Ten Rules for Health System Boards of Directors to Follow to Reduce the Risk of Fraudulent Outcomes Reporting and Scientific Misconduct

Enjoying a good spin

Are you on the Board of Directors for a large health service provider, population health vendor, integrated delivery system, managed care organization or other care corporation? 

If so, your company is likely collecting, analyzing and publicly reporting quality and cost data. Not only do superior results in journals, meetings, splashy web sites and glossy marketing materials present a competitive advantage, achieving superior outcomes is part and parcel of your organizations mission.

The Disease Management Care Blog reminds Board members that intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting outcomes is an existential threat to health care organizations.  Having to retract a publication, correct a white paper, meet with grumpy regulators, confront claw backs, deal with a whistle-blower, respond to allegations of interpretation spin, uncover suppression of bad results or defend the integrity of your brand is something no Board wants to deal with.

To the DMCBs knowledge, this hasnt happened to any ACOs, risk contracting systems, managed care organizations or population health or wellness vendors.

Yet. 

Its just a matter of time.

While the risk of allegations of scientific misconduct can never be reduced to zero, the DMCB offers up ten best practices for Boards to follow:

Reduce opportunities by:

1. Exhibiting healthy skepticism regarding all outcomes reported by your management team, especially if the results seem to be too good to be true.

2. Insist that your management team has two persons with access to any data base, and that they have separate reporting relationships.

3. Insist that your management team has two persons independently involved in any data analysis, and that they have separate reporting relationships.

4. Be familiar with and insist that the rules on research on human subjects be followed.

5. Maintain a low threshold for conducting internal or external audits of any databases and any interpretations of those data.

Combat any rationalizations that fudging outcomes is OK by:

6. Recruiting Board members with research expertise.

7. Explicitly engage the Audit Committee and any other Board member or committee with oversight of risk to view "outcomes" with the same level of scrutiny as your companys financials.

8. Maintain an ethical "tone at the top" when it comes to research.

9. Have a disaster plan ready to go.  For starters, train your Board on how to deal with hostile media inquiries.

Reduce incentives by:

10.  Asking your CEO if any compensation plans including bonuses or unwittingly promoting unethical or fraudulent behavior.

Follow These Steps To Slim Without Dieting

Many people want to lose weight but are lazy to follow the diet program that regularly tortured. You only need to change strategies in your daily life in order to get a slim body without much effort on a diet.

Here are 5 weight loss strategy that you can do without having to diet,include:

1. breakfast

Skipping breakfast is a wrong step to lose weight. Breakfast is very important to prevent the conditions that are too hungry during the day so you do not have lunch with excessive portions.
Various studies have also shown that breakfast is the right way to lose weight or maintain weight in order to stay slim.

2. Eat foods that are low in calories first

When a lot of food presented on your plate, start eating low-calorie foods first, such as broccoli, carrots, apples and bananas. When you get to the other high-calorie foods, you will not be so hungry.

This method can reduce the total intake of excessive calories and still remain energized to lead the activity.

3. Start with soup

Begin lunch or dinner with a bowl of broth soup containing vegetables before eating your main meal. It can block the stomach and make you not tempted to eat high-calorie foods to excess.

4. Divide your lunch into two parts

Sometimes a person will feel hungry when it entered the evening before dinner. Eating high-calorie foods at these hours can make weight increased dramatically.

The proper way to handle it is to cut your lunch into two parts. The first part is eaten at lunch and the other half is eaten later in the afternoon.

5. Avoid eating foods that contain mayonnaise

Healthy foods such as salad can make you gain weight without realizing it. Mayonnaise in the salad high in calories, with a spoon alone contains 100 calories. If you want to enjoy a healthy salad, use olive oil as a toping to replace mayonnaise.