Health Care News and Research

RSS

Canada's low deceased organ donation rate not due to lack of public support

While more than 4,000 Canadians are on wait lists for organ transplants - and every day-and-a-half, one patient dies waiting - Canada's low deceased organ donation rate cannot be attributed to a lack of public support.

16 Aug 2010

Exercise can ease arthritis pain

People with arthritis who exercise have less pain, more energy, improved sleep, and better day-to-day function, according to the American College of Rheumatology.

16 Aug 2010

Survey: Majority of U.S. pharmaceutical companies develop drugs for mental illness

Pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies in New Jersey, California, New York and North Carolina are responsible for 192 of the 313 medicines in development today to treat mental illnesses, a new survey shows.

16 Aug 2010

Washington Hospital's Stroke Program receives Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award

In just a few short years since its inception, Washington Hospital's Stroke Program has earned top honors - The Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award - which is part of the American Heart Association (AHA) and American Stroke Association (ASA)'s Get With The Guidelines(GWTG) program, a national evidence-based initiative to improve stroke patients' outcomes.

16 Aug 2010

SAS and EHFCN collaborate to promote awareness on healthcare fraud

SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, will collaborate with the European Healthcare Fraud and Corruption Network (EHFCN) to spread information about detecting and preventing health care fraud. The collaboration will expose Belgium-based EHFCN to a broader European audience and identify SAS and the SAS® Fraud Framework for Health Care as a "privileged technical resource" for health care providers and insurers.

16 Aug 2010

Opinions: PEPFAR funding; Aid in Africa; Obama, human rights

Following a recent letter by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) to President Barack Obama that "expressed concern about the future of" PEPFAR "as details of the Obama administration's Global Health Initiative emerge," a Courier-Journal editorial looks at how the "U.S. made a commitment to be a major player in the worldwide fight against AIDS" and details how "arguably the most successful program implemented by President Bush" has made huge strides in broadening HIV treatment access and preventing mother-to-child-transmission in the developing world.

16 Aug 2010

Watson to launch ella emergency contraceptive in fourth-quarter 2010

Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., today announced that it intends to launch ella® (ulipristal acetate), a novel oral emergency contraceptive, in the fourth quarter of 2010. Watson's announcement follows the approval of ella® by the FDA as safe and effective in preventing unintended pregnancy for up to 120 hours – or five days – post-unprotected intercourse (UPI) or contraceptive failure.

16 Aug 2010

Delegates explore agricultural cooperation, expanded ties at two-day China-Africa Agricultural Forum

Chinese and African officials concluded the China-Africa Agricultural Forum in Beijing on Thursday, which explored possibilities for agricultural cooperation and addressed food security issues, Xinhua reports.

16 Aug 2010

Medicare fraudsters shift targets a la "whack-a-mole"

The Economist: In an effort to staunch the flow of up to $60 billion a year to Medicare fraudsters, federal officials are launching a series of new safeguards that target program areas favored by the con artists. "The Department of Health and Human Services is setting up data systems to monitor payments. A telephone-monitoring programme, with voice-recognition, will verify that health-care workers really are making home visits.

16 Aug 2010

Research Roundup: Disabled Medicare Enrollees' challenges; Increasing ER visits; costs/benefits of Part D

Health Affairs: Medicare Doesn't Work As Well For Younger, Disabled Beneficiaries As It Does For Older Enrollees - This paper examines "how well Medicare works for [the 8 million] nonelderly disabled beneficiaries compared to the elderly, based on findings from a nationally representative survey of noninstitutionalized Medicare beneficiaries conducted in 2008 by the Kaiser Family Foundation."

16 Aug 2010

U.S. officials probing payments by drug and device makers to doctors overseas

The New York Times reports that federal officials are investigating whether a dozen drug and device makers "made illegal payments to doctors and health officials in foreign countries." Although pharmaceutical companies routinely contract with doctors in the United States to be consultants, experts say the situation is more complex overseas because "in much of the rest of the world, doctors are government employees. And even consulting arrangements that would be considered routine in the United States might violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, particularly if the payments are outsize or the arrangements are not disclosed to the governments.

16 Aug 2010

FDA approves ellaOne for emergency contraception

HRA Pharma announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval for ella(R) (ulipristal acetate) as a prescription-only emergency contraceptive indicated for use within 120 hours (five days) of unprotected intercourse or a known or suspected contraceptive failure. ella is not intended for routine use as a contraceptive.

