At the Bree Collaborative we talk a lot about health care procedures that we don’t need – that don’t make us any healthier and may in fact hurt us. A recent Atlantic article on the epidemic of unnecessary treatment, When Evidence Says No, but Doctors Say Yes, is an excellent study of overused treatments and…
The Bree Collaborative is lucky to live within a diverse and vibrant health care community. Today, we are highlighting, and looking forward to attending, two spring conferences – the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research’s (HICOR) Paying for Value: 2017 Value in Cancer Care Summit on Friday, April 7th and the Washington Patient Safety Coalition’s…
One of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day. Bill Murray is hilarious and thought-provoking as a weatherman cursed to re-live February second over and over until he can learn to be a better person. Perhaps this is a lesson for all of us in self-improvement, paying attention to our community, colleagues, and neighbors, and making…
Opioid addiction is driving the drug overdoses which are claiming too many lives in the US. In 2015 alone, 718 people in Washington state died from opioid-related overdoses. The epidemic is growing quickly, devastating Washington families and communities. There are many factors driving this crisis and nobody can solve it alone. Together the Washington Health…
Most of us see our doctors in a fee-for-service system – this is where doctors and hospitals charge fees for each separate service they provide. Office visits, tests, procedures, and even microtasks like individual screenings can be billed separately. One major drawback to fee-for-service is rewarding quantity over quality. This type of payment model can…
On Wednesday, Bree Collaborative members voted on our work for 2017. Along with re-reviewing our Total Knee and Total Hip Replacement Bundle and Warranty our members elected to create workgroups and develop evidence-based recommendations for: – Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias – Hysterectomy – Opioid Use Disorder Treatment Thank you to the many community members who…
Since we formed in 2011, we have made recommendations, such as having goals of care conversations as a regular part of oncology care, for improving quality and value for patients in our State’s health care system. Some of these recommendations have been formally adopted into contracts. See last month’s blog post: From Concept to Contracting:…
Thank you to all who gave us input on selecting new topics. We discussed all these suggestions at our July meeting, decided on six, and will narrow this down to three final topics in September. The topics coming out of July’s meeting are: – Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia – Addiction – Blood and Blood Product…
Replacing a joint—especially a knee or hip—is a procedure that millions of Americans need each year. It can give people a mobility and freedom from pain they haven’t enjoyed in years. It’s also a procedure that lends itself to a lot of variation. If best practices aren’t followed, it can lead to complications and hospital…
We think of value-based purchasing as a philosophy pushing our health care system to provide better care at a lower cost to help us all live healthier lives. Most of the health care that we receive today is fee-for-service, where clinicians, hospitals, and others are payed for the number of services they provide. Across the…
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