RWJF Pioneering Ideas Podcast: Episode 1 | Behavioral Economics, the Science of Placebo Studies & More
Aug 6, 2013, 8:00 AM, Posted by Pioneer Blog Team
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Welcome to the first episode of the Pioneering Ideas podcast. Get insight into the Pioneer funding strategy in a Q&A with Brian Quinn. Next, in a conversation about our recent Behavioral Economics Call for Problems (time stamp: 4:35), director Lori Melichar and Drs. Kevin Volpp and David Asch, co-directors of the Foundation's Behavioral Economics Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, talk about the pros and cons of making proposals public so ideas can spread. Then Harvard's Ted Kaptchuk, a Pioneer grantee, talks about the developing science of placebo studies (9:25). And Senior Program Officer Paul Tarini talks with Pioneer grantee Ben Heywood about how PatientsLikeMe could change medical practice and research (13:10). It's a stimulating mix of conversations, all of which offer a window into what, exactly, constitutes a pioneering idea. Listen now or download the episode:
Guests
- David Asch, MD is the executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Care Innovation. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Health Care Management, and Operations and Information Management at the university.
- Ben Heywood is the co-founder and president of PatientsLikeMe. He and his brother Jamie founded the company in 1999 after their brother, Stephen, was diagnosed with ALS. The brothers’ story is the focus of the book, His Brother’s Keeper: A Story From the Edge of Medicine, and the film, So Much So Fast.
- Ted Kaptchuk is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Harvard-wide Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapautic Encounter (PiPS) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He is also a lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a scholar of East Asian medicine.
- Kevin Volpp, MD is a Professor of Medicine and Health Care Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. He is also the director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics at the Leonard Davis Institute and the director of the University of Pennsylvania/Carnegie Mellon University Roybal P30 Center in Behavioral Economics and Health.
Reading List
Learn more about the ideas and projects discussed in this episode.
- Meditation Without God – "Ted Kaptchuk and colleagues at Harvard Medical School found that subjects with irritable bowel syndrome who took placebo pills had a significantly better outcome than a matched control group that received no treatment," the Washington Post reports. "The twist in this experiment was that the subjects were actually told they were getting an inert placebo. Yet it worked."
- A New Type of Research for the Information Age – As patients increasingly share their experiences online, it is time to update the ethical approval process for research studies to reflect this, says Paul Wicks of PatientsLikeMe.
- Pioneering the Use of Personal Health Data – Trace the evolution of the personal health data projects we’ve funded over the years, including our current Health Data Exploration.
Listen to Past Episodes
Check out past episodes of the Pioneering Ideas podcast, where we explore topics like the science of choosing and the radical effect of empathy on innovation.
This commentary originally appeared on the RWJF Pioneering Ideas blog.