"This is the largest government study ever on its own people.” Nancy Kass, Sc.D., a professor of bioethics and public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, was talking about the Precision Medicine Initiative, now called the All of Us Research Program. Kass says she makes that bold statement deliberately and with humility, because she chairs the institutional review board (IRB) for the project, which aims to create a million-person cohort...

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My co-authors and I at the University of Glasgow are investigating how restrictions on interoperability imposed by Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems might impact the market for goods. We are doing this as part of a larger project to better understand the economics of DRM and to figure out what changes would likely occur if the laws were reformed. Our recent working paper is titled ‘How much do consumers value interoperability: Evidence from the price of DVD players’...

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Start-ups in the life science sector are a source of invaluable innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and ultimately, important developments that could improve patient health. It is through new ideas that the sector can face current and future challenges, such as an ageing population, the need to invest in new-generation, digitalised technology, and a rise in patient demand of service and value for money. But data shows that 90% of all start-ups fail within the first year, a worrying statistic considering the wealth of advantages that innovation can bring to the life sciences industry...

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No matter how it resolves, the fiercely partisan debate over repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act will not solve America’s true health care crisis. Indeed, a key reason why expanding coverage is so hard is that health care services cost so much, making insurance premiums unaffordable to many. Driven by lack of competition, ever higher prices are being paid to hospitals, doctors and insurers without leading to better outcomes. It’s time to implement a competition policy for health care before Americans crumple under a system that is devouring family and government budgets...

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As eClinicalWorks faces a possible class action lawsuit and the potential for clients to switch to rival EHR vendors, some customers are coming forward with complaints about their treatment. The company countered that it is still signing up new healthcare organizations and at least one user has noticed the vendor changing its ways. At May’s end, the U.S. Department of Justice – in a settlement that included a $155 million fine – mandated that the EHR vendor either upgrade existing customers' software for free or transfer their data to a rival’s electronic health record platform...

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