for your illness, you would probably be eager to learn more. Imagine that the drug, device or other intervention had been on the market for several years, and studies showed that it was especially effective in some patients – but in others, it was useless, or even harmful. You’d want to know which group you were in, to make a fully informed decision about whether to use the drug or device, or not.

Welcome to the world of real-world evidence in health care – information derived from the practical or actual experience of patients.  This world can look very different from the idealized settings of randomized, controlled clinical trials (RCTs) that help regulators determine whether a drug or device can be allowed onto the market.

RCTs are considered the “gold standard” of scientific evidence. By assigning patients randomly either to a “study arm” in which they get the new intervention, or a “control arm” in which they get a placebo or the standard treatment, researchers can isolate those results produced by the new drug.  But these trials are typically filled with relatively small groups of carefully preselected patients, and usually are not reflective of the far broader population of people who may eventually use the new drug, or device, or the practices of the far larger circle of physicians who will prescribe it.

Read more at The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/294045-the-right-prescription-for-biomedical-innovation

The Food We Eat Daily That Leads To Poor Heart Health For Our Children (Forbes)

FORBES | Earlier this year, I called attention to the dangers added sugars pose to cardiovascular health and other health outcomes.  In the months since, many people have told me how surprised they’ve been to learn about the sugar hidden in their healthy morning yogurt or afternoon energy bar.  Frankly, I was too.  And this lack of food literacy is a driving factor behind our nation’s growing health crisis and obesity epidemic.

Some health-conscious organizations are trying to bridge that information gap.  This week, the American Heart Association (AHA) came out with its first ever scientific statement on added sugar for children.  A team of scientists conducted an extensive review of the available evidence published in peer-reviewed studies examining the cardiovascular health effects of added sugars on children, and came to a powerful conclusion.

The AHA-backed experts recommended that children and teens should consume less than 6 teaspoons (25 grams) of added sugar a day, and those under the age of two should not consume any added sugars.  Additionally, those 2 – 18 should limit their intake of sugar-sweetened drinks to no more than eight ounces weekly (none for those under age two).  That means less than one soda or sugary fruit drink per week.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2016/08/27/the-food-we-eat-daily-that-leads-to-poor-heart-health-for-our-children/#fe1f7e92075d

How Bundled Payments Can Change Healthcare (The Hill)

THE HILL | Rising health care costs are a top concern for Americans today, with 64% of voters in a January 2016 Kaiser Health tracking poll, citing a candidate’s position on the cost of health care, health insurance, and prescription drugs as “the single most important factor” or “a very important factor” in their vote for president.  With health care costs continuing to outstrip inflation, not surprisingly, many Americans are looking to curb their out-of-pocket health care spending. Tom Daschle and I believe that now is the time to find and implement innovative approaches to fundamentally transform our approach to health care. Bundled payments should play a critical role in that.

Read more at The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/291918-moving-the-needle-on-health-care-transformation

FDA Draft Guidance on Real-World Data (Forbes)

FORBES | In a document issued this week, the Food & Drug Administration laid out for comment its draft guidance of how real-world evidence could support regulatory decision-making for medical devices. This is a positive step forward for improving the medical product development process. At the Bipartisan Policy Center, Representative Bart Gordon and I have been urging FDA to advance medical innovation with real-world evidence. FDA has limited this guidance to how real-world evidence may be used for regulatory review of medical devices. But the FDA is to be applauded for taking this step, and acknowledging the increasingly vital role real-world data (RWD) will have in healthcare.

Read more at Forbes.

Exploring the Social Determinants of Public Health with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

NOTES FROM THE ROAD | Scotland—Survival of men and women in Scotland is the worst in Western Europe. So is their general health. Why is that? What is being done? How successful are the new, bold initiatives that were launched in 2010?

I am in Glasgow with the board of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to explore these fundamental questions to better inform us to shape what we can do in Nashville though our bold new, community wide initiative NashvilleHealth to improve our current poor population health at home.

Scotland’s ongoing commitment since 2010 to make Scotland the best place in the world to raise a child, with the long-term goal of improving the social and health outcomes over the course of a generation, is similar to our efforts at NashvilleHealth.

And Scotland shares many of the same political, economic, and demographic profiles as the US, and Nashville.

Glasgow is about the size of Nashville: home to 600,000 people, with another 600,000 in the surrounding metropolitan area. Nashville has worse health than similar cities like Charlotte, Austin, and Denver; Glasgow has worse health compared to other UK cities with similar characteristics, such as Liverpool and Manchester. Smoking rates are about 23% for both cities. And like Nashville, within the Glasgow metropolitan area, there are even greater disparities.

In both Nashville and Glasgow, explanations for these disparate health outcomes include inequities in income and educational attainment but also social isolation, excessive tobacco and other substance abuse, unhealthy diet, and high rates of adverse childhood experiences.

A starting point for my investigations in Glasgow is similar to what we as a community are doing through NashvilleHealth at home: examine how various sectors are working together to improve the outcomes of existing programs that are aimed at helping families and children in health need.

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When Regenerative Medicine Changes Everything (Forbes)

FORBES | Two weeks ago I led a panel discussion at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) on medical innovation with my good friends Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who chairs the Senate Health,Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee, and former Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN), who previously chaired the House Committee on Science and Technology.  We were joined by Nashville native Doug Oliver, who had a powerful story to share.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Doug Oliver, former Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN), and myself.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Doug Oliver, former Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN), and myself.

Doug inherited a rare condition called dry macular degeneration. His vision began rapidly deteriorating at age 32, and within a year he was legally blind–unable to recognize faces, read the paper, continue his IT job, or drive a car. His doctor told him told him there was no cure but encouraged him to monitor clinicaltrials.gov, the federal site we set up when I was in the Senate where NIH-approved clinical trials are listed, for any new experimental studies that specialized in his illness.  Doug was diligent and in time found a physician in Florida who was treating his condition with patients’ own stem cells.

Doug’s decision to participate in this clinical trial was life-changing. His own stem cells were isolated in a centrifuge from bone marrow drawn from his hip bone, and then injected into his retinas. Doug saw improvement overnight, and within months—after a decade of blindness—he passed the Tennessee driver’s test and got his license back.

Read more at Forbes.

How Real-World Data Could Change Medicine (US News & World Report)

US NEWS & WORLD REPORT | With continuing advances in science and technology, the pace of medical breakthroughs is accelerating. Today, we can treat or even cure conditions that significantly shortened life just a generation ago. The exciting promises of personalized medicine are now becoming reality.

Congressman Bart Gordon and I co-chair the Bipartisan Policy Center’s initiative on Advancing Medical Innovation, and we believe that real-world data – data already amassed in electronic health records and other clinical software, claims systems and even in patients’ personal health tracking devices – is a rich source of information that can play a key role in accelerating the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process for promising drugs and devices to patients in need.

Read more at US News & World Report.

From Volume To Value: Achieving Bold Change In Our Healthcare Payment Systems (Forbes)

FORBES | One question I hear repeatedly as I travel the country discussing healthcare is whether the transition from fee-for-service to value-based care can really be done in a way that lowers cost and improves patient care. The answer is: it can.

While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, successful systems change requires the collaboration and coordination of payers, providers, physicians, regulators, and patient-consumers, taking them outside their comfort zone by flipping the current incentive structure on its head.

It’s useful to review why we should change the way we pay for our healthcare in the first place. The current, dominant fee-for-service (FFS) model incentivizes over-provision of services, which contributes nothing to improving health. Physicians are paid for each medical test they run, but they aren’t compensated for coordinating patient care among different providers, or spending time on patient education. There isn’t a billing code for that. As a result, care is fragmented and disjointed, leading to inefficient delivery and wasteful duplication of services. A patient feels overwhelmed by the care labyrinth he or she must navigate. One estimate put the overtreatment cost alone at $192 billion in 2011.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2016/06/30/from-volume-to-value-achieving-bold-change-in-our-healthcare-payment-systems/#1a51fa989c82 

Better Healthcare at Lower Costs (AHIP 2016)

NOTES FROM THE ROAD | I had the privilege of speaking yesterday at America’s Health Insurance Plans Institute and Expo. Along with Bernard Tyson (Kaiser Permanente) and David Bernd (Sentara Healthcare), I discussed “Better Health Care at Lower Cost: Is It Possible?”

You know my answer: It is absolutely possible with technology. In case you weren’t able to join us, here’s my view of where we are, and where we can go.

 

I am a surgeon. I like to cut, and sew, and fix. I like to keep things simple. So my central organizing thesis is this: Health care delivery today fails because of a massive mis-allocation of resources toward the goal of a patient’s health. We overuse, underuse, and misuse existing resources.

We overuse health services, driven in part by a fee-for-service payment model.

We underuse prevention services and techniques.

We misuse our existing resources—doctors, facilities, medicines— by neglecting evidence-based medicine.

This can be fixed. These are exciting times; we will see more innovation in health service delivery in the next three years than we have in all the history of modern health care delivery.

Let me give two examples, and then toss out a challenge.

Aspire & A Better Way to Die

First, in America people don’t die the way they want to. They too often die chaotically and uncomfortably, with huge costs to the patient and the system. There are too many hospitalizations, too many trips at 2 AM to the emergency room, too many painful side effects from medicines, too much discomfort.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A company named Aspire Health is showing us the way.

Two years ago, a group of us founded the palliative care company Aspire Health to strike right at the heart of this end-of-life chaos and waste.

Aspire took the successful, decade-old model of inpatient, brick-and-mortar palliative care and modernized and transformed it using IT and specialized teams, moving it exclusively to the outpatient and post-acute space.

Aspire is pioneering the way, taking this new model to national scale, now in 13 states and 36 cities working with 14 insurers, including many of you in the room.

It has definitively given better results for much less cost. How?

  1. It focuses on not just physical care, but on emotional, on spiritual, and on mental health as well.
  2. It focuses on not just the patient, but the family and caregivers.
  3. It delivers care not just with any doctor, but a specially-trained, palliative care doctor and a tightly-knit team of a palliative-trained nurse practitioner, social worker, registered nurse and chaplain.

It’s highly specialized care—highly individualized for the patient at the end of life—and delivered in the home with intense attention to social determinants and environment.

What’s the secret sauce?

Analytics: Early, up-front and highly accurate identification of those specific patients who definitely will benefit. Everyone claims to have these algorithms and analytics, but they don’t. Aspire’s model is proven to work.

Specialists: Aspire’s care team features specially-trained palliative physicians and nurses. These are experts on end-of-life medicine. They know how to talk and treat, understand and empathize, with these specific patients and families.

Access: Aspire patients have 24/7 access to a physician or nurse practitioner. Patients and their families always have someone to call in a crisis. They don’t have to go to the emergency room.

Technology: The system is built on powerful IT-managed caregiver workflows, which ensure that the patient always has the right person, at the right place, at the right time.

