Author Interviews, Heart Disease / 20.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Shiwani Mahajan, MBBS Postdoctoral Associate Yale/YNHH Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) New Haven, CT 06510  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Although the mortality rates among patients hospitalized for myocardial infarction (MI) have seen a decreasing trend, patients with MI continue to have a delayed presentation to the hospital and a large number of them die before reaching the hospital. One critical aspect of lowering mortality associated with MI is ensuring timely access to lifesaving emergency cardiac care, for which prompt recognition of symptoms of a MI and appropriate rapid emergency response are crucial. As such, in this study, we used nationally representative data to estimate awareness of 5 common symptoms of a MI (including chest pain or discomfort; shortness of breath; pain or discomfort in arms or shoulders; feeling weak or lightheaded; and jaw or neck or back pain), and the appropriate response to a MI (i.e. calling emergency medical services), among adults in the US. (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Weight Research / 19.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lauren Teras, PHD Scientific Director, Epidemiology Research American Cancer Society MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Excess body weight is a known cause of postmenopausal breast cancer, but an important question is: can you reverse it? Believe it or not, this not something we knew for certain. We had hoped it was true, but the scientific evidence was not there. This research question is, of course, particularly important for the more than two-thirds of U.S. women who are overweight or obese, and therefore at higher risk for breast cancer. To try to answer this question, we used a very large pooled study of 180,000 women aged ≥50 years from 10 different prospective studies.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Medical Imaging, Technology / 11.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. David Steiner, MD PhD Google Health, USA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Advances in artificial intelligence raise promising opportunities for improved interpretation of chest X-rays and many other types of medical images. However, even before researchers begin to address the critical question of clinical validation, there is important work to be done establishing strategies for evaluating and comparing different artificial intelligence algorithms. One challenge is defining and collecting the correct clinical interpretation or “label” for the large number of chest X-rays needed to train and evaluate these algorithms. Another important challenge is evaluating the algorithm on a dataset that actually represents the diversity of the cases encountered in clinical practice. For example, it might be relatively easy to make an algorithm that performs perfectly on a few hundred or so “easy” cases, but this of course might not be particularly useful in practice. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, Dermatology, JAMA / 11.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lily Wang Student at University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response:  Impaired skin barrier and aberrant immune function in atopic dermatitis (AD) may impact immune response to malignancy. Conflicting data exist on the risk of cancer in patients with AD. The purpose of our study was to determine the risk of non-cutaneous and cutaneous cancers in patients with atopic dermatitis compared to the general population (i.e. without AD).  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, Primary Care / 11.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Julie Reiff BA Researcher Health Care Cost Institute  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Prior studies have attempted to define primary care spending and quantify such spending. Using definitions from the Milbank Memorial Fund, we used Health Care Cost Institute data to calculate primary care utilization and spending among those age 0-64 with employer-sponsored insurance. (more…)
Author Interviews, Health Care Systems, University of Pittsburgh / 10.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Hayley Drew Germack PhD Assistant Professor of Acute and Tertiary Care University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The rate of rural hospital closures has been increasing over the last ten years. Rural hospitals close for a number of reasons including poor hospital economic health tied to uncompensated care and community factors, like a local aging population. Rural hospital and unit closures have been tied to decreased access to emergency and specialty care for patients including decreased access to obstetric-gynecological services and increase travel time for appointments. A recent paper also found a 6% increase in mortality in conditions needing emergent attention after rural hospital closures. We examined the impact of hospital closures in rural counties on the counties’ supply of physicians. (more…)
Addiction, Author Interviews, Opiods, Technology / 10.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Anna Konova, PhD Assistant Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry & UBHC Core Faculty, Brain Health Institute Rutgers University - New Brunswick MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Opioid reuse and relapse are common outcomes even when a person is seeking treatment for their addiction. These reuse events pose many health risks, as well as risk for treatment failure. We currently lack the much needed tools to understand and predict this reuse vulnerability. In this study, we used computer games that assess a person's decision making process, to get at psychological processes related to how people make decisions involving risks, when they transitioned between lower and higher reuse vulnerability states during the first few months of opioid treatment. (more…)
