Health Disparities: Dr. Uché Blackstock Talks About Advancing Health Equity

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Uché Blackstock, Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, an organization dedicated to addressing racial disparities in American health care and in medical education. An Emergency Medicine physician and Medical Contributor to Yahoo News, Dr. Blackstock is a rising activist seeking to address inequities that greatly impact people of color and ethnic minorities – leading to poor health outcomes in the pandemic, and across the healthcare spectrum. She is also seeking to address a lack of diversity in medicine, and the challenges people of color encounter when entering the medical profession.

Maureen Bisognano, president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

This week, Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Maureen Bisognano, president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, about advancing patient safety and quality while improving value and controlling cost.

Dr. Deborah Birx Reacts to Vice President Testing Positive for COVID; Criticizes Trump White House Pandemic Communications

Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx shared her perspective about Vice President Kamala Harris testing positive for COVID with “Conversations on Health Care.”

Birx says, “I think [the vice president’s diagnosis] illustrates our very dilemma right now. She was vaccinated, boostered and then reboosted just a month ago and I’m sure she will do incredibly well. She has access to all of the really critical therapeutics…people get infected despite full vaccinations and boosting.”

Birx told hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that the “mishandling of communications by the Trump White House caused significant issues on the ground no matter what state I went into and caused amazing confusion among the American people.”

Birx answered questions as she talked about her new book “Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of the Trump Administration, Covid-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It's Too Late.”

Leah Binder, CEO of the Leapfrog Group

This week on Conversations on Health Care, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Leah Binder, Chief Executive Officer of the Leapfrog Group, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving safety in the hospital setting. She discusses the Leapfrog Hospital Survey and the Hospital Safety Score which coalesce patient safety data to rank hospitals for quality and safety across the country.

Patients At Risk: Leapfrog Group CEO Leah Binder on High Rate of Avoidable Deaths in America's Hospitals

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Leah Binder, CEO of the Leapfrog Group, which is dedicated promoting patient safety through better transparency in hospital errors leading to avoidable deaths. She discusses the 161 thousand error-related hospital deaths last year, and the latest Hospital Safety Grade, which scores hospitals on their safety measure performance.

Addressing Upstream Causes of Poor Health: UCSF's Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo on Embedding Social Determinants Into Healthcare

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California at San Francisco, who recently chaired a committee at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on the social determinants of health. She discusses their report on ways to incorporate social care into health care, shifting the American health system towards better management of upstream causes of poor health.

JAMA’s Editor: Rebuilding Trust & Reaching More Readers

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which was first published 141 years ago, is grappling with modern challenges as the most widely circulated general medical journal in the world. At the forefront is Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, its relatively new editor-in-chief.

Dr. Bibbins-Domingo took the helm at a tumultuous time and has a clear vision for how JAMA should deal with equity in medicine and the public’s lack of trust in health care.

She told hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter at Aspen Ideas: Health that “I am not the keeper of trust for the journal. I am not the keeper of our focus on equity.” But she said she has installed new processes “so that we could collectively have those conversations, be more transparent around them, think about the processes that help us make sure that we are always trying to be the best that we can be.” That includes giving JAMA employees and authors a voice in discussions about equity and increasing transparency with readers.

Dr. Bibbins-Domingo also focused on how to keep JAMA connected to its current audience while attracting new audiences using an omnichannel approach, especially social media.

“I think about what JAMA and the JAMA Network have to do right now is do the core functions the same way we’ve always done it…vetting the science, making sure this is science you can trust, putting the stamp of approval in that way on it, and then publishing it. And then we have to do something that I think all journals need to do better… and that is being a modern communication vehicle,” she said.

Quest to Improve Maternal And Childhood Health: Dr. Diana Bianchi Talks About Research Mission at the NICHD

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Diana Bianchi, Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the NIH, the largest funder of health research in the world. She oversees a $1.5 billion budget conducting research in all phases of child health from maternal and reproductive health, to infant diagnostics, adolescence into adulthood, and all people with intellectual disabilities.

Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, Founder and President of The Civic Engine

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, Founder of The Civic Engine which assists civic leaders in strengthening the economic drivers of health in communities. The long-time Director of Occupational and Environmental Health for San Francisco, Dr. Bhatia developed innovative Health Impact Assessment tools to improve health throughout all sectors of the city focusing on open data sharing and transparency.

