By Tracy Krulik

In 1998 I wound up in a South Florida emergency room following a week of nausea, vomiting, and frail-octogenarian-like weakness. After a brief exam, an overnight stay in the hospital, and an endoscopy, the internist sent me home with motility drugs to combat his diagnosed cause of my problems — gastroparesis. That was the start of my nine-year illness, which was misdiagnosed at every turn. Mine is a story of how I survived a medical odyssey that included a tumor on my pancreas as well as …

Project to help providers evaluate and improve the quality of patient care, allow insurers to assess and evaluate the performance of their provider networks in a common way, and enable consumers to see how hospitals are performing.

PL: The new mental health parity bill affects insurance coverage for the treatment of mental illness and substance abuse for health plans that are regulated by federal law. It says that, for those plans covering more than 50 employees, mental illness must be treated under the same terms and conditions as any other illness.

Historic law brings equity, with limits.

Pioneering care redesign projects combine evidence-based medicine, workflow redesign and realigned incentives.

Generic drug sampling machines can reduce costs for patients and payors, while enhancing access and convenience.

ConnectTheDocs initiative to expand electronic health information exchange in the Commonwealth.

Patient Safety Authority seeks ways to reduce reporting variability and launches expanded educational initiatives.

Physicians can build their skills in the area of communicating effectively across cultures, asking particular questions of their patients, and being able to negotiate in ways that will improve the outcomes for diverse patient populations.

A case for recruiting retired physicians to make house calls to homebound older adults.