2010 Winners Named In Health Care Journalism And Research Awards

Washington, DC - May 2010 - The National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the Sixteenth Annual Health Care Journalism and Research Awards. The contests are judged by independent panels of judges.

The 2010 winners are:

Television and Radio Journalism

Editor: Anne Gudenkauf, Producer: Gisele Grayson, Reporter: Alix Spiegel, Research Assistant: Jane Greenhalgh; "How Bone Disease Grew to Fit the Prescription," NPR.

This piece tells the history of osteopenia and how market forces shaped its evolution from a little known condition to a bone disease requiring medication. The judges called it a "masterful piece of journalism - thoroughly reported, beautifully written and produced."

General Circulation Print Journalism

Atul Gawande, "The Cost Conundrum," The New Yorker.

Atul Gawande influenced the 2009 health care reform debate by exploring why health care costs in one Texas town are almost twice those of a town with very similar demographics, revealing how an emphasis on profit growth is spreading in America's medical communities. Watch Atul's acceptance speech here.

Trade Publication Print Journalism

Joe Carlson, "Trauma to the System," Modern Healthcare.

Joe Carlson describes how a handful of big city hospitals are working to reduce homicides in the neighborhoods they serve - preventing one of America's most expensive health problems. The judges liked the way Carlson used excellent narrative writing.

Research

Deborah Peikes, Arnold Chen, Jennifer Schore and Randall Brown, "Effects of Care Coordination on Hospitalization, Quality of Care, and Health Care Expenditures Among Medicare Beneficiaries: 15 Randomized Trials," JAMA 301(6): 603-18.

This paper reports the results of an evaluation of 15 different Medicare care coordination programs, which showed that these programs, as structured, were not very effective. Only one of the programs reduced hospitalizations and only two reduced costs. The judges expect the paper to be influential in the policy world given the current hopes for care coordination as a way to control costs.

Additional awards included:

Runner-up for General Circulation Print Journalism:

John Fauber, Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger, "Side Effects," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
This investigative series explores conflicts of interest in the medical field.

Honorable Mention for Print Journalism:

Nancy Watzman, Bill Allison, Sarah Dorsey, Luke Rosiak, Noah Kunin, Kerry Mitchell, and Anu Narayanswamy, "The Heart of the Matter: How Congress and Special Interests Kept Crucial Clinical Trial Data Secret," Sunlight Foundation.
This article investigates how former congressional staffers went to work for medical device manufacturers.

About the Awards

Established in 1993, the awards program recognizes the talented researchers and journalists who serve as catalysts for positive change by advancing and informing the health care policy debate. NIHCM's President and CEO, Nancy Chockley, explains "NIHCM was founded with a mission to provoke new thinking and ideas. Through our awards, we recognize the tremendous contributions made by those in the fields of health care journalism and research who bring these new ideas to light and communicate them to the public." This year's competition brought in nearly 300 entries. The winners were honored at NIHCM's Sixteenth Annual Journalism and Research Awards Dinner on May 17 in Washington, DC.