NIH expands effort to diagnose misunderstood disorders

The agency announces $43 million for its Undiagnosed Disease Network, which by the summer of 2017 is expected to enroll at least 300 new patients with mysterious and intractable conditions per year. Meanwhile, online ER booking in California is the latest example of how hospitals are attempting to compete with one another.

Los Angeles Times: Medical Sleuths Seek Patients With Mystery Diseases, Offer New Tools
Everyone loves a medical mystery, except the afflicted patient and his or her family who shuffle from doctor to doctor in search of an explanation for a disorder whose name, origin, prognosis and cure are all unknown. Now, the National Institutes of Health have underwritten a nationwide "whodunnit" campaign, with a $43 million-initiative to fund the diagnosis and exploration of undiagnosed, unrecognized and misunderstood diseases (Healy, 7/2).

Kaiser Health News: The Latest In Medical Convenience: ER Appointments
Scott Paul knew he needed to head to the emergency room on a recent Sunday after his foot became so painful he couldn't walk. The one thing that gave him pause was the thought of having to wait several hours next to a bunch of sick people. But his wife, Jeannette, remembered she'd seen Dignity Health television commercials featuring a woman sitting in a hospital waiting room and then cutting to the same woman sitting on her living room couch as words come up on the screen: "Wait for the ER from home" (Gorman and Colliver, 7/3).