Review of Becker’s List of Health Systems with Strong Finances…

Drug patents are one of the most important public policy innovations in all of human history, and a boon to patients awaiting cures. Inventions only come when inventors are rewarded, not punished. Patents are not a “necessary evil.”

A new report from Reason Foundation, Cicero Institute and Pioneer Institute rates every state’s telehealth policy for patient access and ease of providing virtual care. The report highlights telehealth policy best practices for states.

Over the past decade, the revenue for hospitals generated by the federal 340B drug discount program, initially intended to serve low-income, uninsured populations, has exploded even while a number of important Massachusetts hospitals have reduced the level of charity care they provide, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute. The Pioneer Institute study, “340B Drug Discounts: An Increasingly Dysfunctional Program,” notes that nationwide, 340B drug sales rose from $9 billion in 2014 to $38 billion in 2020.

Useful information about COVID cases or deaths at individual homes has become less available at a time when cases are increasing again, even among vaccinated residents. Pioneer urges Massachusetts to immediately reinstate the so-called Weekly Report, which contains cases and deaths inside individual nursing homes.

Pioneer Institute today released a new analysis, The QALY and Cancer Treatments: An Ill-Advised Match, that examines the alarming methodological and contextual shortcomings of the Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY)-based methodology in evaluating new cancer therapies. The Pioneer Institute analysis reveals five specific problems with ICER’s evaluation of cancer treatments and demonstrates the urgent need to prohibit the use of the QALY amid trends in rapid cancer innovations and personalized medicine.

The world was blindsided by COVID-19, but a new Pioneer Institute study finds that even as we continue to wrestle with the pandemic, another threat looms that scientists have long known about but the nation has thus far failed to address: the growth of antibiotic-resistant infections. “Market dysfunction and perverse Medicare reimbursement rates have led to a growth in infections that resist antibiotics,” said Gunnar Esiason, author of “Antimicrobial Resistance: Learning from the current global health crisis to prevent another one.”  If we don’t solve this problem, the human and economic costs are likely to be astronomical.”

After over 5,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Massachusetts nursing homes, Pioneer Institute is issuing an open letter to the state’s future COVID-19 health equity task force that outlines an extensive list of recommendations on infection control and preparedness in eldercare facilities.

Contrary to conventional wisdom that says the coronavirus pandemic will generally benefit biopharmaceutical companies, a new Pioneer Institute study finds many companies will emerge from the pandemic commercially weaker, dealing with delays in new product launches and with fewer resources to invest in research and development.

Pioneer's new study raises concerns about the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s (DPH’s) Crises Standards of Care (CSC) issued earlier this month, which bear the earmarks of a state bureaucratic effort and should be rethought under a process that includes a thorough vetting by Massachusetts citizens.