• Unaccountable

  • What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care
  • By: Marty Makary
  • Narrated by: Robertson Dean
  • Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (234 ratings)

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Unaccountable  By  cover art

Unaccountable

By: Marty Makary
Narrated by: Robertson Dean
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Publisher's summary

Dr. Marty Makary is co-developer of the life-saving checklist outlined in Atul Gawande's best-selling The Checklist Manifesto. As a busy surgeon who has worked in many of the best hospitals in the nation, he can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he's also been a witness to a medical culture that routinely leaves surgical sponges inside patients, amputates the wrong limbs, and overdoses children because of sloppy handwriting.

Over the last 10 years, neither error rates nor costs have come down, despite scientific progress and efforts to curb expenses. Why? To patients, the healthcare system is a black box. Doctors and hospitals are unaccountable, and the lack of transparency leaves both bad doctors and systemic flaws unchecked. Patients need to know more of what healthcare workers know, so they can make informed choices. Accountability in healthcare would expose dangerous doctors, reward good performance, and force positive change nationally, using the power of the free market. Unaccountable is a powerful, no-nonsense, non-partisan diagnosis for healing our hospitals and reforming our broken healthcare system.

©2012 Marty Makary, MD (P)2013 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Makary's book makes it perfectly clear that data transparency not only allows people to make informed decisions about their health but also nudges hospitals and physicians to be more vigilant and efficient." ( Booklist)

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Everyone should read this book.

This is an important book that reveals our health care system's dark side. There is a culture of secrecy, greed and manipulation among our hospitals and healthcare professionals. Some are worse and some are better. This book is a call to action for change. It also offers very good information for patients who want to evaluate their care now. It provides some tools to help people choose doctors and hospitals. I found the information useful and feel hopeful for continued improvement.

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Great information

I'm a nurse. This is an important read for those in the medical field and for patients. unfortunately the recording quality was terrible. Much of the time you cannot hear the beginning of a sentence. You might hear, "mtimes" instead of "sometimes", but it was so frequent that it was frustrating.

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4 people found this helpful

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Excellent - Much needed

As a physician, I feel I have endured the stories of this book, been ridiculed, in similar ways, and I’m happy Dr Makary was able to show a broken, fragmented, and secretive culture that truly needs to change.
Well written, thoughtful, insightful

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4 people found this helpful

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A must read!

Dr. Makary is a rebel with a noble cause, a sharp observer, and a wise proposer of specific standards for better health care practice. The time is ripe for this new sensibility in medical practice. Essential read for patients, health care providers and policy makers.

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Everyone should hear this

If you have a body, you need to hear this book. You have a responsibility to yourself to be informed.

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A page turner. This book can save your life.

Dr Marty Makary pulls back the curtain and tells us what is broken in our healthcare system. A must read, because we are all affected by this.

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enlightening and scary

eye opening, but I was hoping for more practical advice on what I as a patient should be asking and doing.

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A Must Read

What everybody needs to know about the US healthcare system. Before you or somebody you know needs any kind of care.

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The One Book You Must Read For Your Health

This is an groundbreaking and crucial work of non-fiction. You think you know how doctors and hospitals work. You don't. Were you aware that hospitals own chemo drugs and set the prices? Did you know they pay doctors kickbacks to use this chemo, the more the better? Did you realize executives at Children's Hospitals fly first class and are paid multimillions out of money you donated for sick children? The author is a Johns Hopkins surgeon with impeccable credentials. This isn't an overblown scare tactic of a book. It's the truth and you need to read it.

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A must read

Deserves a spot on everyone's reading list. The things listed in this book are the reason why I refuse to see an MD.

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