Healthcare

The IU Kelley School of Business gives students at its Indianapolis campus a variety of opportunities to test their lessons in real-world projects and industry partnerships – using Indiana’s largest regional economy (and beyond) as the School’s largest classroom.

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently called for a total ban on direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising, saying the industry’s well-funded campaigns sway patients towards newer and more expensive drugs and away from older but affordable and effective treatments like generics.

In the near future, emerging delivery systems and payment models, such as pay-for-performance, bundled payments, and capitated payments, will stress current volume-based fee-for-service systems.

Earlier this year, I spent a week learning about US Health Policy at The Washington Campus, which provided an inside view of Washington DC, through lectures from members of congress, health policy advisors, officials from the department of Health and Human Services, attorneys from Federal Trade Commission, and numerous experts from think tanks.

The US healthcare system serves a rapidly expanding elderly population undergoing increasingly complex medical care shifted to an outpatient clinic environment. The resulting prolonged waiting time limits quality, patient and employee satisfaction, and represents waste.

Sometime this summer, possibly as early as next month, the Supreme Court will once again issue a ruling on a legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act.