- from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
An entire journal dedicated to a discussion of conflicts of interest was published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). There is remarkable irony when the executive editor and editor in chief of JAMA fail to disclose JAMA's ownership by the American Medical Assocation (AMA), a 501(c)(6) non-profit membership organization that has amassed assets worth $684,343,310 and has significant conflicts of interest of its own.
Caveat emptor, dear reader. Form 990's should not masquerade as scientific "disclosure."
-Wes
9 comments:
Let us also examine the failures of the other greatly conflicted organization - ACP and the Annals of Internal Medicine.
http://annals.org/aim/article/2614079/putting-patients-first-reducing-administrative-tasks-health-care-position-paper
A puffed chest "ACP position paper" about what constitutes a good use of physician time and health care dollars. If one applies their own metric to MOC and the ABIM, it is immediately apparent that ACP should withdraw all support of MOC and the ABIM. Then why doesn't it? We know darn well why: COI & $$$$$$$$$$$$$$!
And further, the editiorial comment saying the above ACP position paper is a "timely call" is provided by Dr Christine Sinsky, the VP of Professional Satisfaction for the AMA. The same AMA whose House of Delegates moved that the AMA immediately take steps to end MOC (for the very reasons described in the position paper) and yet chose to take no action. Dr Sinsky states she has no COI in her editorial. What she does not disclose that she is the Vice Chair of the ABIM Foundation. NO COI??? Dr Sinsky, you disgust me!!! The ABIM, AMA, and ACP have formed an alliance rife with self preserving COI.
http://annals.org/aim/article/2613554/designing-regulating-wisely-removing-barriers-joy-practice
I'm sure the NHS' technical adviser Bob Wachter has some cyber-security companies that he can recommend.
https://twitter.com/abrook5/status/863077333271531520
The digital doctor will be called in to remedy the NHS systems' dysfunctional design flaws.
Bob Wachter the NHS' go-to-guy in the US with his latest expert recommendation:
"I think the UK needs to allocate a few billion pounds more on some serious cyber security!"
Dr. Wachter knows more than he is telling about holding physicians hostage demanding ransoms.
"Bob are you there?"
"Yes, Mr. Secretary. We are 'in like Flynn now.'"
What's the end game? Or games? FBI recommends to just pay up. They can't do anything.
http://thehackernews.com/2017/05/wannacry-ransomware-unlock.html
Security Issues: Controlling physicians and influencing healthcare through monetizing and weaponizing the EHR
Glenn Reynolds: Futuristic data security from a pen and pad
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/02/22/cybersecurity-data-hacking-ransomware-hospitals-doctors-reynolds-column/80702310/
"Electronic medical records, touted as saving money and streamlining care, are a major cause of physician burnout. It’s gotten so bad that some hospitals actually advertise the lack of electronic medical record systems as a selling point in recruiting doctors. Nor have electronic systems paid off as promised.
As Robert Wachter wrote in The New York Times, 'Even in preventing medical mistakes — a central rationale for computerization — technology has let us down. A recent study of more than 1 million medication errors reported to a national database between 2003 and 2010 found that 6% were related to the computerized prescribing system.' Those problems, and considerable expense, could have been prevented by sticking with pen and paper."
Retweeting about the NHS Ransomware Attack Bob Wachter's Twitter Account Reveals a Surfeit of Disinformation: Wachter the digital expert failed to warn/light a fire under the NHS to get patches for a known malware that could infect NHS computers. Why? Wachter's retweet by Atul Gawande blames the lax NHS response on "privacy" and "HIPPA" concerns.
https://twitter.com/Bob_Wachter?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
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Who is behind the WannaCry ransomware attack crippling NHS hospital trusts across the UK?
"The virulence is likely to be because some organisations have either not applied the patch released by Microsoft, or they are using outdated operating systems (such as XP) that are no longer supported by Microsoft and hence no patch exists," he said.
According to the British Medical Journal, up to 90% of NHS computers still run Windows XP. It is possible that the ransomware got in through one of these computers.
'I'm sure we've all seen Windows XP PCs in hospitals around the country,' said Andrew Barratt, managing principal for Coalfire."
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/who-behind-nhs-cyber-ransomware-10410865
The President of Microsoft has just issued a scathing rebuke of the NSA for purchasing knowledge of system vulnerabilities and creating cyber weapons, but especially for allowing critical infrastructure to remain vulnerable to attack by keeping people in the dark.
"What it means 2 B MD in tech age." - Dr. Robert M. Wachter gives Penn Med commencement speech while the Digital Doctor's client the NHS is frying. Bob's client is still held hostage by ransomware which a real EMR expert could have warned the UK's Secretary Hunt about well in advance, since California had similar ransomware attacks just one year ago..
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/40-of-breaches-in-october-resulted-from-hacking-malware-ransomware.html
http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/dr-robert-wachter-the-problem-with-measurement-and-benchmarks-in-healthcare.html
Every honest physicians feels wronged and even tortured by mandatory MOC. They feel themselves without control of their professional lives under the false power of a increasingly corrupt testing company - whether that company is the ABIM, ABP, the Chicago umbrella company, or any one of the 24 member boards.
But is the ABMS involved not just in testing coercion, but in illicit forms of practicing experimentation on human subjects? We have evidence that they have done just that. It has been written about on this blog. But even if we don't know all they have done to physicians and patients, it really looks and feels that way - like one big torturous experimental machine.
I believe we could truthfully say the ABMS literally operates with hubris and impunity, as though from protected "black sites" in Philadelphia, District of Columbia, and Chicago having no accountability.
And more and more it feels like the ABMS, member boards and their cronies have lost their humanity. Even the ones we thought we could believe in to do the right thing. They really lost it all in their pursuit of big money and decades of selling out to the medical industrial complex.
Just look at where we are today as physicians as the formulary shrinks and the automatic way the industry spits out the generic forms telling us we have to get even standard generic drugs approved. We can count on the very costly increase of forms, clicks, control, and surveillance of everything and everyone.
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