With technological advances and information sharing so prevalent, health care should be more transparent and easier to access than ever before. So why does it seem like everything about it―from pricing, drug development, and the emergence of new diseases to the intricacies of biologic and precision medicine therapies―is becoming more complex, not less?
Rohit Khanna's Misunderstanding Health: Making Sense of America's Broken Health Care System (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021) examines some of today's most revealing health care trends while imploring us to look at these issues with alacrity, humor, and vigilance. Over the course of eighteen short, engaging chapters, Khanna explains
• how unexamined beliefs can endanger patients, drive cost, and increase bureaucracy
• the "Dr. Google" effect on the ways that we seek (or eschew) care
• why our health care costs more than in any other country
• the unintended consequences of using rating sites like Yelp
• what we can learn about health care from hurricanes
• how social media influencers impact health care
• how artificial intelligence can improve health care
• why health screening programs are so complicated
• what the industry is doing to combat health care fraud
• what the big deal about legalizing medical cannabis is
• how to think about behavioral "nudges" designed to improve health
• why understanding how data are collected is critical to understanding what they can tell us
• and much more
Each provocative and easy-to-read chapter covers a familiar aspect of health care in a clear and succinct way. Offering inquisitive readers a warts-and-all view of American health care, Misunderstanding Health is the book that you'll want to read if you know enough to be frustrated by the system but want a deeper dive into its challenges and opportunities.
Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.
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