Healthcare

Effect of physician disclosure of specialty bias on patient trust and treatment choice.

Journal Publication /

Abstract This paper explores the impact of disclosures of bias on advisees. Disclosure—informing advisees of a potential bias—is a popular solution for managing conflicts of interest. Prior research has focused almost exclusively on disclosures of financial conflicts of interest but little is known about how disclosures of other types of biases could impact advisees. In […]

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Investigations before examinations: This is how we practice medicine here.

Journal Publication /

Summary Based on a personal experience, in this paper I discuss the impact of investigations-before-examinations on healthcare costs, patient safety, and the quality of care. Unnecessary tests, such as x-rays, can lead to a cascade of further investigations due to incidental findings and contribute to cumulative radiation exposure.  I explore the power dynamics within the

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Investigation momentum: The relentless pursuit to resolve uncertainty.

Journal Publication /

Debate regarding the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening test centers around test reliability and whether screening reduces mortality.1-3 We consider yet another potential downside to the widespread use of unreliable screening tests: the downstream effect of receiving inconclusive or ambiguous results. When receiving information from screening tests, we usually want to know whether the result is

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Physicians under the influence: Social psychology and industry marketing strategies.

Journal Publication /

Abstract Pharmaceutical and medical device companies apply social psychology to influence physicians’ prescribing behavior and decision making. Physicians fail to recognize their vulnerability to commercial influences due to self-serving bias, rationalization, and cognitive dissonance. Professionalism offers little protection; even the most conscious and genuine commitment to ethical behavior cannot eliminate unintentional, subconscious bias. Six principles

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Disclosing conflicts of interest in patient decision aids.

Book Chapter /

ABSTRACT Background In 2005, the International Patient Decisions Aid Standards (IPDAS) Collaboration developed quality criteria for patient decisions aids; one of the quality dimensions dealt with disclosure of conflicts of interest (COIs). The purposes of this paper are to review newer evidence on dealing with COI in the development of patient decision aids and to

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The unintended consequences of conflict of interest disclosure.

Journal Publication /

Abstract Conflicts of interest, both financial and nonfinancial, are ubiquitous in medicine, and the most commonly prescribed remedy is disclosure. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Accountable Care Act impose a range of disclosure requirements for physicians, and almost all medical journals now require authors to disclose conflicts of interest (although these requirements may

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