The outcomes speak for themselves. For 12,000 end-of-life patients we found:

  • Higher satisfaction for both patient and family
  • Fewer hospitalizations (60% reduction), but more patient contacts in smarter settings (home)
  • Earlier referral to hospice (31 days vs 13 days) with continuity and communication ensured
  • Savings of $13,000 per patient served (from a study with two years data across five states with matched cohort comparison)

Better health at lower cost is possible as long as we use existing resources smartly.

Teladoc & Telemedicine

Today, narrow networks rule the day. Wait times for primary doctors continue to rise.

Emergency visits are going up with expanded coverage. And rural hospitals are closing.

But today’s technology can radically improve convenient and timely access to expert physicians. Telehealth is one of the few solutions that increases the capacity of the system by improving access to care while driving down costs.

There are a small handful of companies emerging in this space. Teladoc is by far the largest telemedicine company in the country.

It will approach one million doctor-patient visits over the next 12 months. A million individuals all of whom who would otherwise have had diagnosis and care delayed, and may have ended up in emergency rooms without a telemedicine option.

Imagine for a moment, it’s 10:30 at night and your child is suffering from a high fever or some other nonemergency illness. You either anxiously wait until the next morning to try to track down a doctor (good luck), or more likely you get in a car, drive 45 minutes to the emergency room, wait an hour, see a nurse or doctor in or out of network, and drive back home 5 hours later ending up with a $1400 bill from the hospital!

Or… within 10 minutes you reach a board certified doctor by phone or video, licensed in your state, who has an average of 8 years of clinical experience. At a cost of $45 out of pocket.

Yes, a full 50% of the more than 1.5 million doctor visits Teladoc has had to date occur on nights, weekends, and holidays, when doctors’ offices are closed, and the ER or Urgent Care Center is the only alternative.

Technology-enabled, remotely-delivered care provides equal outcomes delivered much more quickly and conveniently, yet at much much lower price. The purpose is not to replace the primary care doctor but to fill the gaping holes—to improve access and deliver quality care when and where it is needed for a fraction of the cost.

Every payer and system in this room will grow its reliance on telemedicine. Willis Towers Watson says that within a year and a half, over 80% of large employers will offer a telemedicine benefit.

How do you decide whom to partner with?

First, you must insist upon quality measures. Telemedicine has a low barrier of entry—it can get dumbed down quickly by inferior doctors—but a high barrier to scale.

Second, look for high patient engagement. Telehealth is an empty promise without active patient engagement. Without engagement and use by the patient, the value, and cost savings, will never be realized.

With the value of telemedicine so obvious, what has been the biggest barrier to more widespread adoption? To date it has been the resistance of some state medical societies who hold on to antiquated models of practice delivery. This is rapidly changing as quality and cost data so powerfully demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of remotely delivered, evidence-based medicine.

The Challenge

Imagine yourself in my 12th floor conference room in Nashville across from the park three days ago. 15 people are gathered around the table including the CEOs of the five largest employers in Nashville, the four largest health care companies—big public companies like HCA, Emdeon, Change—and representatives from the more than 120 nonprofits and churches in Nashville who have some interest in improving health.

It was the inaugural board meeting of NashvilleHealth, a new, county-wide collaborative that has come together to do a simple thing: Take the aggregate population health measures of Nashville, as reported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—which are poor—and make them the best in the state. And then outperform our peer cities of Charlotte, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, and Cincinnati, all of whom are beating us badly now.

Our goal is to create a culture of health, to make the healthy choice the easy choice, and to focus on the social determinants of where and how we learn, live, work, play and pray.

Our discussion centered on a real example of how we REALLY improve health. Smoking rates in Tennessee are 23%, which means we have 110,000 smokers in Nashville. If we take that down to the national average of 15% or 70,000, that means we have 40,000 fewer smokers within 5 years. We have the knowledge and the proven tools today to do that. We didn’t five years ago.

40,000 fewer smokers translates conservatively into 200,000 years of life saved. Not across the country, or across the state, but within a 3 mile radius of where we were sitting in my conference room.

That reduces the burden of disease.

That conserves the health care dollar.

That improves wellbeing and productivity.

That saves lives.

So I close with a call to action. To maximally reduce cost and improve well-being, you lead the way in your home town of formalizing your own NashvilleHealth. It’s where the real cost savings and health determinants can be achieved.

Salty Stuff (The Hill)

THE HILL | When more than 75% of the sodium you eat comes from processed foods and restaurant meals, it can seem like the problem is out of your hands. How can you cut back on salt effectively when you can’t control those foods? The Food & Drug Administration feels the same way. In a draft guidance issued yesterday morning, FDA called for the processed food, restaurant and food service industries to reduce sodium in their products. It was a wise recommendation, and not a moment too soon.

Read the rest at The Hill.

The Most Helpful Illegal Medical Procedure (Fox News)

FOX NEWS | Last year 47,000 Americans had their blindness reversed through the transplantation of cells from a corneal donor’s final selfless act. It is safe, it is effective, and because it is curative, it is a relatively cost effective procedure. It is medicine at its most beautiful.

And according to FDA regulations, the distribution of this cell therapy is in violation of federal law.

That’s right. The regulation says that no matter how competent the surgeon, the FDA must first approve cells from donated corneas as if they were a drug—a process that takes over a decade and can costs billions of dollars — all for a practice that has been successfully restoring sight for more than 50 years.

The good news: the FDA doesn’t always adhere to its regulations and has not in this case.

The bad news: inconsistent enforcement creates uncertainty, deterring innovation for other unmet medical needs such as arthritis, back pain, and diabetic ulcers.

Read more at Fox News.

The Senate Must Streamline the Drug Regulatory Process (Wall Street Journal)

WALL STREET JOURNAL | Before the Senate is a powerful medical-innovation package of 19 bills—a companion to the House-approved 21st Century Cures Act—that will streamline the nation’s regulatory process for the discovery, development and delivery of safe and effective drugs and devices, bringing the process into the new century. This legislation, crafted by the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, touches every American. Each of us has personal health battles or knows family members and friends who are fighting against devastating diseases. Passing this package will help ensure that patients’ perspectives are integrated into the drug-development and approval process and speed up the development of new antibiotics and treatments for those who need them most.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal (sub required)

Four Strategies to Save Lives, Curb Smoking (Forbes)

FORBES | This  month, FDA passed The Tobacco Control Act, which grants the Agency the authority to regulate cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, smokeless tobacco, and any other tobacco products including e-cigarettes and hookah pipes. The truth is, smoking and tobacco take 500,000 lives in the US each year, and healthcare for a smoker costs the system $18,000 more than for nonsmokers.

This is an all-hands-on-deck issue and we need a combination of efforts and approaches to make lasting change. I present four effective approaches at Forbes.

Read more at Forbes.

Congress Must Act Now to Improve School Nutrition (The Hill)

THE HILL | While headlines harp that the U.S. is a nation “hopelessly divided,” there is something lawmakers can band together on: forging a solution to our obesity epidemic.  In addition to being one of the greatest health threats our nation has ever faced, it is a terrible burden for employers, who are forced to spend more than $73 billion in costs associated with overweight-related medical and lost productivity costs every year. Obesity also threatens national security, as the leading medical reason why 71 percent of young adults between the ages of 17 and 24 cannot qualify for military service.

Read more at The Hill.

Let’s stand with retired military leaders to get healthy school meals over the finish line (The Hill)

THE HILL | While headlines harp that the U.S. is a nation “hopelessly divided,” there is something lawmakers can band together on: forging a solution to our obesity epidemic.  In addition to being one of the greatest health threats our nation has ever faced, it is a terrible burden for employers, who are forced to spend more than $73 billion in costs associated with overweight-related medical and lost productivity costs every year. Obesity also threatens national security, as the leading medical reason why 71 percent of young adults between the ages of 17 and 24 cannot qualify for military service.

The good news is that Congress has the opportunity to sustain recent improvements to school nutrition programs—a major step forward since many young people consume up to half of their daily calories during the school day.

That’s the headline from Capitol Hill, thanks to the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously passing the bipartisan Improve Child Nutrition Integrity and Access Act in January.

Last week, a House version of the child nutrition reauthorization was introduced, but without the strong bipartisan support the Senate garnered.  It is now up to the House Education and Workforce Committee to find common ground with the Senate to move this issue forward.

Read more at The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/278659-lets-stand-with-retired-military-leaders-to-get-healthy-school

 

Spring Update (Newsletter)

So much of my work is a balance of progress and conservation. Now, more than ever, that’s playing out at home. Tracy and I are working to turn Old Town, our Williamson County home on the Old Natchez Trace, into a thriving farm while preserving and honoring the property’s centuries-old history. We welcomed new members to our family this month. Pryor Lillie the calf is named after Old Town’s 1846 builder. Two new colts, Risa and Ray, will join us at Old Town next month. And Nickle, our little Australian Shepherd, keeps us all in line. At the same time, we’re working closely with Kevin Smith, a local archaeologist and anthropologist to preserve the 800-year-old Mississippian temple mounds that serve as the foundation for Old Town.

As always, we love welcoming friends from all over the country to Nashville. With Kix and Barbara Brooks we hosted a delegation from California a few weeks ago, touring some of the best of Nashville: the Bluebird Café, Vanderbilt, and the Frist Visual Arts Center. And I never miss the Mule Day Parade: an annual event in Columbia, Tennessee, dating back to 1840.

Today we begin two weeks of travel that will encapsulate that same push and pull. Before we go, I wanted to share with you some of what we’ve been up to and some of the important work ahead of us. We will be sharing details of the trips and what we learn on social media. Follow along on Twitter (@bfrist) or Facebook (SenatorBillFrist).

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Cellular Horizons Conference, the Vatican

We will be representing Hope Through Healing Hands and the Bipartisan Policy Center at the Vatican this week at the Cellular Horizons conference (#UniteToCure) to discuss the latest in regenerative medicine. I’ll be speaking on the Speeding Cures panel—an issue that weighs heavily on me. Late last year BPC recently released a report that I co-chaired with Representative Bart Gordon on cellular therapeutics. In the report, we encourage Congress and others to work to advance medical innovation legislation. This will require changes at FDA and in how research is structured. There’s an act pending in Congress now to apply some of these needed changes. The REGROW Act is bipartisan, bicameral legislation based on the BPC’s December report and would create an expedited approval category for adult stem cell therapy that would allow for conditional approval after Phase I and Phase II trials are complete, and evidence of safety and effectiveness is demonstrated. This could make a huge difference for how quickly we can develop life-saving drugs.