Author Interviews, Autism, Genetic Research, Nature, Pediatrics / 10.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Stephen Scherer, PhD, FRSC Senior Scientist, Genetics & Genome Biology Director, The Centre for Applied Genomics SickKids Hospital Toronto MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: One of the most common questions we get from parents with a child with autism is, "what is the likelihood of having a second or third child with autism, and what is the chance others in our family will have kids with autism?". To help provide answers to these questions, we started the infant (or baby) siblings study ten years ago. Families having an older sibling with a diagnosis of autism were invited to enroll their next born for assessment and following to see if they also developed autism, and what the likelihood of that happening was. Biological samples like blood, and DNA from blood, were also collected and tested.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, JAMA, Race/Ethnic Diversity, Social Issues / 02.12.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Lynn Blewett, PhD Mayo Professor, Division of Health Policy and Management Director, State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) University of Minnesota MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We used a new set of questions about patient's perspectives of cultural competence of their providers that was added to the National Health Interview Survey and accessed through the Minnesota Population Center IPUMS Health Surveys.   MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? Response: Most patients (97%) report being treated with respect by their providers. BUT we also found important disparities.  Black or Hispanic (vs White), uninsured (vs insured), and low income (vs >200% FPL) individuals reported being treated with respect less often, viewed a shared culture as more important, and saw providers who shared culture less often. (more…)
Author Interviews, JAMA / 27.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: James S. Goodwin, M.D. George and Cynthia Mitchell Distinguished Chair in Geriatric Medicine University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston, TX  77555-0177James S. Goodwin, M.D. George and Cynthia Mitchell Distinguished Chair in Geriatric Medicine University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston, TX  77555-0177 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Full time hospital doctors, called hospitalists, now provide the medical care for most patients hospitalized in the US. Depending on the hospital and also the hospitalist group, the working schedules of hospitalists can have vary greatly. For example, some might work 8 AM to 5PM for seven days followed by seven days off. Others might work 24 hours on and 72 hours off. Depending on the schedule of the hospitalists proving care, a patient  might have one or two or three or more different doctors proving care during their stay. Some patients see a new doctor each day. Our goal was to see if patients who received care from hospitalists who tended to work several days in a row did better than those who were cared for many different hospitalists with intermittent schedules. (more…)
Author Interviews, Blood Pressure - Hypertension, JAMA / 26.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Brian S. Alper, MD, MSPH, FAAFP, FAMIA Board Certifications: Family Medicine, Clinical Informatics Founder of DynaMed Vice President of Innovations and Evidence-Based Medicine Development EBSCO Health  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We often use clinical practice guidelines as a “source of truth” for decision support for healthcare professionals and even as a standard of care for medical legal considerations.  However our experience evaluating guidelines for clinical reference support finds they are often inconsistent.  We picked one of the most common conditions managed in healthcare (ie hypertension, or high blood pressure) and sought out the top clinical practice guidelines that guide care around the world.   We systematically evaluated these guidelines against 70 specific recommendations to see how often the guidelines agreed or disagreed. (more…)
Author Interviews, CMAJ, Thyroid Disease / 18.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Richard Birtwhistle, Professor Departments of Family Medicine and Community Health and Epidemiology Director of the Centre for Studies, Primary Care, Department of Family Medicine Queen’s University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Testing for thyroid dysfunction is a commonly done by primary care practitioners. While the Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) test is an easy blood test to perform results outside the normal range are often found and will revert to normal over time without treatment in patients without symptoms. We wanted to see if there was any clinical benefit to patients by screening for thyroid dysfunction.  (more…)
Abuse and Neglect, Electronic Records, Yale / 15.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Edward R. Melnick, MD, MHS Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine Program Director, Yale-VA Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program Principal Investigator, EMBED Trial Network Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT 06519  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We know that physicians are frustrated with their EHRs and that EHRs are a driver of burnout. This is the first study to measure these issues nationally. We included a standardized metric of technology from other industries (System Usability Scale, SUS; range 0-100) on the AMA’s 2017 physician burnout survey. This metric has been used in >1300 other studies so we can compare where the EHR’s usability is to other everyday technologies. We are also able to measure the relationship between physicians’ perception of their EHR’s usability and the likelihood they are burned out. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, Rheumatology / 13.