16 Aug 2010

Common genetic variation in HLA region associated with late-onset sporadic Parkinson's disease: Research

A team of researchers has discovered new evidence that Parkinson's disease may have an infectious or autoimmune origin. "Common genetic variation in the HLA region is associated with late-onset sporadic Parkinson's disease" appears online in Nature Genetics.

16 Aug 2010

The federal health IT push remains in the spotlight

Doctors across the country including Tahsina Atiquzzaman in Kissimmee, Fla., are "shredding paper charts and ushering in digital records as part of the health care milestones announced last month by the federal government," The Orlando Sentinel/Modesto Bee reports.

13 Aug 2010

Insurers defend less generous policies, medical loss ratio definitions; Obama to talk with insurance commissioners

Kaiser Health News, in collaboration with USA Today, reports on insurers who are defending less generous "limited-benefit" health policies as implementation of the health law proceeds. That law forbids annual dollar limits in such plans. "Starting this fall, most health care policies — except existing policies purchased by individuals on their own — will have to cover at least $750,000 in medical care per person.

13 Aug 2010

Four Mass. hospitals investigate trashing of patient health records, Calif. employers worry about workers using marijuana on job

"Four Massachusetts community hospitals are investigating how thousands of patient health records, some containing Social Security numbers and sensitive medical diagnoses, ended up in a pile at a public dump. The unshredded records included pathology reports with patients' names, addresses, and results of breast, bone, and skin cancer tests, as well as the results of lab work following miscarriages. By law, medical records and documents containing personal identifying information must be disposed of in a way that protects privacy, and leaving them at a dump is probably illegal, privacy lawyers and hospital officials said" (Kowalczyk, 8/13).

13 Aug 2010

Arizona lawmakers challenge health overhaul

A group of Arizona lawmakers has become the latest to challenge the federal health law as they "joined a conservative watchdog group Thursday in filing a 78-page lawsuit" challenging the law's mandate on Americans to carry health insurance and its Independent Payment Advisory Board in Medicare, Fox News reports.

13 Aug 2010

Legal scholar calls for FDA to regulate all health-related genetic tests

An opinion piece by a legal scholar from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in this week's issue of Nature calls for the Food and Drug Administration to regulate all health-related genetic tests — whether available directly to consumers or through a health care provider — using an approach that imposes requirements proportionate to a test's level of risk.

13 Aug 2010

UT System Board of Regents approve plans for new University Hospital at UT Southwestern Medical Center

The UT System Board of Regents today gave its approval to plans for a new state-of-the-art University Hospital at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. The project now will go to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for its review and final approval.

13 Aug 2010

Today's opinions: Rep. Ryan's plan to aid Medicare; The burden on health law supporters in Va.; Evaluating Medicare actuary's estimates

Only in Washington could the government raid one entitlement program to finance a brand-new one and still claim that deficits have been reduced and entitlements have been reformed (Rep. Paul Ryan, 8/13).

13 Aug 2010

Health Care News and Research

Canada's low deceased organ donation rate not due to lack of public support

Exercise can ease arthritis pain

Survey: Majority of U.S. pharmaceutical companies develop drugs for mental illness

Washington Hospital's Stroke Program receives Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award

SAS and EHFCN collaborate to promote awareness on healthcare fraud

Opinions: PEPFAR funding; Aid in Africa; Obama, human rights

Watson to launch ella emergency contraceptive in fourth-quarter 2010

Delegates explore agricultural cooperation, expanded ties at two-day China-Africa Agricultural Forum

Medicare fraudsters shift targets a la "whack-a-mole"

Research Roundup: Disabled Medicare Enrollees' challenges; Increasing ER visits; costs/benefits of Part D

U.S. officials probing payments by drug and device makers to doctors overseas

FDA approves ellaOne for emergency contraception

Common genetic variation in HLA region associated with late-onset sporadic Parkinson's disease: Research

The federal health IT push remains in the spotlight

Insurers defend less generous policies, medical loss ratio definitions; Obama to talk with insurance commissioners

Four Mass. hospitals investigate trashing of patient health records, Calif. employers worry about workers using marijuana on job

Arizona lawmakers challenge health overhaul

Legal scholar calls for FDA to regulate all health-related genetic tests

UT System Board of Regents approve plans for new University Hospital at UT Southwestern Medical Center

Today's opinions: Rep. Ryan's plan to aid Medicare; The burden on health law supporters in Va.; Evaluating Medicare actuary's estimates

Achieving and maintaining ISO/IEC 27001 and BS 10012 certifications

Expanding research and clinical options for children with cancer

Examining how pain could play a direct protective role in the gut

Latest News