The Nature Conservancy Global Board of Directors, China

For the first time ever, the Board of Directors will visit TNC’s projects in China, and we are thrilled to be able to see some of the conservation projects underway in Sichuan, Beijing, and at 3 Gorges Dam. TNC’s goals in China include establishing land trusts, reforestation efforts, and working with the 3 Gorges Company to ensure the survival of the fisheries and communities downstream from the dam. All of this is important work, and we are anxious to be on the ground and see the progress being made.

NashvilleHealth & Domestic Health Reform

Hope Through Healing Hands & Global Health

State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE)

  • All children should be educated and equipped for their futures. But how to best do that? SCORE launched a SCORE Institute in partnership with Project Renaissance to look at how students move from poverty into the middle class.
  • Community partnerships are working for education in Tennessee. SCORE highlights four that can be models of success.
  • SCORE’s Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Woodson, explains the new statewide report Equitable Access to Highly Effective Teachers for Tennessee Students and lays out the first steps toward addressing Tennessee’s “effective teaching gap”.

Tomorrow Might Be The Most Important Day This Year (Forbes)

It’s true that we are all living longer: the percentage of American adults over 65 years old has doubled since 1940, now reaching 13%. By 2050 that number is expected to double again to 25%. In actual numbers this translates to an estimated 89 million “senior citizens” by 2050.

Advances in sanitation and the advent of antibiotics has been responsible for much of this shift, and researchers continue to probe how changes in diet, medications, and genetics can slow or stop the process of aging. Artificial life preserving technology, transplantation, and advanced chemotherapies have transformed once fatal diseases into chronic illnesses. But living longer does not necessarily mean living better. Our ability to maintain the basic presence of life with medicines or machines does not mean we can continue to preserve the essence of the person that came before. We are still mortal, and we do eventually die.

Therefore, it is vitally important that you think about the type of health care you desire to receive as you approach the end of life. Saturday is National Health Care Decisions Day—April 16, 2016. Plan a time now to write out or update your personal wishes for your end of life care.

Read more at Forbes.

Improving Access and Adding Value for Mental Health Care (Forbes)

“When you break a leg, you get a cast and people sign it and put smiley faces on it. When you’re given a mental illness diagnosis, you’re cast out,” 24-year old Amanda explained to Kaiser Health News. Amanda was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in college, after several years of manic-depressive behavior. The family struggled financially and emotionally to get Amanda the best possible care, fighting against an outdated health system that is failing those with behavioral health needs.

It shouldn’t have to be that hard. We must change how we offer mental health care.

Read more at Forbes.

Charleston Helps Mothers and Children Globally (The Post and Courier)

This week, global health non-profit Hope Through Healing Hands (HTHH) seeks to galvanize the work already being done in Charleston and South Carolina around an important health initiative. HTHH will co-host a luncheon with faith leaders, nonprofit leaders, university leaders, and others in Charleston to discuss how we can better unite on behalf of child and maternal health globally.

Read more at The Post and Courier

Global Health: The Most Effective Policy

As the 2016 primaries unfold, it’s time for candidates of both parties to focus on expanding the big-hearted policies that have made this nation so exceptional. In recent years, the most effective of those policies has been global health — that is, putting U.S. resources to work saving lives in developing nations by spreading health treatments that work here at home.

Read more at The Hill.

Cutting Sugar for Better Health

On a trip this month to the U.K., I noticed many of their food and beverage products labeled “No Added Sugar,” and the message floods the airwaves. Britain has already caught on to the evils of hidden sugars, and has been loudly making it known to consumers. America should follow suit.

Reducing sugar intake isn’t just about losing weight or preventing cavities. Americans’ excessive sugar consumption poses tangible health risks. An April 2014 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found “a significant relationship” between added sugar consumption and increased risk for cardiovascular disease mortality. Those who consumed a quarter or more of their daily calories from sugar were twice as likely to die from heart disease than those with daily sugar intake of 7% or less! As a heart surgeon, these are numbers I notice.

Read more at Forbes.

Tennessee Quit Week a first step to healthier Nashville (The Tennessean)

THE TENNESSEAN | Of the thousands of heart and lung operations I have performed, the most common cause of the underlying disease in these patients was a single voluntary behavior: smoking.

That tragedy is what Tennessee Quit Week (Feb. 22-28) is all about.

Smoking absolutely leads to a shorter, poorer-quality life. It more than doubles a person’s risk of stroke or heart disease, and increases the risk of lung cancer by 25 times!

Read more at the The Tennessean: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2016/02/22/tennessee-quit-week-first-step-healthier-nashville/80705838/

Flint’s Water Crisis and Public Health 3.0

When looking at the ongoing crisis over safe drinking water in Flint one thing is abundantly clear, the decisions made–at multiple levels–were made without a comprehensive evaluation of the impact on public health.

Karen DeSalvo, Acting Assistant Secretary for Health and National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and I take a look at the public health approaches  being used to help the residents of Flint react to, and recover from, the consequences of the elevated levels of lead in their drinking water. In our own practices as physicians, we know that a well-rounded care team is crucial. But in public health we tend to deploy this multi-sectorial approach only in response to public health failures rather than using their full potential to improve health outcomes and prevent public health emergencies like we see today in Flint.

We believe now is the time for public health professionals to take on larger, more engaged roles as civic leaders, and for business leaders to invest fully in the health of their communities.

Read more at Forbes: What the Flint Water Crisis Reveals About Public Health

Health Diplomacy in Latin America

Strategic Health Diplomacy (SHD) recognizes that targeted global health initiatives can be an important foreign policy tool for the United States.  Healthier populations are productive, safe, and less vulnerable to instability. By addressing global health in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the United States can save lives and improve its national strategic interests.

Read more at Kennedy School Review: An Application of Strategic Health Diplomacy in Latin America and the Caribbean: The U.S. Southern Command

A Cancer Moonshot With A Clear Plan

The Obama administration announced on Monday that it hopes to spend a total of a $1 billion to fund a cancer “moonshot” in search of cures. That amount is likely not sufficient, but it can establish the framework by which the goal can eventually be met.  It is critical that under this rallying cry we articulate a clear, cogent plan to achieve the goals articulated by our government leaders.

Read more at Forbes: Cancer ‘Moonshot’ For Our Generation

Congressional Challenges for 2016

2015 was Congress’s year. For the first time since 2011, both chambers of Congress were led by the same party. Leaders of both the House and Senate worked together on legislation instead of against each other. It was an about face. Unfortunately, election years are notoriously less-productive. But with bipartisan commitment, we can continue to reap the benefits of a Congress that has gotten back to doing the people’s work.

Read more at Forbes: Can Congress Be Productive–Again?

What’s Needed to Remain Competitive in Medical Innovation

Less than a week ago, Congress voted to increase the NIH budget by $2 billion. That’s a lot of money, but it only just reverses the erosion of federal funding for critical biomedical research. This funding increase is much-needed. But there’s more than can be done on Capitol Hill to re-prioritize lifesaving biomedical research.

Read more at Forbes.

Season’s Greetings

Merry Christmas all! Tracy and I hope this holiday season brings peace and joy and 2015 was a rewarding year.

It’s been a fall of new beginnings for us in many ways. After three sons, and two grandsons, our family welcomed our first granddaughter, Amelia Fearn Frist, just over a month ago. We launched a pioneering new health initiative for Nashville that we believe will serve as a model nationwide. And most importantly, Tracy and I were married this summer in Sinking Creek, Virginia, where we have a farm where Tracy runs her grass-fed beef business. We’ve since opened a satellite branch in Williamson County. We are now in the cutting horse business in Franklin, Tennessee, expecting two new babies in April at our farm, Old Town. Tracy has had her hands full training a surgeon to be a cowboy.

Nov15Pics

Domestic Health Reform

But it’s not been all grass-fed beef and cutting horses this fall. Much of our work has been focused on launching NashvilleHealth, an endeavor meant to change Nashville’s health outlook. Although we are a national hub for healthcare, our citizens are not all benefitting from the talent, expertise, and resources we have here. NashvilleHealth will be a county-wide convener to open dialogue, align resources and build smart strategic partnerships to create a plan for health unique to Nashville’s needs, leveraging the rich resources of our city and region.

NashvilleHealth has been a big undertaking, but it hasn’t been the only thing we’ve been working on. The Nashville Health Care Council has announced its 2016 Fellows Class, a one-of-a-kind executive program on which Larry Van Horn from Vandy’s Owen School and I work. We’ve also been writing on antibiotic resistance, a growing and extremely serious problem, and health care technologies, especially telemedicine. We are closely watching the health delivery on a national scale, encouraging AHRQ and calling for reform at the VA, bringing attention to health issues for children and the elderly, and continuing to argue for needed refinements to the Affordable Care Act. We continue to use writing and social media as the primary means of changing the culture around many of these issues.

Hope Through Healing Hands & Global Health

Tracy and I visited Cuba again this year, this time searching for a family doctor. On previous trips we’ve seen hospitals and clinics, but the patient’s first contact has been the missing link. This fall, we made a surprise visit to a Cuban family doctor, and got to see what medicine there really looks like.

We’ve been forever impacted by our visits to Cuba, and late this summer Tracy and I launched Mountain AIR, an artist-in-residence program at our Virginia farm. Hector Frank, an incredibly talented Cuban artist, is our first resident. We’ll be headed back to Cuba next month.

We’ve also worked this year to spread understanding of global health’s role in our national security. PEPFAR stands as a shining example of what a concerted effort for global health can mean for our country’s health and safety at home, but now more than ever we must be active and visible.

SCORE & Education

SCORE continues to soar. The State Collaborative on Reforming Education once again celebrated the hard work of Tennessee students, teachers and administrators at the SCORE Prize event. ABC’s Nashville star Charles Esten—Deacon Claybourne—was on hand to perform as we named twelve schools and districts as finalists for the coveted SCORE prizes.

I’m even more excited than usual for SCORE’s next year. Last week SCORE announced a new strategic plan, refined the leadership structure, and launched a strategy to 2020 with goals including closing achievement gaps by income, race, and geographic location; preparing all graduating seniors for post-secondary education; and continuing our impressive state-wide improvement.

More bits:

  • If you’re in Nashville and you have a car, you must check out Yoshi. I’m not unbiased, but I am genuinely thrilled with the time it saves. You will never have to fill your own gas tank again!
  • If you’d like newsletters like this by email, sign up here. Or, you can subscribe directly to the articles posted on our site.
  • A patient of mine is thriving 25 years after a lung transplant. It’s an amazing story. She’s a fighter—the longest living lung transplant in America.
  • Again, happy holidays, and here’s to a wonderful 2016.

 

 

 

The Childhood Experiences That Can Cut 20 Years Off Your Life

I recently heard a startling statistic. According to a CDC study, children who endure six or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) by the age of 18—incidents of abuse or neglect that make a child feel unsafe or unwanted in their home—live on average 20 years less than their peers who are not exposed to these ACEs growing up. Furthermore, those with four or more ACEs are seven times more likely to be alcoholics in adulthood, twice as likely to develop cancer, and sadly, twelve times more likely to commit suicide. They lead sicker, shorter lives. And they often pass those disadvantages on to their own children by recreating the traumatic environments that they grew up in, perpetuating a toxic cycle.

