Tuesday, July 11, 2023 | The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Dear John,
In a late-breaking Forefront article, Maanasa Kona of Georgetown University discusses the recent Request for Information issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on medical credit cards to better understand their prevalence, patients’ experiences with them, and
the incentives driving providers to offer these products.
Cancer Decision Making In a newly published Narrative Matters article, Tom Doyle documents his experience navigating difficult medical decisions as a cancer patient.
Diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma at twenty-three years old, Doyle writes about how, after rounds of chemotherapy, he was presented with the choice to either continue additional chemotherapy or begin two weeks of radiation therapy.
While both options were similarly effective, they each had adverse effects. The chemotherapy drugs could cause potentially fatal lung fibrosis and heart failure, while radiation came with the risk of developing a secondary cancer.
Doyle outlines the
difficulties of decision making within the institution of medicine and writes, "the category of ‘options’...is a large and unchartered territory…," and that the institution’s "laissez-faire" attitude toward preference-sensitive decisions might not be the best approach to address treatment options.
Doyle concludes that policy should move toward a place where patients are provided with decision aids while making critical decisions.
Alan Weil interviews Susan Magsamen, founder and director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Ivy Ross, vice president of design for hardware products at Google, about their new book, Your Brain on Art, and how art relates to health.
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking
content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
