Quality-of-care evangelist via consulting, research, writing and speaking. Early and vocal advocate for better, safer, more patient-centered care.
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Articles by Michael Millenson
Anthropic solicita su salida a la bolsa y revela lo que valen Dario Amodei y otros cofundadores
Millonarios Michael L. Millenson Anthropic presentó el lunes por la mañana su folleto informativo para su muy esperada salida a bolsa. El gigante de la inteligencia artificial Anthropic presentó oficialmente su solicitud para salir a bolsa el lunes por la mañana, revelando por primera vez la participación accionaria de sus siete cofundadores.
Is EHR Giant Epic Mulling Direct, AI Power To Patients? Original
A skit featuring Epic System employees at the company’s annual User Group Meeting illustrated how customers might benefit from its new cast of AI agents. Michael L. Millenson Is electronic health record giant Epic Systems thinking about giving direct “power to the patient” without going through a provider?
How The Patient Rights Revolution Builds on America’s 1776 One
By MICHAEL MILLENSON It took 129 years for the inalienable rights proclaimed in America’s Declaration of Independence to apply to the rights of patients in relationship to their doctors. In 1905, an Illinois appellate court ruled in favor of a woman who’d sued her surgeon for performing a hysterectomy without disclosing in advance what procedure he was doing.
Aging care is not about fixing every wrong note
In medicine, we are trained to notice decline. We track blood pressure, glucose, gait speed, medication lists, cognitive scores, fall risk, frailty, and health care utilization. These measures matter; they save lives and guide care. But we risk reducing aging to a checklist of deficits. I was recently reminded that aging care requires something much harder to measure: the ability to let an older person remain whole. Taiwan has entered a new chapter of aging.
WHOOP, la empresa de wearables de salud, capta US$ 575 millones en una nueva ronda Original
Si ESPN se casara con The Wall Street Journal, la lista de invitados podría parecerse a la nómina de inversores que acaban de aportar US$ 500 millones a la plataforma de salud WHOOP, impulsada por inteligencia artificial. El dispositivo portátil de la compañía se conecta a una plataforma de análisis que promete que sus datos ayudarán a los usuarios a "prolongar su salud, optimizar su rendimiento y prevenir enfermedades antes de que aparezcan".
WHOOP Health Platform Gets Glitzy Investors, Makes Big Promises Original
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James is just one of the high-profile investors in the new round of funding for the WHOOP personal health platform. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images If ESPN married the Wall Street Journal, the guest list might read like the list of the investors who just gave the artificial intelligence-powered WHOOP health platform more than a half billion dollars.
CMS All-In On Using ‘Big Stick’ To Make Value-Based Care New Paradigm Original
CMS will use its financial clout to make"Making America Health Again" programs a centerpiece of value-based care Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services The explicit theme of the recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quality conference was, “Making America Health Again: Innovating Together for Better Health.” The implicit theme was, “Speak Softly And Carry A Big Stick,” as agency leaders made clear they intend to use the $1.2 trillion in provider payment they control to make...
Oscar-Nominated Film Highlights Shared American, Iranian Health System Concerns
Health Policy By MICHAEL MILLENSON At the recent Academy Awards broadcast, a brief film clip from the Oscar-nominated Iranian film “It Was Just An Accident” showed a man pushing an unconscious, very pregnant woman on a gurney into a hospital emergency room. Without intending to do so, the excerpt pointed to one of the many common concerns shared by Iranians and Americans when dealing with their respective health care systems.
Trump Touts Care Affordability, Omits Largest Cost Drivers — Hospitals
With health care affordability an increasingly high-profile issue, President Trump’s State of the Union address aimed plenty of angry barbs at those he blamed for high health care costs. Yet he conspicuously omitted the group responsible for the biggest share of health care cost growth: hospitals.
AHRQ Revives After Death-By-DOGE Threat, But What Will New Leaders Do?