What does a childhood with multiple adverse experiences look like? It could be a girl of divorced parents, whose mother is abusive and suffers from mental illness. It could be a young boy who is being raised by his grandparents because both his parents are addicts and incarcerated. It could be a child whose father committed suicide after years of struggling to make ends meet to feed and clothe his children. These are some of the more troubling cases. But nearly two-thirds of Americans report having one or more ACE, and more than one in five report three or more ACEs. Childhood stressors are increasing the likelihood of illness and addiction for a meaningful portion of the U.S. population–and our healthcare system fails to address this key driver of health.

Read more (and take the ACE quiz) at Forbes.

Approve Limited-Population Antibacterial Drug Pathway (The Tennessean)

THE TENNESSEAN | A recent study about antibiotic resistance hit close to home for me. It projected that drug-resistant bacteria are developing at a pace that could soon threaten the lives of thousands more surgery patients each year.

This study also revealed that as many as half of infections after surgery are already being caused by pathogens that don’t respond to standard antibiotics.

While the threat of antibiotic resistance may sometimes seem amorphous and removed from our daily lives, research like this helps to crystallize why there is growing urgency to address this issue.

I know all too well the inherent risks involved in any surgical procedure. To think about patients surviving complicated heart bypass or organ transplant surgery only to lose their lives to a subsequent untreatable infection is infuriating and tragic.

Yet, this is the reality today, and it’s only going to get worse until we take collective action as a country and as a global community.

Read more at The Tennessean: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/11/23/approve-limited-population-antibacterial-drug-pathway/76145622/

The Numbers are In: The Case for NashvilleHealth

I like to keep an eye on my hometown’s statistics. I love seeing Nashville listed among the nation’s best cities to launch a startup, raise a family and visit for a weekend away. According to some estimates, we gain 80 new Nashvillians each day, transplants from all over, drawn to our welcoming atmosphere and our healthy business environment.

But for many of Nashville’s residents, “healthy” is not an apt descriptor. I’ve been closely watching these numbers, too. Nashville’s citizens have some of the worst health outcomes on a national and global level. Tennessee is one of the unhealthiest states in the country: 45th out of 50. And Davidson County ranks 22nd out of Tennessee’s 95 counties for health factors, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation County Health Rankings.

To address these challenges, I am launching NashvilleHealth to create a comprehensive and bold, community-supported culture of health equity in Nashville. NashvilleHealth will serve as a county-wide convener to open dialogue, align resources and build smart strategic partnerships to create a plan for health unique to Nashville’s needs, leveraging the rich resources of our city and region.

Read more at the Nashville Post.

Our Opportunity Where Health and National Security Converge (Forbes)

FORBES | This week, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and I released a report recommending a policy of strategic health diplomacy, inspired and informed by the success of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).  The report’s publication was announced at a conference in Washington, DC, where many of the architects of PEPFAR came together to advocate for a foreign policy approach that incorporates health care and humanitarian aid.  The PEPFAR program has provided access to anti-retroviral treatments to more than 7.7 million men, women, and children worldwide.  It has prevented transmission of the virus to 95% of infants with infected mothers, offered care and support to millions of orphans, and trained over 140,000 new health care workers.  It is by all accounts a major success.  Yet it took many years for us to get to this point.

When I first became acquainted with the AIDS virus, I was a surgical resident in Boston in 1981.  At that time it was still an unexplained illness with only a few documented cases.  I never would have predicted the scourge that HIV/AIDS would become.  Back then, we thought we would have a cure within a few short years.

Instead, AIDS was responsible for the deaths of 3 million people in 2003 alone, and 40 million people lived with AIDS or HIV at that time.  As a surgeon, the emergence of AIDS spurred radical changes in surgical practices.  In the early years, when I operated on a patient with HIV or AIDS, I wouldn’t require my assistants to scrub in due to the risks.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/11/13/our-opportunity-where-health-and-national-security-converge/#99dc1a4cdb73

Retreating From Global Leadership Puts America at Risk

The 2016 presidential campaign is well under way, and the candidates are already jousting over who is best suited to respond to an increasing number of obstacles abroad, ranging from the refugees crisis in Europe and the Middle East, to the threat of ISIS, to Russian aggression under President Vladimir Putin. As Democrats and Republicans, the four of us will almost certainly support different candidates in November 2016. But we all agree on this: Our security and prosperity are at risk if America retreats from our leadership responsibilities around the world.

There could not be a riskier time for America to pull back.

Madeleine Albright, Tom Daschle, and I explore why today in Time.

What PEPFAR’s Numbers Mean for National Security

As of last year, PEPFAR supported anti-retroviral treatment for 7.7 million people, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and an astounding 95 percent of at-risk babies were born HIV-free. In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the one-millionth baby had been born HIV-free because of PEPFAR-supported prevention of mother-to-child transmission. No nation in history has been responsible for a larger or more successful global health program. Yet it appears PEPFAR has accomplished much more than saving lives.

Tom Daschle and I look at the PEPFAR numbers at US News & World Report.

The Superbug Fight at your Grocery Store

You may have heard statistics about the over-use of prescription drugs, with reports indicating that up to half of all antibiotics prescribed today are used improperly. It’s a huge problem contributing to the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. What you may not have heard, however, is that the majority of drugs used in the U.S. aren’t even taken by humans. Approximately 70% of medically important antibiotics are sold for use in livestock.

This is a trend that started in the middle of the 20th century when farmers began putting small doses of antibiotics in the food, water and minerals of animals for growth promotion, disease prevention, and disease control. It became standard practice and seemed to make sense – keep the animals healthy, increase growth, produce more food, increase farm profits, and lower food costs for consumers. It is even attributed with tripling American meat production over the last 50 years. But the reality hasn’t been that simple. A side effect we hadn’t anticipated was antibiotic resistance, and in turn, higher health care costs.

Read more at Forbes.

In Memory of Fred Thompson

Today Tennessee lost a talented and admired statesman and many of us lost a beloved friend. Working at his side in the Senate for 8 years, Fred embodied what has always been the best of Tennessee politics—he listened carefully and was happy to work across the aisle for causes that he believed were right. My thoughts are with Jeri and their children at this time; he will be missed.

Congratulations to the 2015 SCORE Prize Winners

All year long the State Collaborative on Reforming Education—SCORE—works with and for students, parents, and teachers in Tennessee and each October we have the privilege of dedicating an evening to recognizing the amazing progress they have made. I love that our annual SCORE Prize awards ceremony doesn’t just bring together administrators and policy makers in education, but also teachers and students from across the state. It’s a lively crowd and one of my favorite nights of the year.

This year I was particularly thankful to have Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and our Education Commissioner, Dr. Candice McQueen, join me in recognizing the hard work of our schools across the state, and I think the whole crowd was thrilled that ABC’s Nashville star Charles Esten—or Deacon Claybourne—was on hand to perform for us.

The SCORE Prize is an opportunity to lift up successful schools and districts across Tennessee and share best practices with each other. These awards are earned based on data collected by our SCORE Prize Selection Committee. They spend weeks examining data and visiting schools and districts across the state to determine the best of the best. Watch the video to see how the SCORE Prize winners are chosen. I offer them my sincere thanks.

This year’s winners again raised the bar on excellence in education. Together they are pushing Tennessee forward for the sake of our children and future.

Elementary School Finalists:

  • Delano Elementary School in Shelby County (2015 winner)
  • Andersonville Elementary School in Anderson County
  • Dresden Elementary School in Weakley County

Middle School Finalists:

  • New Vision Academy in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (2015 winner)
  • Grassy Fork Elementary School in Cocke County Schools
  • KIPP Academy Nashville in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools

High School Finalists:

  • The Soulsville Charter School, Shelby County Schools (2015 winner)
  • Covington High School, Tipton County Schools
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet School, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools

School District Finalists:

  • Trousdale County Schools (2015 winner)
  • Dyersburg City Schools
  • Johnson City Schools

You can learn more about the winning schools here.

I was also particularly impressed with the individual students who were honored for their work. The Students Rise to the Challenge (SRTTC) scholarships award $1,000 to a student in each age category for an essay or video describing how one of their teachers helped them overcome an academics challenge.

Weston Downing, a 12th-grade student at Covington High School in Tipton County Schools; Yeleeya Li, a sixth-grade student at Indian Trail Intermediate School in Johnson City Schools; and Nicholas Reynolds, a fifth-grade student at Andersonville Elementary in Anderson County Schools, all did outstanding and creative work and paid worthy tribute to the teachers in their lives. You can read and watch Weston’s, Yeleeya’s, and Nicholas’s prize-winning entries here.

Congratulations to all of the SCORE Prize finalists and winners, and thanks to the SCORE Prize Selection Committee, Jaime Woodson and the outstanding SCORE team, and all of the students in Tennessee who keep pushing us forward.

Making Health Convenient

I believe one of the secrets of achieving good population health is to make the healthy choice the easy choice, and I’m so pleased to learn of businesses in Tennessee who are working to make that a reality. Tri-Star Services’ Twice Daily convenience stores are making a strong committment to offering  healthy food and drink options in their Tennessee locations. I believe it will be a great model for others to emulate.

Read more in The Tennessean.

In Search of the Family Doctor

Over the course of three visits to Cuba in the past year I have learned much about this nation, its people, its art, and its healthcare system.  We’ve toured polyclinics, hospitals, and medical schools. I’ve met with professors and medical students.  We’ve gotten the government’s healthcare statistics and double checked those with providers on the ground. I’ve seen facility standards that are disappointing and observed shortages of the most basic medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. But everyone I have met on the street knows and respects their local doctor, assigned to them by the state. They have all described their doctors as accessible, empathetic, and caring. So my goal for of this trip was to make an unplanned and unannounced visit to this front line: to visit a family practice doctor who is the fundamental link connecting every person to healthcare delivery.

Read more at Forbes.

Doing the Hard Work for a VA Transformation

It was over a year ago that the public learned of unacceptably long wait times and false record keeping at the Department of Veterans Affairs, resulting in shoddy care for our service men and women. Since then, instead of progress, we have been met with ongoing reports of delayed care, wasteful spending, and poor management.

Last February some colleagues and I presented an array of concrete and actionable proposals for VA health care reform in a report, “Fixing Veterans Health Care.” The report was the product of a six-month process of careful study and deliberation through which our bipartisan task force identified key challenges in the VA health care system and developed workable solutions.

Now we need everyone’s voices to make lasting change.

