Health & Veritas

Mitesh Rao, co-founder and CEO of OMNY Health, joins Howie and Harlan to discuss his entrepreneurial journey and how his company is creating a common layer of data connecting healthcare providers and researchers. Harlan reports on a study showing how many lives could be saved by improving quality of care; Howie reflects on the health consequences that have accompanied the legalization of cannabis.  Links: Quality and Lives Saved “The business case for quality: estimating lives saved and harms avoided in a value-based purchasing model” The CMS Innovation Center NCQA: Hedis Measures South Park: “Navigating the American Healthcare System” Mitesh Rao OMNY Health: Connect Data to Transform Lives “OMNY Health announces $17 Million Raise to Lead the Next Generation of Real-World Data-Driven Decision-Making and Collaboration Across Healthcare” Crunchbase: OMNY Health “How Venture Capital Works” UK Biobank: Enabling Scientific Discoveries that Improve Human Health “The Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program: Four Decades of Training Physicians as Agents of Change” HIPAA: Health Information Privacy Yale Innovation Summit Cannabis and Health “Justice Department Submits Proposed Regulation to Reschedule Marijuana” “Changes in self-reported cannabis use in the United States from 1979 to 2022” Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome “Cannabis and Psychosis: Recent Epidemiological Findings Continuing the ‘Causality Debate’” “High-potency marijuana highlights the risk of cannabis-induced psychiatric disorders” Marijuana Addiction Facts: Is Marijuana Addictive? Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Josh Geballe, Mary Ann Melnick, and Lee Schwamm discuss the Yale Innovation Summit, government support for startups, Yale's innovation initiatives, building innovation ecosystems in New Haven, and implementing innovative solutions in healthcare.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Chima Ndumele of the Yale School of Public Health to discuss his research on structural changes to Medicaid that could keep vulnerable populations healthier. Harlan reports on the remarkable abilities of Google's latest medicine-focused AI; Howie reflects on a study showing the impact of race-neutral measures of lung function.  Links: AI and Medicine “Capabilities of Gemini Models in Medicine” Medicaid Medicaid.gov “10 Things to Know About Medicaid” Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) “Long-Term Stability of Coverage Among Michigan Medicaid Beneficiaries: A Cohort Study” “Unwinding And The Medicaid Undercount: Millions Enrolled In Medicaid During The Pandemic Thought They Were Uninsured” Chima Ndumele: “Variation in Health Outcomes: The Role of Spending on Social Services, Public Health, and Health Care, 2000–09” Chima Ndumele: “In Medicaid Managed Care Networks, Care Is Highly Concentrated Among A Small Percentage Of Physicians” “N.C. developing plan to improve Medicaid participants’ job prospects” “Yale School of Public Health Graduates Urged to Adopt a “Healthy Disregard for the Impossible” Race and Lung Function “Implications of Race Adjustment in Lung-Function Equations” Harlan Krumholz: “Association of Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities with Outcomes among Patients Hospitalized with Acute Myocardial Infarction, Heart Failure, and Pneumonia. An Analysis of Within- and Between-Hospital Variation” “Q&A: Harlan Krumholz on hospital readmissions” Health & Veritas Live on May 30 Join Howie and Harlan in person at the Yale Innovation Summit. Watch live on YouTube. Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Ruth Katz, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine & Society Program and a former Capitol Hill staffer, to discuss her work on the Affordable Care Act and other major healthcare laws. Harlan reflects on a study showing that using different analytical approaches to the same data can lead to a wide range of conclusions; Howie reports on a wave of dangerous infections caused by stem cell treatments at clinics in Mexico.  