Dr. Roger D. Klein has promised to wipe out "wokeness" as the new director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, but what comes next remains unclear. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Last year at this time, the federal agency charged with making the delivery of health care better and safer was slowly being bled to death in the name of government efficiency.
Da Lavoura ao Hospital: Qual a Lição de IA Que a John Deere Entrega Pronta
Quando as inovações em inteligência artificial de um fabricante tradicional de máquinas agrícolas recebem elogios tanto da revista Progressive Farmer quanto de especialistas em modelos de negócios baseados em IA, líderes do setor de saúde deveriam prestar atenção. A Deere & Co., com sede em Moline, no estado de Illinois, e que em 2025 faturou US$ 45,7 bilhões (R$ 237,6 bilhões na cotação atual), tem um histórico de impressionar observadores independentes. Em 2023, seu diretor-presidente, John C.
As Deere Plows New Ground In AI Innovation, Health Care Should Reap Lessons
Deere boasts that its AI-enabled X9 combine makes it easy for the farmer to "set the specific outcomes you expect" and the combine will automatically adjust "to deliver the performance you want." Deere & Co. When an old-line farm equipment maker’s AI innovations draw praise from sources as diverse as Progressive Farmer and experts in artificial intelligence business models, health care leaders should pay attention. Deere & Co. has a track record of wowing impartial observers.
In Patient Safety, Human Hospital Teams Still (Mostly) Beat AI
Despite AI's potential, human hospital staff efforts are still key in significantly improving patient safety. Michael L. Millenson Artificial intelligence applications may dominate health care discourse, but the low-tech initiatives of front-line hospital teams remain the most effective means of putting patient safety improvement into practice. At the annual meeting of The Leapfrog Group, the patient safety nonprofit, the AI discussions mostly described potential.
How Much Power Should We Give AI In End-Of-Life Decisions?
Whether or not humans are ready, AI predictions are quietly set to become part of end-of-life medical decisions. getty Could an artificial intelligence algorithm used for end-of-life care decisions predict better than your loved ones whether you'd want doctors to restart your heart if it stops unexpectedly? Or if you have a serious illness, should AI predictions about your overall survival odds be used to prod you to make your wishes clear before there's a medical emergency?
Health Insurance Affordability Is Red Hot, And Psychology Explains Why
The psychological drivers shown by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a key to why affordable health insurance is a red-hot policy issue. getty To understand why access to affordable health insurance has suddenly emerged as a red-hot policy issue, look beyond politics to the deepest roots of human psychology. To political insiders, “health insurance” has become a kind of abstraction, a source of endless arguments over what policy tweaks will somehow cause health system problems to magically dissolve.
Are we scared of the wrong environmental toxins?
Like you, I receive many emails concerning environmental toxins. Many of their claims are based on conjecture rather than scientific evidence and are delivered in a panicked manner, implying that you or a family member is doomed if you do not act quickly. It is especially annoying that they often target minor issues rather than major ones. For example, they have emphasized the danger of artificial sweeteners.
Why the MAHA plan is the wrong cure
“Make America Healthy Again (MAHA).” Finally, something we can all agree on. The new MAHA report with its pages of promises taps into something real, something we see daily in primary care practice: Many Americans feel unwell, unheard, and unprotected by the very institutions meant to support them. , , and even our children are less healthy than they were a decade ago.
Lessons From The Medical Error That Orphaned A Cabinet Secretary
By MICHAEL MILLENSON It was a small anecdote, buried in a lengthy profile in The New Yorker of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, “Donald Trump’s Tariff Dealmaker-in-Chief.” But as a patient safety activist, the stark depiction of the effect of medical error felt like a sudden shock.
The Blogs: I Asked AI Chatbots To Make a Jewish New Year’s Card (Oy!)
The artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT and its various competitors comprise some of the most advanced software ever built. So how hard could it be for a chatbot to produce a Rosh Hashanah card? The answer, it turns out is: really, really hard.
