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Book Forum

Seemed Like a Good Idea: The State of Evidence in Health Care Management

Published By Cambridge University Press •
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Date and Time
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Location
Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC
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Featuring
Mark-Pauly.jpg
Mark Pauly

Professor Emeritus of Health Care Management, University of Pennsylvania

Lawton-Robert-Burns.jpg
Lawton Robert Burns

Professor of Management, University of Pennsylvania

Why has the health sector of the economy uniquely resisted changes in products, productivity, and services that improve consumer satisfaction or reduce prices and spending? One reason, according to the book Seemed Like a Good Idea: Alchemy versus Evidence‐​Based Approaches to Healthcare Management Innovation, is that decisionmaking on medical delivery or insurance innovations is often not evidence‐​based and sometimes contradictory to evidence. This book explores reasons why the health sector lacks such evidence and why managers often don’t use the evidence that does exist. Please join us for a discussion with the authors and Cato director of health policy studies Michael F. Cannon that will explore government policies that cause producers and consumers to leave money on the table.

Lunch will be served at 11:30 AM.

Seemed Like a Good Idea - cover
Featured Book

Seemed Like a Good Idea: Alchemy versus Evidence-Based Approaches to Healthcare Management Innovation

Consumers, public officials, and even managers of health care and insurance are unhappy about care quality, access, and costs. This book shows that is because efforts to do something about these problems often rely on hope or conjecture, not rigorous evidence of effectiveness. In this book, experts in the field separate the speculative from the proven with regard to how care is rendered, how patients can be in control, how providers should be paid, and how disparities can be reduced – and they also identify the issues for which evidence is currently missing.