Read more in the Military Times: http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/benefits/veterans/2015/10/04/commentary-making-case-va-transformation/73213092/

Consumer Still Feeling The Pinch: The Next Big Health Care Debate (Forbes)

FORBES | News headlines have touted a moderation in the rise of health care costs since the economic slowdown and passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But as I have traveled the country and met with health care professionals and consumers, those receiving the care have not felt any reduction in cost. In fact, many have experienced the opposite. Why are those most in need of a price break not receiving it?

While the ACA has reduced our uninsured population (latest estimates put the uninsured rate at 9.2%), it has facilitated the growth of the under-insured. An employer benefits survey released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET) confirmed that employers are increasingly shifting health insurance costs to employees in the form of higher premiums and deductibles. This shift has occurred for two key reasons.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/09/30/consumer-still-feeling-the-pinch-the-next-big-health-care-debate/#59c9db702a20

The Future for The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Research matters. An agency that I fought to save many years ago is at risk again, and Congress must make a move to save it.

I had just been sworn into the U.S. Senate in 1995, when I first found out that the The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) – then known as the Agency for HealthCare Policy and Research (AHCPR) – was on the chopping block. I was still unpacking boxes and learning my way around the Senate halls when my good friend and teacher Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton came to me with an urgent request. He reported the federal agency responsible for funding and conducting health services research was in danger of being eliminated in the 1996 Congressional budget. The AHCPR, which had been renamed and reorganized just six years prior with strong bipartisan support and a revised mission, had fallen out of favor with several influential members of the House Budget Committee.

More at Forbes.

Call for a Conversation: Alzheimer’s in Tonight’s Debate

Tonight, when Republican candidates, vying for the White House, debate one another at the presidential library and final resting place of President Ronald Reagan, they should honor his memory and address the illness that claimed his life and the lives of 700,000 Americans annually: Alzheimer’s disease, the sixth-leading cause of death in our nation.

Reagan was a true patriot. He led this country with boldness and tremendous strength. His optimism helped fuel our country’s continued ascent to greatness, even during difficult times. Just five years after leaving the White House, on Nov. 5, 1994, Reagan issued a letter to the American public announcing, “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease.”

That was more than 20 years ago, and this frightening disease is only becoming more prevalent. As baby boomers (now 51 to 69 years old) age, more Americans are at risk of developing the disease than ever before. None of us will be untouched.

Read more at US News and World Report.

Nashville’s Role in the Healthcare Landscape

I love Nashville and I’m so proud of the work being done  here. Healthcare is the heart of this town and the solutions being developed here are helping patients all over the world. I’m particularly proud of the Nashville Healthcare Council’s Fellows program, and was thrilled to introduce it to a broader audience.

I am constantly inspired by the sheer volume of creativity in Nashville, much of which is channeled toward shaping a smarter, more efficient health care system for our nation.

I was only 16 when my father and brother co-founded HCA in 1968, an innovative venture that grew into the largest hospital management company in the world and reshaped the delivery of care throughout the country. HCA’s founding helped set the stage for Nashville to become the epicenter of the American health care industry, today home to 400 health care companies.

I advise a number of cutting-edge organizations, and I consistently see tomorrow’s successful, shareable care-delivery models being built in Nashville. Future generations of patients across the world stand to benefit.

Read more at Modern Healthcare.

The Virus Wars: Vaccines that Work and Why We Aren’t Using Them

Researchers around the world are scrambling to find an Ebola virus vaccine. Rightfully so. The virus infected nearly 28,000 people and killed over 10,000 in Africa since last year’s outbreak began. But there are other viruses with even more staggering numbers: HPV–human papillomavirus–killed 230,000 women last year. 170,000 more were diagnosed with cancer, but survived.

And yet, we have a vaccine for HPV. Current versions can kill 70% of HPV strains. But in the United States our vaccine rate for HPV is abysmal. A proven-safe vaccine can snuff out a virus that we know causes deadly cancer. Yet only 35% of the recommended population gets the vaccine.

The time for excuses is over.

More at Forbes

Hector Frank and a New Opportunity for Cultural Unity

Last October, Tracy and I visited Cuba and got an up close view of the country, the people, and their challenges. I’ve written about my impressions of their healthcare structure–in many ways woefully lacking, but with some surprising lessons for us in America. What I didn’t write quite as much about was the art. We found the art and the artists in Cuba inspiring, bold, and visionary. I loved what they were doing and how their work was crossing borders and boundaries, even against great odds.

I’m sure you know that I believe health is a powerful tool for diplomacy. But art can be just as unifying–recognizing and communicating our common hopes and struggles like little else can. The creation and sharing of art among peoples around the world evokes cultural understanding and shared unifying dreams.

For that reason, Tracy and I are thrilled to launch today the Mountain Artist in Residence (Mountain AIR) initiative, and introduce the first artist in residence–the man whose work inspired this project–Hector Frank from Havana, Cuba. We will welcome Frank with an exhibit today–Cuban Summer 2015, benefitting Hope Through Healing Hands and SCORE. In the fall, Frank and his wife Teresa take up their residency. We are excited to see what happens next!

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About Hector Frank

Hector Frank was born in Havana, Cuba in 1961. Hector continues to be influenced by Cuban and the Caribbean artists working with strong forms and lines.  He incorporates impasto techniques along with various mixed media and collage to build his images up off of the surface and bring them to life.

From the start of Frank’s art career, he preferred to paint abstractly, and continues to be influenced by Cuban and Caribbean artists working with strong forms, and lines. Through drawing, he began expressing figurative forms in a variety of media including wood, handmade paper, and assemblage.  He incorporates impasto techniques along with various mixed media and collage to build his images up off the surface and bring them to life.  He works with mixed media and creates highly sought works on re-claimed wood with found objects. By changing his style often, he keeps in the forefront of the ever changing Cuban art scene.

Frank’s work has been shown in France, Mexico, Panama and the United States,and is featured in prominent private and public collections worldwide.

During his Mountain AIR residency, Frank will draw upon the natural environment and Appalachian setting to create a series of pieces in paint and in a materiel medium.  Abundantly available to him are natural materials, including reclaimed wood, wire, wood, copper, leather and glass that have accumulated on the property for the past hundred years.  His objective is to marry his traditional Cuban culture with the American Appalachian life in an interpretive fashion.

About Mountain AIR

Twice each year, an artist will be selected to spend two weeks living on a beautiful and inspiring 480-acre cattle and horse farm in Sinking Creek, Virginia, deep in the Appalachian Mountains with complete creative freedom. Our hope is to provide an environment encouraging to the individual’s creative and artistic sensibilities.  This majestic rural mountain setting amidst a working farm that includes grassfed cattle, sheep, horses, goats, and chickens provides an inspiring sense of time and place.

The artists will work out of a naturally lit, second floor loft above a working livestock barn with breathtaking, panoramic views of the flowing valleys and stream below and the mountains around. Artists have complete access to the farm including all the land, beaver streams, livestock, farmhands, and materials that have accumulated on the land over the years, as well as the Appalachian Trail and Jefferson National Forest. Artists are encouraged as they wish to actively engage in the farm life that so genuinely defines who we are as Americans.  They will have opportunities to interact with and introduce their art form to local K-12 children as well as writers-in-residence from regional higher educational institutions over two to three days.

Making Dementia Friendly Communities The New Normal (Forbes)

FORBES | Alzheimer’s may be one of the most frightening health challenges today. Over five million Americans—one in eight age 65 and older and one in three age 85 and older—are living with dementia and we don’t yet have a treatment that can prevent or cure the disease. But these men and women are not alone. They are supported by 15.5 million family members and friends, and there are things we can all do to ease their burden.

In 2015, Alzheimer’s and other dementias will cost the nation $226 billion, with half of the costs borne by Medicare. Last year caregivers provided 17.9 billion hours of unpaid care, averaging 22 hours per week and valued at $217.7 billion annually; $34 billion annually is lost in revenue/productivity due to caregiving responsibilities. Unless something is done, in 2050, Alzheimer’s is projected to cost up to $1.1 trillion (in 2015 dollars). This is both financially and socially unsustainable.

In May, I challenged the new Presidential candidates to make a War on Alzheimer’s a top health care priority, and I know that researchers are hard at work developing new drugs to treat, prevent, and slow the disease. We need increased federal and private sector funding to enable innovation in the field of cognitive disorders, and new initiatives in Washington are moving forward.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/07/31/making-dementia-friendly-communities-the-new-normal/#1809bf1316b0

Podcast: Medicare and Medicaid at 50

Fifty years after Medicare and Medicaid were created, healthcare in America is still rapidly evolving. Carefully observing where we’ve been will help inform where we are going, so in today’s special issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman and I look at the Perspectives of Beneficiaries, Health Care Professionals and Institutions, and Policy Makers over the past half decade. The full text of the JAMA article is available by subscription only, but Drew and I also discussed the piece and our findings with Dr. Preeti Malani, Associate Editor, The JAMA Network in a freely available podcast.

 

Telemedicine and the Tools of Care

At the Spotlight Health event at the Aspen Ideas Festival last month I had the privledge of speaking on a panel moderated by Steve Clemons. We focused on the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act and costs of healthcare in America. It prompted some thoughts about my dad’s medical practice many  years ago. Dad had a DeSoto, and that car took him to many house calls over the years. Of course a DeSoto isn’t the practice of medicine. It was simply a tool Dad used to meet his patients where they were. I think telemedicine is the same kind of tool, one that makes care infinitely better for patients.

More at the Health Affairs Blog

Three Challenges Impacting The Future Of Obamacare (Forbes)

FORBES | Last week’s Supreme Court decision puts the Affordable Care Act firmly and securely into institutional and cultural permanence.  It still bears flaws due to its imperfect construction and divisive passage, but after five years, the new certainty for insurance markets will permit a maturity of risk pools, and the more direct and predictable provider reimbursement moves toward eliminating much of the inefficient cost shifting that obscures pricing and value transparency.

The ACA will need to clear a number of hurdles before it can achieve long-term success.  Legislative action will likely be needed to fix some of these shortcomings.  The reality is that the new President, Republican or Democrat, will be charged to do what President Obama has failed to do: actively bring the parties to the same table to fix what is broken in the law in order to bring affordable care to those in need.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/07/03/three-challenges-impacting-the-future-of-obamacare/#d99897c7b09f

Compensating for End of Life Conversations Is Important First Step

The Obama Administration is soon scheduled to release the proposed 2016 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, which determines what and how much providers can bill for health care services. The administration can choose to compensate providers for offering voluntary counseling services to patients and families about end-of-life care options, and I strongly urge it to do so. It is an important first step.

As a heart surgeon, I have seen countless instances where patients near the end of life undergo aggressive medical interventions in order to prolong the inevitable. Yet most people, when asked, say they would want to spend their final days at home, without pain, comfortable with family and friends, and not hooked up to multiple machines in the hospital. We simply must do better and help ensure that a patient receives the health care that they want near the end of their life.