Lessons From The Medical Error That Orphaned A Cabinet Secretary
Howard Lutnick and his two siblings were just teenagers when a chemotherapy overdose killed their father, and, with their mother already dead from cancer, left them orphaned.
Epic’s “Emmie” Chatbot Enhances the Patient Voice - For Their *Real* Customers
By MICHAEL MILLENSON A Rock Health write-up of this year’s Epic Users Group Meeting captured the artificial intelligence vibe with a play on the names of three new AI chatbots rolled out by the country’s dominant electronic health record firm. “Epic Goes APE (Art, Penny and Emmie),” read the headline, using the first letters of the names of chatbots designed for, respectively, clinicians, revenue cycle managers and patients.
As Shared Decision-Making Ails, AI May Save This Human Interaction
By MICHAEL MILLENSON Shared decision-making between doctors and patients may be “the pinnacle of patient-centered care,” but three new medical journal articles suggest it’s encountering more problems than peaks. Yet counterintuitively, it may be artificial intelligence that rescues this intimately human interaction.
As Shared Decision-Making Ails, AI May Save This Human Interaction
Shared decision-making is ailing, but artificial intelligence may force it onto the doctor-patient agenda getty Shared decision-making between doctors and patients may be “the pinnacle of patient-centered care,” but three new medical journal articles suggest it’s encountering more problems than peaks. Yet counterintuitively, it may be artificial intelligence that rescues this intimately human interaction.
Amid Health Care Turmoil, Dr. Oz Calms Major CMS Conference, House GOP
CMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks to the agency's 2025 Quality Conference in Baltimore Michael L. Millenson With the skill of a veteran heart surgeon reassuring patients facing a life-changing procedure, Dr. Mehmet Oz projected calm continuity to the nearly 10,000 in-person and online individuals registered for a major conference by the agency he heads, promising to take care of “the vulnerable among us” in concert with the “incredible” staff at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Patient Survival Jumps If In-Hospital MD Aced Assessment Test: Study
Patients are significantly likelier to survive a hospital stay if their hospitalist scored in the ... More top quartile on a knowledge test linked to board certification. American Board of Internal medicine The odds that a patient survives a hospital stay sharply increase if the physician overseeing in-hospital care aced a special test designed to assess doctor knowledge and judgment, according to a new study.
Trump, Archimedes Hold Lessons For CMS Hospital, Safety Rules
Archimedes theorized he could use a lever to move the earth, while Donald Trump has advised using ... More leverage to seal deals. Medicare should use its leverage to move hospitals to provide better, safer care. (Photo by Ann Ronan/Getty Images) Print Collector/Getty Images As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services mulls new payment rules for hospitals, its leaders should consult a crucial concept from the book that made Donald Trump famous, then apply it to quality and safety regulations.
High-Profile Start-Ups Inato And Prenosis Show AI ‘Best Practice’
By MICHAEL MILLENSON Treating artificial intelligence as just one ingredient in a business success recipe was a prominent theme at the MedCity INVEST 2025 conference, with this AI “best practice” advice epitomized by high-profile start-ups Inato and Prenosis. “You need to build a business model that makes sense, then use AI,” cautioned Raffi Boyajian, principal at CIGNA Ventures and a panelist at the MedCity INVEST 2025 conference in Chicago.
High-Profile Start-Ups Inato And Prenosis Show AI ‘Best Practice’
Treating artificial intelligence as just one ingredient in a business success recipe was a prominent theme at the MedCity INVEST 2025 conference, with this AI "best practice" advice epitomized by high-profile start-ups Inato and Prenosis. “You need to build a business model that makes sense, then use AI,” cautioned Raffi Boyajian, principal at CIGNA Ventures and a panelist at the MedCity INVEST 2025 conference in Chicago.
3 Quick Ways For Oz To Reach CMS ‘Power To The People’ Goals
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the new administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has said he wants to give “power to the people.” Well, OK, he didn’t use those exact words, but healthcare consumer power was the core idea behind his stated goals of “empowering the American people” to “better manage their health” and holding providers “accountable for health outcomes.” Although achieving those objectives won’t be easy, I’d like to suggest three quick actions that together would constitute...
