Join us Thursday, August 24 at 9:00pm ET / 6:00pm PT for a live, interactive tweetchat with Joshua Sharfstein, MD, on why hotels and hospitals shouldn’t necessarily be compared to one another and how global budgets can help avoid the comparison, inspired by his TEDx talk Hospitals, Not Hotels (below), as well as the newly published report, “An Emerging Approach to Payment Reform: All-Payer Global Budgets for Large Safety-Net Hospital Systems,” from the Commonwealth Fund.


Topics to be discussed include:

  • The problem in touting, and focusing on, the unique customer service of the U.S. healthcare system
  • Why so many hospitals resemble hotels
  • Whether paying hospitals based on filled beds is good for the country
  • Why life expectancy in the U.S. is ranked 31st in the world but healthcare costs in the U.S. are ranked number 1
  • Whether hospitals should be encouraged to invest in the health of the communities and what the benefits of doing so may be
  • What global budgets are for hospitals
  • The benefits of global budgets for hospitals
  • The disadvantages of global budgets for hospitals
  • Whether global budgets for hospitals or paying hospitals more the more they treat/see patients is stranger
  • Real-world experiences with global budgets for hospitals
  • Whether the use of global budgets for hospitals have taken hold and what states/hospitals are jumping on board
  • More…

How to Join the Chat

  1. Log into your Twitter account. Don’t have an account? Where have you been?! Just kidding, we don’t judge, but you should get one! It’s easy to create, and free. You’ll be glad you did.
  2. A couple minutes before 9:00pm ET on August 24, Search Twitter (top right of every Twitter page) for #PWChat.
  3. On the search results page, click Latest at the top left. This will show you all the latest tweets using the #PWChat hashtag. The page will automatically update every couple minutes, letting you know how many new tweets there are using the #PWChat hashtag.
  4. Answer questions, reply to other’s comments, or make a comment of your own as much and as often as you like. Just make sure to leave room in include #PWChat to make sure what you tweet is included in the chat. Otherwise, it won’t be seen.
  5. While you’re at it, be sure to follow @physicianswkly and @drJoshS!

About Dr. Sharfstein

Dr. Sharfstein is the Associate Dean of Public Health Practice & Training at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In this role, he oversees the Office of Public Health Practice and Training, the General Preventive Medicine Residency and major practice activities, including collaboration with public health agencies. He also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Previously, he served as the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as Commissioner of Health for Baltimore City, and as health policy advisor for Congressman Henry A. Waxman.

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