Americans are living longer than ever, and children are increasingly helping aging parents and grandparents manage multiple chronic conditions. This new reality has more and more people thinking about new models of end of life care, and has sparked a national conversation about how we can all live well, until the very end.

I’m encouraged to see that this important issue has reached the halls of Congress, where legislators in both the House and Senate are pursuing bipartisan ways to improve the care patients receive near the end of life. One policy option being considered is reimbursing providers for discussing treatment options and care preferences with patients and their families. I wholeheartedly support this idea, and there is an immediate opportunity to make it happen.

Read more at Forbes.

 

Advancing transparency in healthcare: A call to action (The Hill)

THE HILL | “How much does health care cost?” It isn’t an easy question to answer. Your yearly check-up, a colonoscopy, or trip to the emergency room doesn’t typically come with an obvious price tag. And it isn’t just finding out the price of a service or product that’s difficult; it’s also difficult to determine the quality of the care provided. In fact, Princeton Economics professor Uwe Reinhardt has likened “shopping” for healthcare to trying to find a purple sweater in a department store while blindfolded.

Greater transparency and access to information about the prices and quality of health care would be beneficial to consumers, providers, policymakers, and stakeholders alike. To achieve the Triple Aim of better population health, an improved health care system, and a lower rate of cost and spending growth, we must take the blindfold off.

Read more in The Hill: http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/244714-advancing-transparency-in-healthcare-a-call-to-action

Cuba’s Most Valuable Export

If you had to guess, would you guess sugar? Cigars? What about doctors and nurses?

The Cuban government reportedly earns $8 billion a year in revenues from professional services carried out by its doctors and nurses, with some 37,000 Cuban nationals currently working in 77 countries. The socialist regime allows the government to collect a portion of the incomes earned by Cuban workers abroad.

For example, in 2013 Cuba inked a deal with the Brazilian Health Ministry to send 4,000 Cuban doctors to underserved regions of Brazil by the end of the year – worth as much as $270 million a year to the Castro government. By the end of 2014, Brazil’s Mais Medicos program, meaning “More Doctors,” had brought in 14,462 health professionals – 11,429 of which came from Cuba.

Over the past 50 years, Cuba consistently used the export of its doctors as a powerful and far-reaching tool of health diplomacy. The island nation has built good will and improved its global standing with emerging countries around the world during its years of isolation. It sent its first doctors overseas as far back as 1963, and to date has sent physicians to over 100 countries.

More today at Forbes.

 

The Worst Kept Secret in Healthcare

For many of our health problems, the solutions are not a secret: eat well, move, make healthy choices. Of course sometimes that is easier said than done. Our physical and social environments–where we live, what kind of emotional support we have, our access to fresh food and healthcare–determine more of our healthcare than what our doctors prescribe. If we want to be serious about improving wellness, we must get serious about preventing health problems before they start.

The Bipartisan Policy Center launched a report last week looking at the best ways to incorporate prevention into our lives. Alice Rivlin and I announced the study:

In order to refocus on wellness, over the past year, the Bipartisan Policy Center convened a Prevention Task Force to determine how to change our nation’s health conversation so we are taking actions to promote wellness rather than focusing solely on providing reactive medical treatment after a person gets sick.

Today, the task force is releasing recommendations for achieving this goal, which include better connecting clinical providers and community organizations, and creating incentives to make preventive care a priority. As senior advisers to the task force, we strongly endorse the two-part framework today’s report outlines to more fully integrate prevention into the nation’s approach to health and health care.

Read more at US News and World Report.

A Charge to Press Forward on Alzheimer’s Research

Heart transplantation revolutionized healthcare in a way that’s hard to comprehend. What was once a death sentence–sometimes without warning–became surmountable. People got their lives back. We need the same revolution in Alzheimer’s research. The answer will be different; transplant can’t solve this problem. But just because the way forward is unclear, we can’t stop pushing forward. I challenge the 2016 Presidential hopefuls to keep Alzheimer’s disease at the forefront of research. We have so much to lose.

One in five Americans are obese. One in four has a risk of dying from cancer in their lifetime. But one in three that live beyond 65 will die with Alzheimer’s or another type of dementia. All these ailments have significant health impacts. The difference? We have solutions to treat obesity and can cure some cancers.

Alzheimer’s is the only disease among the top 10 causes of death in America that cannot be prevented, cured, or even slowed.

Read more at Forbes.

Why Texas is missing out on the future of medicine

If you’ve read much of anything here, you know that I am a big fan of health technologies to improve care and create a sustainable healthcare system. I think it’s essential that we choose the right technologies that will serve patients, and I firmly believe telemedicine is one of those solutions (so much so that I joined the board of advisors for Teledoc, a telemedicine company).

But across the country, thousands of people are desperate for accessible and affordable healthcare. For far too many of them, their only option—even for non-emergency care—is a $1,500 visit to the emergency room.

For example, 200 counties in Texas are considered medically underserved with 16 counties having just one primary care doctor and 27 counties having none. These citizens have nowhere to turn.

The good news is that a solution exists. It is called telehealth and has been increasing in use across the country over the last decade. However, a decision last month by the Texas State Medical Board will sharply restrict access for Texans by requiring in-person visits before you are allowed to use telemedicine. Previously, the board required doctors to establish a relationship with patients before giving a diagnosis or prescribing drugs, but its April 10 decision narrowed rules to state that “questions and answers exchanged through email, electronic text, or chat or telephonic evaluation or consultation with a patient” are not enough to establish a doctor-patient relationship.

Read more at Fortune Magazine.

Killing the superbug: A call for Congressional action

When Alexander Flemming accepted his Nobel Prize for the discovery of penicillin, he issued a warning to future generations: his miracle drug—responsible for saving millions of lives—could one day be useless.

“It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them,” Flemming said. “There is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant.”

Seventy years later, Flemming’s nightmare scenario is coming true.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports drug-resistant bacteria infect more than 2 million people nationwide, killing 23,000 annually. In addition to lives lost, infections cost $20 billion in additional direct healthcare costs, up to $35 billion in lost worker productivity, and $8 billion in extra hospital days. Given the knowledge and resources available to us, this is unacceptable. ​

We need a multi-pronged strategy to attack antibiotic resistance.

Read more at The Hill.

 

The Promises and Challenges of Precision Medicine

Only 15% of our health is determined by the healthcare we receive, the rest are the social determinants of health: environment, economic stability, access to care, education and community resources. Paying attention to that 85% is imperative, and precision medicine aims to take targeted genetic and molecular information and consider it in tandem with data about our environmental exposures and lifestyle choices. Integration of the smallest building blocks with the macro environment is exactly the direction in which medicine should be moving, and President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative is a needed step forward. But getting there will take some new habits, a new funding model and new technologies.

Read more at Morning Consult.

MCC: Foreign aid in action

Most people are surprised when they learn how little we actually spend on foreign aid. But as we know, global health issues know no boundaries. That’s why it is so very important that spend our foreign aid  money wisely. I’m at The Hill today discussing a model that I think does a great job.

Most Americans agree foreign aid helps improve our nation’s image globally and protects Americans’ health by preventing the spread of diseases.

In fact, it does more than that. Our comparatively small investment in foreign aid enhances national security by stabilizing weak states and helping to fight the causes of terrorism. It encourages economic development, opening new global markets for American business. And it supports our humanitarian goals and values, advancing peace and democracy.

Considering the benefits, the surprising truth is that the U.S. spends less than 1 percent of our budget on foreign aid, and that amount has been dwindling due to sequestration. At a time when we are faced with global unrest and budget cuts, we must make strategic investments in foreign aid programs that have a record of success.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a prime example.

Read more at The Hillhttp://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/240550-mcc-foreign-aid-in-action

A Conversation on Haiti

Last week, Hope Through Healing Hands and I had the honor of welcoming the former Prime Minister of Haiti, Laurent Lamothe, to Nashville. I’ve been to Haiti many times, and was thrilled to hear the latest updates on the quantifiable successes in Haiti over the last few years, namely in providing housing for those displaced by the earthquake and putting children back in school.

Jenny Eaton Dyer, Hope Through Healings Hands’ Executive Director, has all the details about the event on the HTHH blog.

 

It’s National Health Care Decisions Day: Who will you designate?

End-of-life planning is an important part of healthcare. It’s a refrain I’ve been repeating. I’ve called for changes in care models, payment schemes, and physician education. But all of the needed changes aren’t at the system level. There are steps that every individual must take as well.

Along with Gary Dodd, a palliative care nurse with years of experience, I’m at Fox News this morning talking about a conversation you can have to take to take control of your end-of-life care.

We know that at least 90% percent of Americans have heard of a living will, but still only about one third have one. Even among nursing home residents, only 65% have some type of Advanced Care planning documentation. This is not news in the health care community, but if we want to change these numbers we have to ask “why?”

Read more at Fox News.

 

 

Where Health And Environment Converge

An area of healthcare that has recently become very important to me is community transformation projects focusing on the social determinants of health: environment, economic stability, access to care, education, and community resources. Only 15% of our health is determined by the healthcare we receive, so looking at the other 85% is not only imperative, it is just good math.

At Forbes, I look at where health and environment converge, not just in our own backyards, but globally as well.

This past March, I met Luis Giuria at the Building a Healthier Future for America Summit.  He was smiling ear to ear when he and his beautiful family took the stage to talk about what an impact his environment has had on his life.

Luis was born in the South Bronx, and grew up eating inexpensive junk food because it was the easy, affordable option.  His hometown lacked safe playgrounds and he never learned the importance of exercise.  By age 27, he weighed nearly 400 pounds, had trouble sleeping, finding clothes that fit, and was prone to injury.  To be a good father and husband, and good to himself, he knew he needed a major life change.  That’s when he discovered Arbor House, an innovative low-income housing project in the Bronx that was designed to encourage physical activity.  Arbor House boasts indoor-outdoor gyms, play areas for children, a rooftop farm that provides fresh produce and clean air, and abnormally slow elevators that encourage residents to take the stairs.  Luis and his family moved into Arbor House, and it’s helped the whole family embrace healthy living. Luis has lost 200 pounds thanks to his new environment and other healthy lifestyle choices.

His experience shows where health and environment converge. Most people would still list exercise, diet, or access to affordable healthcare as the key determinant of health—and those are all important. But the most important factor is one that influences everything else: your zip code.

Read more at Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/04/15/where-health-and-environment-converge/

The Mother & Child Project

I am thrilled to announce that a huge project of ours has finally come to fruition. Thanks to the team at my global health nonprofit, Hope Through Healing Hands, The Mother & Child Project is now available!