The Blogs: My Mom at Hitler's Bunker and Other Untold Stories
In the Recording Evil series on Israel’s Kan-11 TV channel, the children of the Jewish refugees who listened to the secretly recorded conversations of Nazi prisoners in Britain during World War II mournfully confess they had no clue what their parents had done. That regret over the stories never told struck a special chord, particularly as both VE (Victory in Europe) Day and, in America, Mother’s Day, approached.
By MICHAEL MILLENSON “Dr. Google,” the nickname for the search engine that answers hundreds of millions of health questions every day, has begun including advice from the general public in some of its answers. The “What People Suggest” feature, presented as a response to user demand, comes at a pivotal point for traditional web search amid the growing popularity of artificial intelligence-enabled chatbots such as ChatGPT.
Dr. Google Starts Sharing Regular Folks’ Advice As Chatbots Loom
"Dr. Google,” the nickname for the search engine that answers hundreds of millions of health questions every day, has begun including advice from the general public in some of its answers. The “What People Suggest” feature, presented as a response to user demand, comes at a pivotal point for traditional web search amid the growing popularity of artificial intelligence-enabled chatbots such as ChatGPT.
Unleashing the kraken: What The Pitt gets wrong about psychiatric care
The Pitt, a medical drama set in a fictional Pittsburgh trauma center, captures the human connections forged in emergency medicine. The show follows a team of residents and medical students through a relentless 15-hour shift under their seasoned attending, Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle). Unlike melodramatic predecessors, The Pitt finds drama in the emotional toll of ER work, emphasizing resilience amid exhaustion.
AI Uses What Nurses See And Death Risk Plunges 36% - But Grant Pulled
An innovative use of artificial intelligence that essentially monitors patients through the eyes of the nurses involved in care resulted in a stunning 36% drop in the risk of dying in the hospital. However, funding to extend the research with adults to sick children was abruptly cancelled by the Trump administration.
“Health Care” vs. “Healthcare” Signals Change Greater Than Grammar
By MICHAEL MILLENSON “The New Yorker House Style Joins The Internet Age” announced the magazine’s daily newsletter under the byline of Andrew Boynton, whose appropriately old-fashioned title was “Head of Copy.” Among the alterations Boynton acknowledged readers might feel “long overdue,” were “Internet” becoming “internet,” “Web site” consolidating to “website” and “cell phone” becoming “cellphone.” Other quirky spellings (teen-ager, per cent, etc.) were deliberately retained.
In Twist, Misdiagnosis Victim RFK Jr. Cuts Agency Fighting Misdiagnoses
In an ironic twist, the agency charged with fighting the kind of medical misdiagnosis that had Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the brink of unnecessary brain surgery is set to be eliminated in the reorganization plan Kennedy announced for the department he heads. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is the only federal agency specifically charged by Congress with targeting mistakes like the famous misdiagnosis suffered by Kennedy.
At Little-Known Health Agency, DOGE Ends Dream ‘To Make A Difference’
By MICHAEL MILLENSON Four days after emergency surgery and barely able to walk, Heather Sherman flew from Chicago to Washington for first-day-of-work onboarding at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
At Little-Known Health Agency, DOGE Ends Dream “To Make A Difference”
Four days after emergency surgery and barely able to walk, Heather Sherman flew from Chicago to Washington for first-day-of-work onboarding at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Fourteen months later, Sherman suddenly became one of the thousands of federal employees summarily dismissed by a weekend email telling them they were “not fit for future employment.” The trauma of that abrupt ending in mid-February – giving her just a few hours before all access was shut off – still lingers.
Study Pits Trained Patients’ View Of Outcome Success Vs. Doctors
An unusual study gives a new twist to the idea of “patient-reported outcome measures” by training two patients to review doctors’ notes on treatment of a common orthopedic injury and then comparing their verdict to that of doctor reviewers. One type of disagreement stood out. When the doctor group ruled that the treatment of a fracture near the shoulder joint was a failure, the patient group was likely to agree.
