Practical Wisdom – The Right Way to Do the Right Thing

New to the Book Club Why do our institutions and systems, including healthcare, seem to be getting more complex and more costly but not better? This fascinating book argues that we have lost practical wisdom – the ability to balance the need for reasonable rules and standards with doing the right thing. The law of…

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What We’re Reading this week

Welcome to What We’re Reading — our new feature at CT Health Notes. We’ll include links to background, updates and just entertaining pieces we found helpful this week. What We’re Reading is part of Advocate to Advocate, the CT Health Policy Project’s mission to expand policy capacity in our state’s advocacy community. More on that…

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CTNJ policy series starts Jan. 16 with state budget

CT News Junkie is launching Let’s Talk, a new policy forum series, to explore complex challenges facing Connecticut. The series starts Wednesday, January 16th at 10am with The Squeeze is On: The Next State Budget. Revenue isn’t keeping up with past promises and tough challenges across issues will be hard to fix without resources. Panelists…

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ICER seeking new members of comparative effectiveness panel

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) has opened nominations for their New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council. The council, one of three in the US, is composed of leading clinicians, patient and public representatives, methodologists, and health economists. The group meets three times each year to consider ICER effectiveness reports on the…

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Health Policy undergrad class resources online

The most recent slides, assignments, and syllabus, including reading list, for an undergraduate course in health policy are online. There is no required text for the class, but lots of readings. The course focuses on Connecticut health policy and is required of Public Health majors at Southern CT State University as a designated writing class.…

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Survey of state legislators’ values for health reform finds strong differences by party but some encouraging overlap

Both Democratic and Republican state legislators from across the US agree on the need to control health care costs, according to a new survey published in the American Journal of Public Health. However, other top priorities between the parties differ strongly. Republicans prioritized smaller government along with reducing costs while Democrats prioritize improving health equity…

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CTNJ: CT health policy has trust issues

An OP-ED today in CT News Junkie describes the sorry level of mistrust in CT health policymaking. “Mistrust is pervasive in Connecticut policymaking and it’s blocking progress.” Luckily we know how to fix it – if only we have the sense.Read the piece

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Mistrust in Connecticut health policymaking – Thoughtleaders, public weigh in on the problem and propose solutions

Connecticut health policymaking has trust issues. This year Connecticut health thoughtleaders rated trust among stakeholders at only 26 out of 100 possible points, with zero to ten being the most common response. Low trust scores were found in every stakeholder group. Research confirms that trust is an essential foundation to governing and reform; without it…

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Updated CT Health System Primer online

Our Basics of CT’s Health System has been updated for 2016. It addresses private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, the uninsured, health care financing, reform and where CT stands. The primer is part of our resource collection available at cthealthbook.org.

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New Haven Register Forum: ICER part of solution in addressing drug effectiveness, cost

From yesterday’s New Haven Register: The news is full of recent drug companies’ breathtaking price hikes. A new study by Reuters finds that prices for four of the top 10 U.S. drugs more than doubled since 2011, and prices for the other six rose more than 50 percent. These drugs treat common problems such as arthritis, asthma…

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