Dr. Clement Bezold, Chairman of The Institute for Alternative Futures

This week, Mark and Margaret speak with futurist Dr. Clement Bezold, co-founder and Chairman of the Institute for Alternative Futures. Dr. Bezold outlines his report on the future of health care in America, based on long term analysis of the impact of technology, genomics and health care reform.

Dr. Clement Bezold, Chairman of The Institute for Alternative Futures

This week, Mark and Margaret speak with futurist Dr. Clement Bezold, co-founder and Chairman of the Institute for Alternative Futures. Dr. Bezold outlines his report on the future of health care in America, based on long term analysis of the impact of technology, genomics and health care reform.

Adriel Bettelheim, Managing Editor at CQ Roll Call

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Adriel Bettelheim, Managing Editor for Health at CQ Roll Call/Economist which boasts the largest press corps on Capitol Hill. Mr. Bettelheim discusses the legislative landscape impacting the Affordable Care Act as well as the emerging payment reforms aimed at reducing health care spending

Pretend You Have Millions to Fix Health Care: What Would You Do? A Doctor Gives His Answer

If you ran a healthcare foundation worth nearly $1 billion, where would you invest those dollars? That a question Dr. Joseph Betancourt, his colleagues and board members get to tackle every day.

Former CDC Chief Questions U.S Reaction to Chinese COVID Outbreak

Dr. Richard Besser, who once led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doesn’t believe the recently enacted U.S. COVID testing requirement for anyone arriving from China will have much of an impact.

Besser, who is currently president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says he feels such actions are often “more for show than truly for controlling a public health threat” and recalls that 14 years ago possible border closings during the H1N1 outbreak were seen as ineffective.

Besser joins hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter to share his insights about the XBB.1.5 Omicron Subvariant, ways to strengthen public health and the tripledemic threat (RSV, COVID and the flu).

Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear, the only Southern Governor choosing to both expand Medicaid in his state as well as create an online insurance exchange. He talks about why the exchange, called Kynect, is working so well and discusses the positive impact the Affordable care Act is poised to have on the state's economy as well as its public health.

“We Are On Fire”: Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear on Pandemic Surge Pushing Hospital Capacity to Brink by the Unvaccinated

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D), on the dire situation in the Commonwealth as the delta-driven pandemic pushes the state’s hospitals to ‘disaster’ mode. He laments the recent State Supreme Court decision limiting his executive order powers, for initiating universal masking for all Kentucky children returning to day care and school, calling it ‘the right thing to do’ for vulnerable kids. He discusses efforts to battle the crisis with assistance from the National Guard and FEMA to address hospitals at the breaking point, with this much more contagious variant leading to highest death rates since the pandemic began, driven predominantly by unvaccinated people.

Dr. Don Berwick, Recent Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Conversations speaks with Dr. Don Berwick, recent head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and a longtime advocate of patient safety and overhaul of the health care industry. Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Berwick about transforming health care for all Americans and his focus on the triple aim of better quality, better health, and lower costs in health care.

The Political Challenges in American Health Reform: Former CMS Administrator Don Berwick on the Need for Clinician Activism

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Don Berwick, President Emeritus of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and former CMS Administrator who oversaw the launch of the Affordable Care Act. He talks about inherent political challenges in American health care, the need for providers to get active politically, and the promise of real innovations in the health system coming from outside the industry.

Hear From a Progressive and Conservative - Can We Find Common Ground in Health Care?

Roughly 112 million Americans voted in the recent mid-term elections and the candidates and issues they voted on will have profound implications for health care policy in the states, at the national level and ultimately in all of our lives. We’re following up on our series called “Health Care on the Ballot” with this discussion focused on the results and what they mean.

Join hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter in conversation with Dr. Donald Berwick, former CMS Administrator in the Obama administration, and James Capretta, a former Bush administration budget official. Perhaps surprisingly, we found areas they agree on, including the value of telehealth.

Mark Bertolini, president of Aetna, on the insurance industry’s response to health-care reform.

Conversations on Health Care® focuses this week on the health insurance industry. Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Mark Bertolini, president of Aetna, on the new era for the health insurance industry following national health reform.