NYU Langone Super Bowl Ad Claimed “We’re #1,” But Where’s Scorecard?
By MICHAEL MILLENSON When the Philadelphia Eagles thrashed the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl, no one disputed that they sat at the peak of professional football. In contrast, NYU Langone Health’s multi-million-dollar Super Bowl ad claiming “#1 for quality care in the U.S.” gave viewers just 2 seconds to read the very small print at the bottom of the screen providing an obscure justification for that championship status. It read: “2024 Vizient Quality and Accountability Ranking.
NYU Langone Super Bowl Ad Claimed “We’re #1,” But Where’s Scorecard?
When the Philadelphia Eagles thrashed the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl LIX, no one disputed that they sat at the peak of professional football. In contrast, NYU Langone Health’s multi-million-dollar Super Bowl ad claiming “#1 for quality care in the U.S.” gave viewers just 2 seconds to read the very small print at the bottom of the screen providing an obscure justification for that championship status. It read: “2024 Vizient Quality and Accountability Ranking.
A Hard Lesson For Health Care Reformers From Horrific D.C. Plane Crash
For everyone who believes the brokenness of U.S. health care demands immediate attention, consider this: Despite grim warnings about hazardous air traffic control understaffing, preliminary evidence indicates the horrific D.C. plane crash happened because this life-threatening problem was not addressed even in the airspace used regularly by virtually every member of Congress. No health care reform problem remotely approaches that level of personal concern to policymakers.
It’s Money That Changes Everything (Or Doesn’t) For Surgeons
By MICHAEL MILLENSON “Money changes everything,” Cyndi Lauper famously sang about love to a pulsating rock ‘n’ roll beat. So, too, when it comes to financial incentives for surgeons, two new studies suggest, although “How much money?” and “What do I have to do?” are the keys to unlocking monetary motivation.
My totally wrong expert predictions for health care in 2025
January In a blistering commentary, the American Medical Association’s flagship journal, JAMA, condemns the corrosive effect on patient care of the profit-seeking practices of health insurers.
It’s Money That Changes Everything (Or Doesn’t) For Surgeons
“Money changes everything,” Cyndi Lauper famously sang about love to a pulsating rock ‘n’ roll beat. So, too, when it comes to financial incentives for surgeons, two new studies suggest, although “How much money?” and “What do I have to do?” are the keys to unlocking monetary motivation. The first study, a JAMA research letter, examined the impact of a new Medicare billing code for abdominal hernia repair that paid surgeons more if the hernia measured at least 3 centimeters in size.
My Totally Wrong, Expert Predictions for Health Care 2025
Health Policy By MICHAEL MILLENSON January In a blistering commentary, the American Medical Association’s flagship journal, JAMA, condemns the corrosive effect on patient care of the profit-seeking practices of health insurers.
Medicare, Fair Pay, And The AMA: The Forgotten History | Health Affairs Forefront
'Everything is on the table': There's a new development in the Trump-Musk plot to kill Social Security Sorry to intrude on your inbox for a second time today, but Elon Musk has revealed the truth about what he plans to do with his so-called Department …
"Food as Medicine" means some Medicaid and Medicare plans cover diet.
During the holiday season, Americans’ charitable impulses are repeatedly highlighted in stories about donating food or feeding meals to the less fortunate. Not discussed are the many poor and/or elderly Americans who are being fed by their health insurance plan based on the cold-eyed calculation that doing so will reduce their future medical costs.
High Safety Mark At Hospital That Treated Trump Should Be Minimum For All
Update, Nov. 23, 2024: This story has been updated with information about President-elect Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services nominees and the correct date of this summer’s assassination attempt on Trump. When the Leapfrog Group issued its latest patient safety scores, I looked up the hospital to which Donald Trump was rushed bleeding after an assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania this past summer.
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