Preview
  • 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 (253 ratings)

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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
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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)

What listeners say about Unaccountable

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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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1 person found this helpful

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Excellent

This should be a required reading for those in and outside of the medical establishment.

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Important book, but a little disheartening

Loved the book and message in it but a little disheartening look at healthcare. It ends with a slightly hopeful note.

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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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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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Reader was dull

Enjoy the thoughts and ideas but the reader was slightly more exciting than wet bread.

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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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The Farse of the Medical System

Love the book. Hate the system. The medical industry is more full of greed at an unethical level. Then most industries in the country. With that sad, I am not surprised that we would have this issue in america. Greed runs this country more than anything else.

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Transparency- needed more than ever before

While waiting to get Makary’s new book, I read this one and even though it’s been published over a decade ago it is still or even more relevant to our medical crisis. Thank you

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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