The Ghosts Haunting Healthcare: Halloween Roundup 2025

Fear is a powerful teacher. It focuses attention, strips away pretense and exposes what truly matters. In healthcare, fear often arrives disguised — a data breach here, a hospital closure there, an algorithm making a decision no one fully understands. But peel back the headlines and you find a deeper anxiety running through the system: The old ways of delivering care no longer work, and the new ways aren’t arriving fast enough.

The U.S. health system is standing in the dark, flashlight flickering, surrounded by the things it most dreads: unsustainable costs, declining safety, workforce exhaustion, runaway technology and widening inequity. Each threat is scary on its own; together, they form a house of horrors built on fragile infrastructure and misaligned incentives.

The good news? Every monster in this story can be tamed. Innovation, transparency and accountability can drive both fear and reform. But only if leaders have the courage to face what’s hiding in the shadows.

As we head into Halloween week buying candy, carving pumpkins and planning our costumes, here are the scariest truths in healthcare right now, and why confronting them is the only way forward.

Patient-Safety Breakdowns

There’s been a sharp rise in “sentinel events” and many of the events involve very basic, avoidable mistakes like falls, delays in treatment and foreign objects. The fact that these events keep rising suggests that incremental safety measures aren’t enough, and the system may be under strain (staffing, workflow, complexity). If safety is going down, insurance premiums for malpractice go up — which signals deeper systemic trouble.

Medical Errors Kill. Being Transparent Will Save Lives.

Forgetting — or Ignoring — An Important Patient Safety Anniversary

Podcast: If the Misdiagnosis Doesn’t Kill You, the Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Will

What’s Real Anymore?

In an age where every headline seems contested, every expert credential questioned and every data point subject to spin, the fundamental question for healthcare is becoming: Who do we trust — and why? Because if we don’t trust the institutions charged with safeguarding our health, then what remains? The notion that the agencies, scientists and clinicians have our best interests at heart is under siege. Across the political divide, survey after survey shows a stunning collapse of consensus: One person’s “evidence” is another’s “agenda.”

In Public Health We Trust. Or Not.

Catch the Data Before It’s Gone

Hey, Independents, Want Some Public Health News With Your Salmonella?

Affordability and Wasted Spending

The scariest stat of 2025: The U.S. healthcare system spends far more than other wealthy countries, and Americans still live shorter lives. What’s worse, households are increasingly burdened by healthcare costs, and about a third of household income may be going toward healthcare.

If spending continues to climb without commensurate improvement in outcomes, the system becomes financially unsustainable (for payers, providers, taxpayers and patients). High cost paired with poor value means many patients are either burdened with bills or receive care that doesn’t meaningfully help them.

When people ask, “What am I paying for?” don’t expect a satisfactory answer.

The Revolutionary Cure for U.S. Healthcare

The Tipping Point: The Coming Healthcare Revolution

Health Equity, Health Equity, Health Equity

The Bots Are Coming! Tech Disruption

The ultimate red herring, technology hype can create distraction from fundamentals. Rapid deployment of AI in clinical settings carries risks: algorithm bias, lack of transparency, unintended consequences, overreliance on automation. If governance, ethics, data security and clinician training don’t keep up, patient harm or systemic failure is possible. Technology is also continuing the tradition of fragmented care. U.S. health system is on life support in many places, especially in low-income urban and rural communities.

Digital Disparities

Making Sense of AI in Healthcare

AI in Healthcare? I Don’t Know About That

Healthcare Haunted House

Imagine a haunted house but it’s just high cost + poor value + workforce strain + technology disruption + fragmented access. That’s a scary look at healthcare.

Let’s wake up from this nightmare!