Links: Reproducible Research “Grilling the data: application of specification curve analysis to red meat and all-cause mortality” “Many Analysts, One Data Set: Making Transparent How Variations in Analytic Choices Affect Results” Ruth Katz “Reflecting on Past Accomplishments to Make History Moving Forward: The NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 and the New Office of Autoimmune Disease Research “Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?” National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Health Resources and Services Administration: Vaccine Injury Table “Brilliant Minds. Bold Approaches. Better Health. Aspen Ideas: Health Announces Programming Themes for 2024” Medical Tourism and Stem Cell Treatments “Stem cell injections in Mexico can be hazardous. Report identifies US victims” CDC: Medical Tourism Health & Veritas Live on May 30 Join Howie and Harlan in person at the Yale Innovation Summit Watch live on YouTube Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Greg Licholai, a Yale SOM lecturer and biotech entrepreneur, to discuss his career and his work at the contract research organization ICON, which performs clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies. Harlan reports on new research illustrating the dangerous consequences of asking patients to share the costs of life-saving drugs; Howie provides the good news and the bad news from the annual Medicare Trustees Report.  Links: Cost-Sharing and Mortality “The Health Costs Of Cost-Sharing” “The Boys of January” Greg Licholai ICON plc Greg Licholai in Forbes Boston Children's Hospital: Sickle Cell Disease The State of the Medicare Trust Fund Medicare: Coverage Gap 2024 Medicare Trustees Report KFF: FAQs on Medicare Financing and Trust Fund Solvency KFF: What to Know about Medicare Spending and Financing Health & Veritas Live on May 30 Join Howie and Harlan in person at the Yale Innovation Summit Watch live on YouTube Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan discuss health and healthcare headlines. From flatlining telehealth to Walmart closing retail clinics to months-long waits for healthcare appointments, they try to untangle the challenges in delivering healthcare. Also considered, H5N1 bird flu increasing the risks of drinking unpasteurized milk, promising research on open-source moderation of misinformation on social media. Links: Yale Repertory Theater | The Far Country CDC | H5N1 “US bird flu outbreak spreads to chickens, cattle, raises concerns over human infections” “Raw Milk Is Being Legalized in More States. Is It Safe?” “Recipe for a Healthy Gut: Intake of Unpasteurised Milk Is Associated with Increased Lactobacillus Abundance in the Human Gut Microbiome“ “Long-time Teladoc leader departs as virtual care provider struggles with post-COVID tumble” “Teladoc sinks $13.7B loss in 2022 tied to plummeting value of Livongo acquisition” “Optum layoffs: naviHealth CEO out; Virtual care business shuttered” Connecticut | Certificate of Needs Characteristics of X (Formerly Twitter) Community Notes Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation “Walmart is closing down its health centers. What’s that mean for Amazon, Walgreens and CVS?” “Walgreens narrows profit outlook for 2024, takes $6B hit in Q2 from VillageMD investment” “Why It Takes Forever to Get a Doctor’s Appointment” Yale Innovation Summit 2024 Link for the Health & Veritas Livestream at the Yale Innovation Summit Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Arthur Caplan, Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics and founding head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, to discuss the ethical failings of the pharmaceutical industry and how a community-focused ethos prioritizing justice and protection of the vulnerable would have reshaped the COVID response. Harlan reports on developments in synthetic proteins. Howie recognizes World Malaria Day. Links: Division of Medical Ethics: NYU Langone “‘You’ve got bad blood’: The horror of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment” “When Evil Intrudes” “Surgeons Perform World’s First Combined Heart Pump And Pig Kidney Transplant—Latest Breakthrough Involving Pig Organ” “Biden trolls Trump on injecting bleach anniversary” Frequently Asked Questions on Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) “A quiet revolution in organ transplant ethics” Center for Healthcare Ethics: The Provider-Patient Relationship “Ex-Stanford President’s AI Drug Startup Pulls In $1 Billion in Commitments” “Protein wrangler, serial entrepreneur, and community builder: Inside David Baker’s brain” Baker Lab: Home Page “Atomically accurate de novo design of single-domain antibodies” National Cancer Institute: Definition of a Monoclonal Antibody Malaria: World Health Organization  CDC: Malaria’s Impact Worldwide UNICEF: Ten things you didn’t know about malaria Yale Innovation Summit 2024 Link for the Health & Veritas Livestream at the Yale Innovation Summit Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Scott Berkowitz ’03, cardiologist and chief population health officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine, to