http://www.chcf.org/publications/2016/01/empire-building?county=san_francisco
Category Archives: Uncategorized
California Health Care Foundation – Regional Markets Issue Brief (January 2016)
Click to access PDF%20AlmanacRegMktBriefSanFran16.pdf
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: MAJOR PLAYERS DRIVE REGIONAL NETWORK DEVELOPMENT
http://www.chcf.org/publications/2016/01/regional-market-san-francisco
California Health Care Foundation – Regional Markets Issue Brief (September 2016)
Click to access PDF%20AlmanacRegMktBriefLosAngeles2016.pdf
LOS ANGELES: THRIVING OR SURVIVING IN A FRAGMENTED MARKET
http://www.chcf.org/publications/2016/09/regional-market-los-angeles
Our Values and Behaviors
TWO SIMPLE COMMITMENTS THAT RADICALLY IMPROVE LIFE FOR LEADERS
A commitment is a decision made once.
Cartoon – Making You Feel Engaged
Cartoon – Improving Corporate Culture
Cartoon – Who can define Values?
Cancer immunotherapy is moving fast. Here’s what you need to know.
The idea of using the body’s immune system to fight cancer has been around for a century, but only in the past half a dozen years have dramatic breakthroughs begun rocking the medical world.
“That’s when the tsunami came,” says Drew Pardoll, director of the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunology at Johns Hopkins University, and those advances are spawning hundreds of clinical trials nationwide, plus generating intense interest from patients, physicians and investors.
Many cancer researchers compare the progress to medical milestones such as the discovery of penicillin or the development of chemotherapy. Over the next decade, the growth in the field will be “exponential,” predicts Philip Greenberg, head of the immunology program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “Making something better is enormously different than making something work that doesn’t work.”
At the same time, researchers remember the past anti-cancer efforts that fizzled after initially showing promise. That explains the consensus sentiment at this week’s international immunotherapy conference in New York: Turning science into cures will take years of perseverance against daunting hurdles.
Here’s a primer about new treatments and how they work:
Specialty Drug Costs Soar 30% For California Pension Fund
Specialty drug costs jumped 30 percent last year to $587 million for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, one of the nation’s largest health care purchasers.
Though they amount to less than 1 percent of all prescriptions, specialty drugs accounted for more than a quarter of the state agency’s $2.1 billion in total pharmacy costs. Those overall drug costs have climbed 40 percent since 2010.
The new figures show just how much financial pressure many employers and government agencies face from rising drug costs and why it’s become such a hot topic in California politics and on the presidential campaign trail.
Hepatitis C drugs drove much of the increase for the state retirement system during 2015, as did two rheumatoid arthritis drugs. Drugs for cancer and multiple sclerosis were also among the top 10 specialty drugs for CalPERS.
CalPERS spent the most, $94.5 million, on Harvoni, a hepatitis C drug. It is sold by Gilead Sciences Inc., whose steep prices have drawn public outrage and government scrutiny. The agency spent an additional $16.6 million on Sovaldi, another Gilead drug for hepatitis C.
Apart from specialty medications, CalPERS’ highest-cost drugs were Lantus, for diabetes; Advair, an asthma inhaler; and Crestor, a cholesterol medicine. Painkiller OxyContin rounded out the top 10 at $14.3 million, according to state data.
More than 5 percent of CalPERS’ total drug spending — $118 million — went for Humira and Enbrel, two anti-inflammatory biotech drugs that don’t face competition from lower-priced generics.
