The BRI Blog

Sarah Anderson, Director of Policy, FreedomWorks, discusses with BRI chapter leader Rufus Sweeney and Rebecca Kiessling, BRI Director of Programs, the topic of Patients Need Doctors, Not Bureaucrats. [Watch it NOW]

For decades, medical students have been overwhelmed by the idea that big government and big cronyism is just the natural state of health care in America. But, it doesn’t have to be this way. Rebecca Kiessling and Rufus Sweeney of the Benjamin Rush Institute join us to talk about health care freedom and how their organization is bringing free market ideas to the next generation of doctors!

Acton Institute article about 21st Century recommendations from Dr. Rush and other 18th and 19th Century Physicians. [Read the article]

Dr. Leah Houston is the founder of HPEC, and a board-certified Emergency Physician. While practicing emergency medicine across the US for nearly 10 years she recognized a common problem: uncompensated administrative burdens related to physician employment and credentialing are a leading cause of administrative waste and physician burn out. Watch the video NOW!

She realized that distributed ledger technology could solve the obstructive regulatory problems in healthcare, by creating a decentralized community of physicians. She began working on the project and named it HPEC – the Humanitarian Physicians Empowerment Community. HPEC is building a platform that will give every physician a self-sovereign digital identity attached to their credentials in order to create a democratic digital physicians guild. HPEC will streamline the current antiquated and laborious process of credentialing, reduce administrative waste, improve access to care and give physicians sovereign ownership of their data and employment rights. The organization will also create an opportunity for physicians to communicate more efficiently about policy, and practice in order to improve patient care.

In presenting a solution that has the potential to alleviate the administrative waste for health systems, government and practicing physicians she is a recognized and requested national speaker on the topic of decentralized identity as it relates to healthcare. Her work was featured as a part of the first HIMSS Blockchain and Healthcare Textbook, published in 2019. A lifelong advocate, innovator and investor she has also spent lobbying for public policy and healthcare reform. She understands the problems that plague the healthcare system from the inside and out, and has dedicated her time to repairing the current global healthcare crisis. HPEC will restore physician autonomy to the practice of medicine, will begin in the United States and expand.

Will a pandemic change Med Schools? Read Now

The Board of Directors and staff of the Benjamin Rush Institute (BRI) mourn the passing of our Board member and former Oklahoma Senator and Congressman Thomas Allen “Tom” Coburn, M.D.

Dr. Coburn’s battles with cancer inspired him to become a physician. As a practicing obstetrician, he was first inspired to run for Congress in his home state of Oklahoma to oppose an incumbent dedicated to nationalizing the practice of medicine. Then, throughout his distinguished career in Congress, first as a Congressman and later in the Senate, Coburn continued to deliver babies as part of his established family practice.

Dr. Coburn’s dedication to the doctor-patient relationship and to the education of medical students was an inspiration to BRI’s student members, our staff, and his fellow Board Members. He will be missed.

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, outlines in a press briefing her plans surrounding the White House Coronavirus Task Force. [Read the article]

SOURCE: The Washington Post