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The Mother & Child Project was compiled by Hope Through Healing Hands’ Faith-based Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children Worldwide. In this important book, Melinda Gates, Kay Warren, Christine Caine, Kimberly Williams Paisley, Michael W. Smith, Natalie Grant, Jennifer Nettles, Jennie Allen, Amy Grant, and many other inspirational leaders, cultural icons, political experts, academics, and service providers tackle the important topic of maternal and child health in developing countries. Through personal narrative and compelling research, this book educates and inspires people of faith to join us in empowering mothers and children worldwide.

I’ve written a bit about the powerful role of maternal health in influencing communities for good, and I’m so proud of what this book accomplishes: an insider’s look into the way this most fundamental goal shapes cultures.

I hope you’ll read it, and see for yourself what power we wield when we speak out for mothers and their children.

Read Publishers Weekly review

A Vaccine For Future Health Crises: A Coordinated Communications Strategy Will Be The Difference (Forbes)

FORBES | During the Ebola epidemic this fall, I was reminded of the chaos and fear we felt in the Senate in 2001.  When the first anthrax letter was opened in the office of Majority Leader Tom Daschle, no one really even understood what anthrax was, much less how it was contracted, transmitted, or the disease’s natural history. As a result, it was days before a plan for evacuation, testing, and treating exposures was implemented. We had no mechanism for a coordinated and controlled response to a major health emergency.

Thirteen years later, I am afraid we were just as unprepared.  News that the first Ebola-infected doctor was returning home for treatment resulted in outrage about the potential threat, and calls for a West Africa travel ban.  Given the rarity of Ebola, the public lacked general knowledge of the disease. Relevant governmental agencies failed to adequately disseminate information, and hospitals and healthcare workers didn’t know how to contain and treat infected patients.  Soon, two Texas nurses became infected. It wasn’t until eighteen days after the first case of Ebola was diagnosed in the U.S., that the Obama administration appointed an “Ebola Czar.”

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/04/09/a-vaccine-for-future-health-crises-a-coordinated-communications-strategy-will-be-the-difference/#259afe83c6ba

 

Ebola Doctor and Survivor Ian Crozier Advocates Global Awareness and Treatment (Hope Through Healing Hands)

HOPE THROUGH HEALING HANDS BLOG | On Tuesday, March 31, Hope Through Healing Hands had the honor of hosting Dr. Ian Crozier, an Ebola physician and survivor at an event with Siloam Family Health Center. I had the privilege of talking with Ian as he shared his experiences with the packed auditorium. His message is one that deserves a wide audience.

Ian Crozier trained as a physician at Vanderbilt, specializing in infectious diseases. He was living in Uganda treating HIV patients when he was deployed by the World Health Organization to serve in an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) at Kenema General Hospital in Sierra Leone. His time there was brief; he worked just a few weeks before he contracted Ebola and was evacuated to Emory University in Atlanta. But his firsthand experiences are rich with lessons for infectious disease research, global health, and each one of us.

Ian’s story has been chronicled by the New York Times, and although I’m tempted to retell it—because it is so powerful—I want to focus on the challenges he laid out for us.

His is a dual citizenship, Dr. Crozier said: both Ebola physician and Ebola patient, caregiver and sufferer, crusader and survivor. His mission, now, is to raise awareness about the ongoing epidemic and the state of global health in Africa and beyond.

Read more at the Hope Through Healing Hands Blog: http://www.hopethroughhealinghands.org/blog?ID=b1f0b07d-5721-4cec-af96-9d4c2c7da6aa

Tackling Administrative Waste: The Promises Of Data Science For The FDA

Our healthcare system needs an overhaul in lots of areas and the FDA is not exempt. It’s slow, expensive, and cumbersome. Modernizing the FDA is now the focus of several initiatives including ones from Congress and the Bipartisan Policy Center. One of the top priorities: using data to speed the drug approval process without sacrificing safety.

In looking at the $2.8 trillion a year—20% of our Gross Domestic Product—that our nation spends on healthcare, we see that about $900 billion of that is waste and $248 billion can be attributed to administrative complexity. This costly complexity stems from the ACA, insurance regulations, and regulatory agencies in the U.S., including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA in particular is a needed and valued part of healthcare in this nation – it just needs a serious overhaul.

The innovation bottleneck at the FDA has a real impact on Americans’ healthcare. One of every $4 spent by consumers each year is on an FDA-approved product, including drugs, devices, food, and tobacco. Expensive development and approval processes drive up those costs with an average drug taking about $1 billion and a decade to make it to market. With increased consumer cost-sharing, expensive drugs and devices are already becoming out of reach for many Americans. And for those facing a disease with potential life-saving treatment in trials, the clock is ticking entirely too slowly.

Thankfully, modernizing the FDA has become a key focus for Congress this year. I am leading an initiative through the Bipartisan Policy Center, a non-profit think tank in Washington, DC, focused on reversing this cost trajectory to improve affordability and availability of healthcare. We are working on strategies to advance medical innovation within the FDA, while reducing the time and cost associated with drug and device development.

One area I think shows significant promise is the use of “big data”.

Read more at Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/04/15/where-health-and-environment-converge/

Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind matters to Tennessee (The Tennessean)

THE TENNESSEAN | Tennessee teachers, parents and local education leaders know what’s best when it comes to educating our children.

Federal education law has a powerful role to play in ensuring that our nation’s schools equip the next generation of global leaders, but only if the law is carefully crafted so that local expertise can be applied.

I voted for No Child Left Behind, or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), in 2001, and the law has benefited the children of Tennessee and of many states. But much of Tennessee’s success under the law has come because we made innovative decisions at the state level to identify and support great teaching, turn around low-performing schools, and raise academic standards, among other policies.

Read more at The Tennessean: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/03/30/reauthorizing-child-left-behind-matters-tennessee/70557738/

Notes from the Road: Hong Kong

I’m in Hong Kong right now attending some financial meetings and touring some infrastructure projects. It’s been an eye-opening trip so far. Today in a financial meeting, one of the smartest participants is an historian, a student of thousands of years of Chinese history.

He observed: “The era of a Dynasty always begins with low taxes and full treasuries and ends with high taxes and empty treasuries.”

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But it’s not been all meetings. We toured the Central Wan Chai Bypass and Island Eastern Corridor Link, currently under construction by AECOM. The Central Wan Chai Bypass and Island Eastern Corridor Link is 4.5 km in length and has six lanes of traffic. It’s scheduled to be completed by end of 2017. Impressive.

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AECOM is a global provider of architecture, design, engineering, and construction services for public and private clients (with a Nashville office!). In Hong Kong, the company early dominated the market for infrastructure architecture and construction; it’s responsible for more than half of the public works projects. Here, AECOM has 4,600 employees and accounts for one out of 800 workers in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has the fourth-largest harbor in the world, and AECOM built 100% of the container terminal. It will be building the new airport terminal, and the sewage water treatment plant.

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Telemedicine Is A Game-Changer For Patients, The System

The Affordable Care Act won’t address our physician shortage–a problem expected to grow to as many as 52,000 needed physicians by 2025. And for many, the ACA still isn’t providing actually affordable care. To bridge these gaps, we must find innovative ways facilitate hassle free access to a provider that is more cost-effective. There is a solution.

While 87% of Americans now have health insurance, overwhelming co-pays, high deductibles and a lack of primary care doctors still stand in the way of healthcare for many.

An average GOLD level plan—one of the more expensive, “better” insurance plans—still has a deductible of $2,000 for an individual, which approximately 40% of Americans cannot afford. Thirty-five percent of Americans already struggle with medical debt despite that 70% of those struggling have insurance. And by 2025, the United States faces a potential physician shortage of as many as 52,000.

For many, new health insurance is not providing access to affordable care, and the ACA will not address the physician shortage. To bridge that gap, we must find innovative ways facilitate hassle free access to a provider that is more cost-effective. Telemedicine is a growing model that is a part of the answer.

Read more in Forbes.

Separate Health Care For Veterans Does Not Best Serve Our Vets (Forbes)

FORBES | I had the privilege of speaking at the Concerned Veterans for America Summit last week in Washington, D.C. I’ve written about my concern for veterans’ healthcare before (and I highlighted some of my thoughts immediately before the Summit). Our healthcare system needs a lot of work, and having served as a VA staff surgeon for nine years, the care we offer our veterans is an area of particular concern for me.

In my experience as both a physician and former Senator, I have come to believe a forward thinking, technologically advanced, and efficient 21st Century American Health Care System should be patient-centered, consumer-driven, and provider-friendly.

I developed these conclusions after years of practicing medicine in this country and all over the world, as well as having a front row seat to the evolution of healthcare in our country: from fee-for-service, to managed care, to the current transition to value-based healthcare.

I know that people need to have some skin in the game. We can talk about concepts like moral hazard and healthcare literacy as complicating patient autonomy, but ultimately the most important person in a healthcare decision is the patient.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/03/02/separate-health-care-for-veterans-does-not-best-serve-our-vets/#5ce4986467f8

Training the Next Generation of Doctors in Palliative Care Is the Key to the New Era of Value-Based Care (Academic Medicine)

ACADEMIC MEDICINE

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

—Hippocrates

We would like to think Hippocrates made this statement about the field of palliative care. Considering the state of medical practice during Hippocrates’s time, and the definition of palliative care, he probably did.

The World Health Organization defines palliative care as care that

improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual.

This should be how all medical care is defined. But unfortunately, it is not. To better understand why palliative care is an important issue in the current debate about health care reform, we first briefly review landmark legal cases in the area of end-of-life care. We then discuss the role of palliative care in conversations in the current health care climate and conclude by emphasizing the importance of integrating palliative care into the standard medical curriculum.

Read more at Academic Medicine: 

https://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2015/03000/Training_the_Next_Generation_of_Doctors_in.8.aspx

A bold blueprint for transforming veterans’ health care (The Washington Post)

THE WASHINGTON POST | Imagine how we would meet the service-related health-care needs of military veterans if we had a clean slate and were considering the question for the first time. The answer is obvious. Just as we do with veterans’ educational benefits, we would use the private sector. We would never create something like the Veterans Health Administration(VHA) that exists today.

But we are not writing on a clean slate. The United States owns and operates the highly bureaucratic and inefficient VHA, a legacy institution that badly needs reform. Last year’s legislation expanding health-care choice for select veterans and holding senior VHA executives accountable was a step in the right direction. But some of its key measures are temporary or are not being fully utilized or implemented efficiently.

If endless funding, more personnel or piecemeal reforms were the answer, the VHA wouldn’t be failing. Since 2006, the budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees the VHA, has ballooned by a staggering $91 billion, and the VA has added 101,000 employees. This growth has coincided with worsening care for a shrinking veterans population. Bolder reforms are sorely needed to improve the convenience, timeliness and quality of care received by veterans with health needs resulting from their service.