discuss the necessity of moving from fee-for-service to value-based care delivery to improve outcomes for all. Harlan highlights the dangers of misinformation about Ivermectin. Howie reports on the potential conflicts of interest created by device manufacturers’ payments to cardiologists. Links: Johns Hopkins Medicine: Home Johns Hopkins Community Health Partnership “Association of a Care Coordination Model With Health Care Costs and Utilization” “Planning for the Future of Population Health: The Johns Hopkins Medicine Experience” “Califf’s long day on Capitol Hill” “The FDA Deleted Its Viral Ivermectin Tweets. Now There’s Even More Misinformation.” “Philly Nonprofit Awarded $48 Million to Apply AI in Search for New Uses for Approved Drugs Posted on March 12, 2024” “Effect of Early Treatment with Ivermectin among Patients with Covid-19” “Effect of Ivermectin vs Placebo on Time to Sustained Recovery in Outpatients With Mild to Moderate COVID-19” “Effect of Higher-Dose Ivermectin for 6 Days vs Placebo on Time to Sustained Recovery in Outpatients With COVID-19” “Systematic review and meta-analysis of ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19: evidence beyond the hype” Ivermectin and Covid “FDA settles lawsuit over ivermectin content that doctors claimed harmed their practice” “Intravascular Microaxial Left Ventricular Assist Device Manufacturer Payments to Cardiologists and Use of Devices” “Impact of Industry Payments on Prescribing Patterns for Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitors Among Medicare Beneficiaries” Yale Innovation Summit 2024 Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Atheendar Venkataramani, a physician, health economist, and director of the Perelman School of Medicine’s Opportunity for Health Lab, to discuss the powerful role of economic opportunity in population health outcomes. Harlan reports on two studies where treatments’ unexpected benefits leapt ahead of understanding why they work. Howie reflects on the business model of the pharma industry and the market reaction to anti-obesity drugs. Links: Opportunity for Health | Home “College Affirmative Action Bans and Smoking and Alcohol Use among Underrepresented Minority Adolescents in the United States: A Difference-in-differences Study” “Police Killings and Their Spillover Effects on the Mental Health of Black Americans: A Population-based, Quasi-experimental Study” “Officer-Involved Killings of Unarmed Black People and Racial Disparities in Sleep Health“ Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System | Home “Building Black Wealth — The Role of Health Systems in Closing the Gap“ KFF | Understanding Mergers Between Hospitals and Health Systems in Different Markets “In Hospitals, Affordable Housing Gets the Long-Term Investor It Needs” American College of Cardiology 73rd Annual Scientific Session & Expo  “Semaglutide in Patients with Obesity-Related Heart Failure and Type 2 Diabetes“ “Coronary sinus reducer for the treatment of refractory angina (ORBITA-COSMIC): a randomised, placebo-controlled trial” “A Placebo-Controlled Trial of PCI for Stable Angina“ “Trial of Lixisenatide in Early Parkinson’s Disease“ “The Cream of The Crop: 5 Biotechs That Outrank Most Stocks” “How High Can Eli Lilly Stock Go? $1,000 A Share, One Analyst Says” Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, to discuss the programs’ underappreciated advances in holistically addressing health, housing, and food security. Reflecting on the upcoming election, Harlan notes that facts matter, whether in medicine or politics. Howie reports on the dangers of glyoxylic acid in hair straightening products. Links: “Trump Leads Biden in Six of Seven Swing States, WSJ Poll Finds” “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” “The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers” The Future of Health Policy in a Partisan United States “Netflix blockbuster ‘3 Body Problem’ divides opinion and sparks nationalist anger in China” “The Future of American Democracy Depends on Improving U.S. Health” Wikipedia | Glyoxylic acid Kidney Injury and Hair-Straightening Products Containing Glyoxylic Acid American Cancer Society | Formaldehyde and Cancer Risk Kaiser Family Foundation | 10 Things to Know About the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Provision Kaiser Family Foundation | Medicaid Postpartum Coverage Extension Tracker CMS | NHE Fact Sheet Moral Injuries in Healthcare Workers: What Causes Them and What to Do About Them? NCDHHS | Healthy Opportunities Pilots HealthTech4Medicaid | About Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.