HOC is our outreach and engagement site which connects us with healthcare professionals, industry personnel and academics worldwide.
Our HOC platform shares blogs from experienced medical writers around the world, bringing you tips on good communication, evaluations of current health economics and outcomes research and healthcare evidence. Mixed in with great information you will find a light-hearted approach to current issues, some valuable downloads, as well as references for further reading.
Three times as much per-capita healthcare spending as the UK, five times as many CT scans as Germany, twice as much spending in McAllen as El Paso, Texas – what’s going on? Americans are consuming more medicine than is good for them…and evidently getting no healthier than people in other countries who spend and consume far less. But why?
Details
Everyone loves a bargain but Americans, in particular, are voracious of consumers of, well, just about everything. In our age of budget deficits and exploding healthcare costs, what motivates both doctors and patients to continue pushing healthcare spending through the roof?
Details
In today’s world of hotel-room crystal meth labs and designer drugs from ‘head shops’, why can’t our best and brightest scientific minds create a life-saving vaccine on target and on time?
Details
With so much warning of the HIN1 flu pandemic, why don’t governments and the pharma industry have enough vaccine in time for this flu season? As Dr Dennis Gross explains, for vaccines, the process defines the product. Change the process and you might lose clinical efficacy. The processes for vaccine production – even in 2009 – are fraught with sometimes more art than science.
Details
Getting a drug approval, reimbursement, and access to markets is a long journey, but we are not alone. The focus on this year’s ISPOR EU annual conference was on health technology assessment in different countries. Is an international appraisal system likely in the near future?
Details
One of the best outcomes of our ever-shrinking world is the opportunity to meet colleagues from other countries, to learn their best practices, share ‘war stories’ of failed attempts, and garner new ideas for solutions in our respective home countries. ISPOR held its annual meeting in Paris, France last week, with a focus on health technology assessment processes worldwide.
Details
In recent rounds of the US healthcare debate, ‘rational debate’ seems to have been replaced with scare tactics, in the mainstream media at least. The UK healthcare system recently came under heavy criticism by the anti-reform lobby.
Details
The American public still has surprisingly few details about the proposed legislation for healthcare reform. In this knowledge vacuum, hyperbole and political fighting rush in.
Details
There’s been much rattling of chains lately on the subject of ghost writing in medical journals. David Woods, PhD, a writer and former journal editor discusses the lack of clarity on what is an author, a ghost author, and a guest author.
Details
We take email for granted nowadays, but it’s only been around for just over 15 years. Among friends, the rules can relax, but email is still used for business communication and is the electronic equivalent of the Memo and cover letter. We cannot forget that, even in our world of ‘business casual’.
Details
