Healthcare Systems & Policy

If you are a Californian having a baby for the first time, choose your hospital wisely. You might even wish to move. A recent report from the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce revealed alarming discrepancies in outcomes for low-risk pregnancies at high-performing and low-perform

Patient Safety and Ethics, Environmental Health, Women's and Maternal Health

New Jersey was one of 28 states that opted to accept federal money to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. That expansion has added almost 400,000 people to the public health insurance program - without necessarily adding more doctors to see them.

Health Insurance and Costs

A look at federal inspection reports will reveal how hospitals have failed to protect patients from contracting serious, and sometimes deadly, infections.

Patient Safety and Ethics

There are a range of agencies involved in licensing and disciplining the health care professionals who do the bulk of the work in clinics, hospitals, and other health care settings. Here's how to start tracking down records that can raise red flags and lead to compelling stories.

Patient Safety and Ethics

Sexual health and reproduction are not openly discussed in the Vietnamese family beyond discouraging premarital sex, and there are few resources to help families navigate the challenges of a cross-generational, cross-cultural "sex talk."

Race and Equity

Every state has some agency that oversees the licensing of physicians. And in those files are dozens of stories you should be writing about. Here's how to start using licensing and discipline records to find story leads and strengthen your reporting.

Patient Safety and Ethics

A leading researcher on the ways in which doctors talk to parents about vaccines has a new suggestion for how we might boost immunization rates. Drawing on the theory of nudges, Dr. Douglas Opel suggests parents should have to "opt-out" of vaccinating their kids rather than "opt-in."