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Podcast

Health & Veritas

Howard Forman and Harlan Krumholz, two Yale physician-professors, discuss the latest news and ideas in healthcare and seek out the truth amid the noise.

Health & Veritas is produced with the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Public Health. New episodes are available every Thursday. 

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Portrait of Howard P. Forman

Howard P. Forman

Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Economics, Public Health, and Management; Co-founder, Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership, MD/MBA Program, and MBA for Executives Program

Professor Forman is a Professor of Diagnostic Radiology (and faculty director for Finance), Public Health (Health Policy), Economics and Management. Professor Forman directs the Health Care management program in the Yale School of Public Health and teaches healthcare economics in the Yale College Economics Department. He is the faculty founder and director of the MD/MBA program as well as the faculty director of the healthcare focus area in the School of Management’s MBA for Executives program. He is the co-founder and special advisor to the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership program. He co-hosts the Health & Veritas podcast with Dr. Harlan Krumholz.

As a practicing emergency/trauma radiologist, he is actively involved in patient care and issues related to financial administration, healthcare compliance, and contracting. His research has been focused on improving imaging services delivery through better access to information. He has worked as a health policy fellow in the U.S. Senate, on Medicare legislation.

During the COVID Pandemic, Professor Forman has actively tracked outbreaks at local, national, and international levels; expounding on mitigation strategies and engaging to dispel misinformation through social and print media. He has been a frequent guest commentator and expert on national video and audio platforms.

Harlan Krumholz

Harlan M. Krumholz

Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and Professor in the Institute of Social Policy Studies, of Investigative Medicine, and of Public Health (Health Policy); and Director of the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation

Harlan Krumholz is a cardiologist and scientist at Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital. He is the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine, and Professor in the Institute of Social Policy Studies, of Investigative Medicine, and of Public Health (Health Policy), and the Director of the Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. He is a leading expert in the science to improve the quality and efficiency of care, eliminate disparities and promote equity, improve integrity and transparency in medical research, engage patients in their care, and avoid wasteful practices. Recent efforts are focused on harnessing the digital transformation in healthcare to accelerate knowledge generation and facilitate the delivery of care aligned with each patient’s needs and preferences.

Dr. Krumholz is director of the Yale New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), an organization dedicated to improving health and health care through research, tools, and practices that produce discovery, heighten accountability and promote better public health and clinical care. He co-founded and co-leads the Yale University Open Data Access (YODA) Project, designed to increase access to clinical research data and promote their use to generate new knowledge. He also co-founded and co-leads medRxiv, a non-profit preprint server for the medical and health sciences. He was a founding faculty co-director of the Yale Center for Research Computing.

Dr. Krumholz has been honored by membership in the National Academy of Medicine, the Association of American Physicians, and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was named a Distinguished Scientist of the American Heart Association and received their Award of Meritorious Achievement and their Clinical Research Prize. He served as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Krumholz received the Friendship Award from the People’s Republic of China in recognition of his collaborative efforts to develop a national cardiovascular research network and was named by the Chinese Society of Cardiology as a Top-10 Distinguished International Cardiologist for his contributions to the development of cardiovascular medicine in China. He founded the American Heart Association’s Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Council and co-founded their annual conference. He was the founding editor of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes; founding editor of CardioExchange, a social media site of the publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine; and editor of Journal Watch Cardiology of the New England Journal of Medicine. He was a founding Governor of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Episodes

Joshua Sharfstein: Policy and Health

Joshua Sharfstein: Policy and Health

Howie and Harlan are joined by Joshua Sharfstein, a longtime public health official in federal, state, and local government, to discuss the state of the opioid epidemic, lessons from the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, and our readiness for a bird flu outbreak. Harlan reports on the summer surge in COVID-19; Howie remembers his mentor Gail Wilensky, a health economist who directed Medicaid and Medicare programs and led many other organizations over a 50-year career. 

Kate Goodrich: A Better Model for Care

Kate Goodrich: A Better Model for Care

Howie and Harlan are joined by Kate Goodrich, chief medical officer for Humana and a former Medicare staffer, to discuss the improvements in care and outcomes that result when providers are paid for each patient, not each service. Harlan looks at the challenge of payment for AI-based diagnostic tools; Howie asks if free tuition at Johns Hopkins medical school will address the real problems in medical education. 

Timothy Westmoreland: Healthcare at the Supreme Court

Timothy Westmoreland: Healthcare at the Supreme Court

Howie and Harlan are joined by Timothy Westmoreland to discuss his long career in health policy and law, and the far-reaching consequences of the Supreme Court decision overturning Chevron deference. Harlan looks at President Joe Biden's debate struggles; Howie reports on the many healthcare-related Supreme Court decisions. 

An HIV Breakthrough and Other News

An HIV Breakthrough and Other News

Howie and Harlan catch up on healthcare headlines, including the politics of treating gun violence as a public health crisis, the growing evidence for the dangers of artificial sweeteners, and the latest on the bird flu outbreak.

Lisa Suter: Medicine, Measurement, and Equity

Lisa Suter: Medicine, Measurement, and Equity

Howie and Harlan are joined by Lisa Suter, a rheumatologist and the senior director of the Quality Measurement Program at Yale’s Center for Outcomes Research & Evaluation. Harlan reflects on the meaning of Juneteenth and reports on a Yale-led report card on health equity; Howie comments on Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s call for warning labels on social media. 

Anna Reisman: Bringing the Humanities to Medicine

Anna Reisman: Bringing the Humanities to Medicine

Howie and Harlan are joined by Anna Reisman, a physician and writer who leads Yale’s Program for Humanities in Medicine. They discuss the gaps in care she encountered when her developmentally disabled sister was diagnosed with cancer, and her work reviewing the “dude wall” of portraits at Yale Medical School. Harlan asks what we’ve gained from a new definition of long COVID; Howie provides an update on the spread of the H5N1 bird flu. 

Mitesh Rao: Democratizing Healthcare Data

Mitesh Rao: Democratizing Healthcare Data

Mitesh Rao, co-founder and CEO of OMNY Health, joins Howie and Harlan to discuss his entrepreneurial journey and how his company is creating a common layer of data connecting healthcare providers and researchers. Harlan reports on a study showing how many lives could be saved by improving quality of care; Howie reflects on the health consequences that have accompanied the legalization of cannabis. 

Live at the Yale Innovation Summit

Live at the Yale Innovation Summit

A special episode recorded at the Yale Innovation Summit, which brings together entrepreneurs and investors in the arts, biotech, climate, health, and tech. Howie and Harlan are joined by Josh Geballe, managing director of Yale Ventures, which hosts the summit; Mary Ann Melnick, site head at Biolabs New Haven; and Lee Schwamm, chief digital health officer at Yale New Haven Health System. 

Chima Ndumele: Reinventing Medicaid

Chima Ndumele: Reinventing Medicaid

Howie and Harlan are joined by Chima Ndumele of the Yale School of Public Health to discuss his research on structural changes to Medicaid that could keep vulnerable populations healthier. Harlan reports on the remarkable abilities of Google's latest medicine-focused AI; Howie reflects on a study showing the impact of race-neutral measures of lung function. 

Ruth Katz: Crafting Landmark Legislation

Ruth Katz: Crafting Landmark Legislation

Howie and Harlan are joined by Ruth Katz, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Health, Medicine & Society Program and a former Capitol Hill staffer, to discuss her work on the Affordable Care Act and other major healthcare laws. Harlan reflects on a study showing that using different analytical approaches to the same data can lead to a wide range of conclusions; Howie reports on a wave of dangerous infections caused by stem cell treatments at clinics in Mexico.