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Natalie McCormick, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Clinical Epidemiology Program Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology, Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School Arthritis Research Canada  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) have improved the health and productivity of many people living with moderate-to-severe inflammatory rheumatic diseases. They are also among the highest-spend drugs in the USA, with substantial out-of-pocket costs that pose barriers to treatment initiation and adherence. To understand the drivers of ongoing bDMARD spending growth, and effective ways of containing costs, we analysed drug spending data for all bDMARD claims in Medicare Part D, Part B fee-for-service, and Medicaid over 2012 to 2016, isolating the impact of changes in drug prices from changes in utilisation.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, Dermatology, JAMA, Rheumatology / 09.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Emily S. Ruiz, MD, MPH Director, High-Risk Skin Cancer Clinic, Dana Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, Dermatology Brigham And Women's Faulkner Hospital  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Innovation in oncology has led to increased development and market entry of anticancer drugs. For example, from 2009 to 2013, the US FDA approved 51 oral and systemic anticancer drugs for 63 indications. Prices for anticancer drugs have risen faster than inflation over time, especially for older drugs, and prices in the US have largely been set by market forces rather than novelty or efficacy. Understanding the evolving cancer economic landscape requires consideration of annual and cumulative rates of change for key metrics, such as total spending, drug cost per beneficiary, out-of-pocket cost, and utilization. This study sought to weigh the proportional impacts of rising drug costs and utilization on increased Medicare Part D spending for a cohort of oral anticancer drug utilized from 2013-2017.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA / 01.11.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rena M. Conti, PhD, Associate Professor Department of Markets, Public Policy and Law Questrom School of Business Boston University Boston, MA 02215 Co-Authors: Sayeh S. Nikpay, PhD Melinda B. Buntin, PhD Vanderbilt University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The federal 340B program provides deep discounts on the acquisition cost of prescription drugs for participating hospitals and places no limits on what hospitals charge patients and insurers.  Congress intended 340B profits generated from hospital participation to subsidize the provision of safety net care for patients residing in the community. This study is the first to estimate the size of profits hospitals participating in the 340B drug discount program collect from Medicare patients for the outpatient clinic administration of prescription drugs. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Health Care Systems / 22.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David S Buck, MD, MPH Associate Dean of Community Health Professor, Clinical Sciences University of Houston - College of Medicine Houston, TX 77204  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: High-Needs, High-Cost (HNHC) patients account for 5% of the general population and cost 50% of the healthcare spending. In Harris County, one patient alone costed $439,600 in a year when he visited multiple medical, social and behavioral agencies for care. This was a result of siloed systems working independently of each other leading to inefficient care for the patient. By providing coordinated care, using patient-centered goals and values, we are able to better engage and provide a holistic approach to patient care.  This paper introduces a novel ‘values-based’ intervention mechanism for the HNHC patients, in addition to a coordinated care management approach, through a single record system. The findings indicate an improved daily functioning of the HNHC patients over 4 months, improved relationship between the providers and the patients and moderate well-being scores. (more…)
Author Interviews, Education, University of Michigan / 18.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Chithra R. Perumalswami, MD, MSc Research Fellow Center for Bioethics & Social Sciences in Medicine University of Michigan  Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil Professor, Deputy Chair, and Residency Program Director Department of Radiation Oncology and Director Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine University of Michigan MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Burnout is a syndrome characterized by a sense of decreased personal accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization. It can lead to increased depression, illness, suicide, and absences from work. Physician burnout has reached epidemic proportions and physician-scientists are not immune from it. They are a critical part of the healthcare workforce who are responsible for translating innovative bench research to the bedside of patients, and in recent years have faced increasing pressures.  (more…)
Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Outcomes & Safety, Stanford / 08.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daniel Tawfik, MD, MS Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?  Response: Professional burnout is very common among health care providers and is frequently associated with poor quality of care in the published literature. However, we know that reporting biases are common in many fields of literature, and these biases typically result in exaggerated effects being published relative to the true effect. Research on burnout and quality of care appears especially vulnerable, because many studies are not pre-specified or have several potential methods of analysis. If the studies or analyses with more impressive results are more likely to be published, this would result in a skewed picture of the relationship between burnout and quality of care. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Health Care Systems, JAMA / 08.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: William Shrank, MD, MSHS Chief Medical Officer Humana  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Health care waste is a serious problem in the system and the rising and uncontrolled costs of healthcare remain one of the top political and social issues in the U.S. We thought that sufficient time had passed since the 2012 groundbreaking analysis that was developed by Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP and Andrew D. Hackbarth, MPhil, that first characterized waste in the US health system.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Critical Care - Intensive Care - ICUs, End of Life Care, Primary Care, Pulmonary Disease, University of Pennsylvania / 07.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Gary Weissman, MD, MSHP Assistant Professor of Medicine Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Division Palliative and Advanced Illness Research (PAIR) Center University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There are millions of hospitalizations every year in the United States (US) that include a stay in an intensive care unit (ICU). Such ICU stays put strain on health system resources, may be unwanted by patients, and are costly to society. As the population of the US gets older and more medically complex, some have argued that we need more ICU beds and a larger ICU workforce to keep pace. We hypothesized that some proportion of these ICU admissions could be prevented with early and appropriate outpatient care. Such a strategy would alleviate some of the strains and costs associated with ICU stays. If an appreciable proportion of ICU stays were preventable in this way, it would strengthen support for an alternative population-health based framework instead of further investments in the ICU delivery infrastructure.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Cost of Health Care, Diabetes, JAMA / 02.10.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Andrew Sumarsono, MD UT Southwestern Medical Center MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?   Response: There are currently 12 types of medications used to treat type 2 diabetes. With approximately 30 million adults living with diabetes in the United States, the rising cost of insulin has raised concerns about the affordability of diabetes care. We evaluated trends in total spending and number of prescriptions of all diabetes therapies among Medicare Part D beneficiaries between 2012 and 2017. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, Diabetes, Diabetes Care, JAMA / 23.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rebecca Myerson, PhD Assistant Professor, Population Health Sciences School of Medicine and Public Health University of Wisconsin, Madison MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Many people with diabetes are undiagnosed, and those who are diagnosed often are untreated and uncontrolled. Increasing access to health insurance for patients with health care needs was a goal of the Affordable Care Act. We analyzed information from 11 years of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which gathers data that are nationally representative of the civilian population. The biennial survey includes biomarkers, including HbA1c, a measure of blood-sugar control. Using the NHANES data allowed the researchers to identify those with undiagnosed diabetes. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cost of Health Care, JAMA, University of Pittsburgh / 23.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Coleman Drake, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management Affiliate faculty member Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing University of Pittsburgh MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Every year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services puts out of notice of proposed changes to the rules governing the Health Insurance Marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act (e.g., healthcare.gov). The most recent notice for 2020 (issued in 2019) considered eliminating automatic reenrollment for Marketplace enrollees. On the one hand, requiring that enrollees actively select a health plan to stay insured is a good thing because it forces them to consider their options – we know that people make better health plan choices when they consider their choices. On the other hand, creating an administrative barrier to staying insured could cause some people to become uninsured. Since 3.4 million Marketplace enrollees used automatic enrollment in 2019, eliminating it might cause a spike in the uninsured rate. (more…)
Author Interviews, Electronic Records, Emergency Care, JAMA / 19.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Carl Berdahl, MD, MS Emergency Physician and Health Services Researcher CEDARS-SINAI West Hollywood CA MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: The length of a doctor’s note is taken account when determining how much a doctor or medical center is paid for a visit. However, in the digital era, a doctor can generate large amounts of text with just a few keystrokes. Given this incentive structure, we were concerned doctors’ notes might be inaccurate in certain sections of the chart that are important for billing. We used observers to determine how accurately doctors’ notes reflected the interactions between patients and physicians. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Melanoma, Technology / 19.09.2019

