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Abt Associates receives two new contracts to evaluate effectiveness of H1N1 vaccine

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded Abt Associates two new contracts to evaluate the effectiveness of the H1N1 vaccine among health care workers and children under the age of 18.

6 Mar 2010

Bozeman Deaconess Hospital enters into affiliation agreement with SCCA Network

Bozeman Deaconess Hospital in Bozeman, Montana, has joined the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Network to become the ninth Northwest community healthcare facility to enter into an affiliation agreement with the SCCA. The SCCA Network provides a structured program for supporting community-based oncology services to advance the level of care, including making leading-edge clinical trials available to local patients and offering continuing medical education to local health care providers.

4 Mar 2010

NAEC elects Mayo Clinic as top epilepsy treatment center

Mayo Clinic has been designated a comprehensive epilepsy treatment center by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers (NAEC). Only the top epilepsy programs - those that can provide the most complex and advanced care - are selected for this designation, according to the association.

3 Mar 2010

Focal dystonia precipitated by odor exposure: First case reported

Alan Hirsch, MD, founder and neurologic director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, presented his research on Odor-Induced Pseudodystonia at the 3rd International Congress on Gait and Mental Function in Washington, D.C. on February 27.

2 Mar 2010

Secretary of Labor: Congress extends unemployment insurance, COBRA safety net programs

It is essential that Congress extend the unemployment insurance and COBRA safety net programs that are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act past their current expiration date of Feb. 28. If Emergency Unemployment Compensation and full federal funding of the Extended Benefit program are not extended, 400,000 Americans will lose these vital benefits during the first couple of weeks in March.

27 Feb 2010

Siestas can dramatically boost and restore brain power

If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don't roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour's nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter.

21 Feb 2010

Health worker training program cuts stillbirths by 30% in 6 developing countries, study says

The rate of stillbirths was cut by more than 30 percent after health workers in rural parts of six developing countries were trained "in how to help a newborn start breathing and to keep it warm and clean," according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Reuters reports. The trainees - who included midwives, nurses, traditional birth attendants and physicians - were given "hand-held pumps and masks to fill babies' lungs with air if they were not breathing at birth, clean-delivery kits to prevent infection and scales to measure their weight," the news service writes.

20 Feb 2010

State lawmakers address 'troubling trends' in insurance market

Des Moines (Iowa) Register: "State lawmakers want to press Iowa health insurers to release more details to help lawmakers decide whether rate increases are justified. This week, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the state's largest health insurer, said it would raise rates an average of 18 percent for about 80,000 Iowans who buy their own health insurance" (Jacobs, 2/19).

20 Feb 2010

Standard checklist for home palliative sedation

Can patients near death safely receive sedation at home, fully respecting their own and their families' wishes? This practice, which is on the rise, is coming under increasing scrutiny and debate by palliative care researchers and practitioners.

19 Feb 2010

U.S. Patent and Trademark office issues Patent on Positron’s Tech-Assist

Positron Corporation a molecular imaging solutions company focused on Nuclear Cardiology, announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark office has allowed for issuance a Patent on Positron’s Tech-Assist™. The Tech-Assist™, invented under the direction of John A. Zehner, a nuclear pharmacist, dramatically reduces exposure to the worker while injecting radiopharmaceuticals into patients when performing Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging studies.

19 Feb 2010

Travellers are likely to become increasingly exposed to canecutter's disease: Study

A team led by PhD researcher Dr Colleen Lau from the School of Population Health http://www.sph.uq.edu.au/ , has discovered the disease, known medically as leptospirosis, was traditionally a concern for males working in the agricultural and livestock industries, as it is contracted from contact with the urine of host animals.

18 Feb 2010

Review: Giving employees more flexibility over their work schedules likely to boost their health

A new evidence review suggests that giving employees more flexibility over their work schedules is likely to boost their health as judged by measures like blood pressure and stress. But interventions that are motivated or dictated by the needs of the employer, such as cutting hours, either have no effect on employee health or make it worse.

18 Feb 2010

Imposing tax on health benefits likely to cause major cuts in health benefits

Since the vast majority of Americans who have health coverage get it through their jobs, one obvious question raised by the health reform legislation pending in Congress is: How might it affect the U.S. employment-based health benefits system?

17 Feb 2010

Rate of seasonal flu vaccination doubles national average at Johns Hopkins East Baltimore medical campus

A campaign that makes seasonal flu vaccinations for hospital staff free, convenient, ubiquitous and hard to ignore succeeds fairly well in moving care providers closer to a state of "herd" immunity and protecting patients from possible infection transmitted by health care workers, according to results of a survey at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

12 Feb 2010

SafeBridge Consultants validates improved hygiene air sampling and analytical method for naproxen sodium

SafeBridge® Consultants, Inc. headquartered in Mountain View, California announced today that its industrial hygiene analytical laboratory has recently validated an industrial hygiene air sampling and analytical method with improved analytical sensitivity for measurement of naproxen sodium on filters. SafeBridge now has a validated method that will detect as low as 20 picograms per filter in an air sample collected on appropriate media. This limit of detection is four (4) to five (5) times lower than methods available from other commercial laboratories.

11 Feb 2010

Neuroscience research and clinical care launched at UT Medical School

Innovative neuroscience research and expanded clinical care have been launched at the new Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

4 Feb 2010

Despite improvements, aid delivery bottlenecks persist in Haiti

Three weeks after a major earthquake struck Haiti, challenges in getting aid to those in need persist, the Washington Post reports. "Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the relief effort has escalated in recent days and will continue to do so.

4 Feb 2010

Associates at SJRMC's new hospital in Mishawaka now have access to on-site concierge service

Associates at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center’s (SJRMC) new hospital in Mishawaka, Ind., now have access to an on-site concierge service provided by Best Upon Request, a national organization based in Cincinnati.

3 Feb 2010

HHS appoints new members to Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today the appointment of 24 new members to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). The PACHA’s chair, Dr. Helene Gayle, was appointed in August 2009.

2 Feb 2010

Majority of surgeons experience occupational injuries from minimally invasive techniques

Surgeons who engage in minimally invasive, laparoscopic surgery are providing great benefits to their patients, but possibly to their own detriment. That's the finding of the largest survey ever conducted of surgeons in North America who perform laparoscopic procedures.