Read more at The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-bold-blueprint-for-transforming-veterans-health-care/2015/02/26/e16f8b4c-bc2a-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html?utm_term=.49f0c23843a6

FDA Reform (Morning Consult)

MORNING CONSULT | The FDA’s warning letter Anne Wojcicki received as the CEO of 23andMe in November 2013 came as a shock to the direct-to-consumer product industry dealing in the “peri-medical” device space. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had not previously made such a move, and perhaps 23andMe was being used to set an example, but nonetheless, the action was at the time unprecedented.  23andMe could no longer provide consumers with information about potential disease markers in their genome sequence.

The FDA was signaling it would now regulate the burgeoning field of consumer genomics. As Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the FDA Commissioner who stepped down from her role last week, explained, the FDA has “an enormous set of responsibilities that every day get bigger…”  In fact, FDA-regulated products account for about 25 cents of every dollar spent by American consumers each year.  And the agency is continuing to expand its reach by announcing plans to regulate digital medical devices like apps and wearables, as well as Laboratory Diagnostic Tests (LDTs).

Why does this matter?  Today’s drug and device development process costs too much and takes too long.  It now takes a decade or more and well over a billion dollars for the average drug to make it to market—a dramatic jump compared to $300 million in 1987 and $100 million in 1975 (adjusted for inflation). As a result, venture capital investment in medical technology has declined by 42% between 2007 and 2013. A 2011 survey by the National Venture Capital Association found that over 60% of their members cite FDA regulatory challenges as reason for shifting away from biotech & medical device investment.

No one wants the FDA to approve drugs or devices that haven’t been properly vetted or could be dangerous to the public.  But we also must make sure we aren’t stifling innovation and deterring investment in the name of safety.  An inefficient, outdated FDA drives up costs for consumers, delays patient access to lifesaving medications and devices, deters private investment in medical innovation, and encourages companies and investors to move overseas.

What can we do to reverse this trend?  Congress must act.

Read more at Morning Consult: https://morningconsult.com/opinions/fda-reform/

Bill Frist and Jenny Eaton Dyer: Americans need to step up on global health issues (Dallas News)

DALLAS NEWS | The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that Ebola is still a top-tier global health concern in Americans’ hearts and minds. Although media coverage has slowed, there is still much work to do in West Africa to curb the spread of the virus that has now killed more than 8,500 people. In a promising step forward, the National Institutes of Health just announced that a vaccine trial will soon be available in Liberia.

Sadly, it took the death of Thomas Eric Duncan to prompt real assessments of how prepared local hospitals are to handle a global outbreak. But as a result, our nation is now more aware and more concerned about the tragic loss of life in West Africa and the broader issues of global health.

More than half of Americans believe that the U.S. government offers more than 26 percent of our annual budget in foreign assistance. The reality: Less than 1 percent of our budget goes to global health and development.

As we’ve seen, health issues abroad have a real impact at home. Years of underfunding global health has allowed a virus like Ebola to become a crisis in Africa and reach American soil. If we had spent even one-tenth of our perceived investment, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this position.

We can’t again wait until the crisis is upon us.

Read more at Dallas News: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2015/02/12/bill-frist-and-jenny-eaton-dyer-americans-need-to-step-up-on-global-health-issues

Save the Children’s Insurance (New York Times)

NEW YORK TIMES | NO child in America should be denied the chance to see a doctor when he or she needs one — but if Congress doesn’t act soon, that’s exactly what might happen.

For the past 18 years, the Children’s Health Insurance Program has provided much-needed coverage to millions of American children. And yet, despite strong bipartisan support, we are concerned that gridlock in Washington and unrelated disputes over the Affordable Care Act could prevent an extension of the program. As parents, grandparents and former legislators, we believe that partisan politics should never stand between our kids and quality health care.

We may be from different political parties, but both of us have dedicated our careers to supporting the health of children and their families. This shared commitment inspired us to work together in the late 1990s to help create CHIP to address the needs of the two million children whose families make too much money to be covered by Medicaid, but cannot afford private insurance.

The resulting program, a compromise between Republicans and Democrats, disburses money to the states but gives them flexibility to tailor how they provide coverage to meet the needs of their own children and families. Some expanded Medicaid; others created separate programs. As a result, the number of uninsured children in America has dropped by half. Children miss less school because of illness or injury, and we’ve seen a significant decline in childhood mortality.

Read more at New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/opinion/hillary-clinton-and-bill-frist-on-health-care-for-americas-kids.html?_r=1

I’ve Seen A Measles Outbreak; It’s Not Something We Want To Risk By Denigrating Vaccines (Forbes)

FORBES | I last witnessed a measles outbreak in 2011. Thousands were sick with high fevers, dry cough, and a spreading rash. Three quarters of the ill were children under five years old, and the disease was spreading rapidly. Once the outbreak began, immunization response strategies could barely keep up. It took months before even the hospitalized pediatric patients were all vaccinated.

Back then I was in the Dadaab refugee camp, near the border of Kenya and Somalia. I’m horrified to think we are courting a similar outbreak in America.

In the United States, before 1963, there were 400,000 cases of measles per year. One thousand of those children developed measles encephalitis, a serious brain infection, and often subsequent permanent disability. An estimated 400-500 of those children died, and many who lived were plagued with permanent disabilities including deafness.

In 2000, the U.S. had no measles cases. One of the most infectious diseases was eradicated by one of the most effective vaccines we have. The measles vaccine, which is 95% effective after one dose, decreased incidence of the measles in this country by 99%. Thanks to vaccine science, we had achieved a monumental public health milestone.

Read more at Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrist/2015/02/11/the-republican-position-on-vaccines-and-the-measles-outbreak/#7f6212c11526

New Tennessee telemedicine law grows health care access

I am convinced that telemedicine is a crucial part of the solution for delivery of healthcare in the United States–care that isn’t yet affordable or accessible for all. Tennessee has made important steps toward ensuring telemedicine is an option for our citizens, but there’s more to do.

Telemedicine is in its infancy in Tennessee. Specialists at our university medical centers provide remote consultations and conduct virtual patient examinations. School nurses in rural counties use secure telemedicine links for consults. But it is vastly underused where the need is the highest: in the delivery of primary care.

Telemedicine can prevent an ER visit on a Saturday night and keep a busy Monday morning on track. Patients can avoid travel time, last-minute child care arrangements and a lengthy stay in the waiting room.

Telemedicine does not replace the need for a relationship with a family physician, but it does serve as a convenient, affordable and high-quality alternative to an unnecessary ER visit.

Last year, Tennessee became the 21st state to enact “telemedicine parity” legislation requiring that insurers reimburse licensed health care providers for services delivered remotely just as they would for in-person visits.

The legislation removes the wasteful financial incentive to having patients make a trip to an emergency room when a telemedicine consult would suffice. In both cases, the reimbursement to the provider would be the same. Tennessee’s parity law also includes TennCare, the state’s managed Medicaid program. The law was signed by Gov. Bill Haslam in April and became effective Jan. 1.

It’s a good first step, but Tennessee must go further. We need two additional assurances.

Read more at The Tennessean.

We Must All Play a Role in Ending Childhood Obesity (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)

ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION | We all want our kids and grandkids to grow up happier and healthier than we did. Instead, today’s children are the first generation of young Americans to face the prospect of living their entire lives in poorer health and dying younger than previous generations.

The reason is no mystery. Too many of our children – one in three, according to studies – are overweight. We are allowing, and in some ways encouraging, our kids to consume more calories, more sugar, more fat, more sodium. At the same time we’re enabling a more sedentary lifestyle. Running, jumping, skipping, dancing, biking – today’s children simply don’t move as much as they once did, making it that much harder to keep off the pounds.

The childhood obesity epidemic is having a devastating affect on too many families. Obese and overweight children are sick more often. They too often endure prejudice and bullying at school, leaving them embarrassed and depressed. They miss more school. When they grow up, they have more difficulty leading productive work lives. And they are more likely to suffer from chronic illnesses directly linked to obesity, such as diabetes and heart disease.

Read more at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Blog:

https://www.rwjf.org/en/blog/2015/02/we_must_all_playar.html

The Physician’s Role and End-of-Life

Over the past several months, I’ve been championing a revolution in end-of-life care. The care models need to change. Reimbursement strategies need to change. The way we think and talk about end-of-life needs to change.

And physician education needs to change. We, as doctors, need a new perspective on our role as healers and what that means when our patients can no longer be healed.

In the March issue of Academic Medicine (preprint available now), I look at the history of end-of life care, and consider how we should incorporate palliative care into our evolving healthcare landscape. As a preview to the academic paper, I’ve written a column at Forbes on some of the challenges.

This is a topic that deserves much thoughtful attention. I’d love your input.

Recent thoughts on end-of-life and palliative care:

Palliative Care: More than just end-of-life planning, Morning Consult, September 2014
Palliative Care: We know we need it, but how will the system pay for it?, National Institute for Health Care Management, September 2014
The Landscape of Long-Term Care, Aspen Ideas Festival session, June 2014
Bipartisan Policy Center Long-Term Care Initiative Launch, April 2014
NIC for Seniors Housing & Care Executives keynote, event preview interview, February 2014
Digitize your own advanced-care plan, The Hill, December 2013
End of life stories give us impetus to learn, Tennessean, December 2013
End-of-life care plan can ensure wishes are respected, Tennessean, November 2013
2013 Health Care Investors Conference report, November 2013
Elderly need options for palliative care, Tennessean, October 2013
We often avoid important conversation, Tennessean, October 2013
It’s never too early to discuss your final wishes, Tennessean, September 2013

Bill Frist supports Haslam’s Insure Tennessee plan (The Tennessean)

THE TENNESSEAN | Medicaid expansion has been a contentious topic since the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision holding mandatory state participation was unduly coercive. And the arguments against expansion are well-founded: Does the federal government really have enough money to fund this? What happens if the money runs out? We have tried this before and it was too expensive!

This last point sounded especially loudly in Tennessee; just ten years ago over 170,000 disenrolled from TennCare.

However, we have seen first hand that healthcare costs are a zero sum game. Removing insurance does not remove disease. Shifting costs away from the state in the form of insurance coverage only moved these expenses to hospital systems, which continue to provide emergency coverage to all Tennesseans regardless of insurance as required by federal law.

As a result, Davidson County alone saw as much as an 18 percent increase in emergency room visits and hospitals saw a 60 percent increase in their uncollectable debt.

Tennessee needs a solution that can address these questions of cost while considering the specific needs of Tennesseans. What Governor Haslam has negotiated with Insure Tennessee is just that. What he is proposing is not the cookie cutter Medicaid Expansion offered under the Affordable Care Act. It is a Tennessee-specific solution to close the coverage gap left between subsidies offered under the ACA and Tennessee’s current Medicaid coverage.

Read more at The Tennessean: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2015/01/09/support-homegrown-solution-medicaid-coverage-gap/21487965/