SkinVision   MedicalResearch.com Interview with:  Andreea Udrea, PhD Associate Professor University Politehnica of Bucharest   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? The skin cancer incidence rate is increasing worldwide. Early diagnosis and prevention can reduce morbidity and are also linked to decreased healthcare costs. During the last years, efforts have been made in developing smartphone applications for skin lesion risk assessment to be used by laypersons. In parallel, as machine learning (ML) is on the rise, and medical image databases are increasing in size, a series of algorithms have been developed and compared in clinical studies to dermatologists for skin cancer diagnosis. The accuracy of the algorithms and experts were comparable. One drawback of these clinical studies is that they use images acquired by professionals in standardized conditions. So, there is little knowledge of what the accuracy will be when including an ML algorithm in an app and testing it in a non-clinical setup where the image quality may be lower, and the variability in image taking scenarios is higher as images are acquired by non-professionals using the smartphone camera. This study is one of the first that evaluates the accuracy of an app (SkinVision) when being used for risk assessment of skin lesions in the general population. (more…)
Author Interviews, Health Care Systems, Surgical Research / 19.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Gustav Tinghög, PhD Associate Professor Division of Economics Department of Management and Engineering, IEI JEDI-lab: JUDGEMENT, EMOTION, DECISION and INTUITION Linköping University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous studies have shown that when we get tired, we make decisions without engaging in cognitively demanding reasoning, and we postpone risky or uncertain choices. Previous studies have explored this idea of “decision fatigue” in relation to parole hearing outcomes, failure of health services workers to wash their hands, and the likelihood of physicians prescribing antibiotics. In our study we wanted to investigate how patient ordering affected decisions scheduled patients for orthpedic surgery (excluding acute cases) (more…)
Author Interviews, Heart Disease, NEJM, Vanderbilt / 18.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Daniel Muñoz, M.D, M.P.A Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology Medical Director for Quality, Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute Medical Director, Cardiovascular ICU Vanderbilt University Medical Center Nashville, Tennessee MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Despite advances in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, it remains the number one global killer of both men and women. Patients face a variety of barriers to getting the care need, including cost and complexity of medication regimens. Innovative strategies are needed to improve the delivery of preventive care, especially when it comes to socio-economically vulnerable individuals. The polypill, a fixed-dose combination of 3 blood pressure lowering medications and a cholesterol lowering medication, may be a strategy for improving cardiovascular disease prevention. We enrolled 303 patients at a community health center in Mobile, Alabama. Half of the patients were assigned to take a daily polypill, while the other half received their usual medical care. Participants underwent a standard medical exam, blood pressure measurement, and blood cholesterol testing during their initial visit, a 2-month visit, and a 12-month visit. MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
  • Participants in the polypill group experienced a greater reduction in both systolic blood pressure and LDL cholesterol level, as compared with participants in the usual care group. These differences translate to an approximate 25% reduction in the risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event.
  • At 12 months, adherence to the polypill regimen, as assessed based on pill counts, was 86%.
  • The vast majority of our study participants were African-American (96%), with three quarters reporting an annual income below $15,000.
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Author Interviews, Health Care Systems, JAMA, Primary Care / 18.09.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Deborah Korenstein, MD FACP General internist and Chief, General Internal Medicine Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Executive physicals are 1 to 2-day comprehensive health assessments offering disease screening and preventive testing. Large companies can arrange for these evaluations for senior executives. They are often offered by prestigious academic medical centers, but can also be located in less formal settings like spas. They generally include a set of tests that sometimes vary based on patient characteristics. Any tests that are done in response to from findings from executive physicals are billed to health insurance companies. A single 2008 paper described executive physicals and criticized them for being non-evidence based. Since then, executive physicals have grown in popularity, but their nature and impact have not been described. We set out to describe included services and cost of executive physicals at top academic medical centers. (more…)
Author Interviews, Emory, Health Care Systems, JAMA, Kidney Disease, Transplantation / 11.09.2019

 A retraction and replacement have been issued due to a major coding error that resulted in the reporting of incorrect data in this study surrounding the difference in transplant rates between for-profit and non-profit dialysis centers. Please see link below:

Bauchner H, Flanagin A, Fontanarosa PB. Correcting the Scientific Record—Retraction and Replacement of a Report on Dialysis Ownership and Access to Kidney Transplantation. JAMA. 2020;323(15):1455. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4368

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Rachel Patzer, PhD, MPH Associate Professor Director, Health Services Research Center Department of Medicine Department of Surgery Emory University School of Medicine   MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We know that historically, for-profit dialysis facilities have been shown to have lower rates of kidney transplantation than patients who receive treatment in non-profit dialysis facilities. However, these studies are outdated, and did not examine access to living donor transplantation or include the entirety of the end-stage kidney disease population  (more…)