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Care New England joins five other pioneering organizations to support Conversation Project

Care New England Health System has joined with five other pioneering organizations to support a new effort by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to better prepare health care providers to receive and respect patients' wishes about end-of-life care.

13 Sep 2012

Job-based insurance costs rose 4% in 2012

If you get health insurance on the job, chances are it cost more again this year. Annual family health insurance premiums rose about 4 percent to $15,745 in 2012, according to the latest survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust. Now that's a fairly modest increase by historical standards, and well down from last year's 9 percent. Still, it's more than double the 1.7 percent increase in average wages and way above the 2.3 percent rate of general inflation this year.

13 Sep 2012

Sebelius likely to stay put in Obama second term

If President Barack Obama wins reelection, there are two very good reasons to bet on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to stay for a second term. The health care law's biggest changes don't kick in until 2014, so it makes no sense for her to leave now. And, it could be a lot easier for Obama to keep her on than to get someone else confirmed. Sebelius indicated last week that she wants to be around for the law's big 2014 programs: the insurance exchanges, the tax subsidies and the individual mandate.

13 Sep 2012

Examining effects of reduced AIDS funding for Ethiopia

Amanda Glassman, director of global health policy and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), and Kate McQueston, a program coordinator at CGD, write in the center's "Global Health Policy" blog that a reduction in AIDS funding to Ethiopia from PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria "might be warranted due to epidemiological trends and improved efficiency, or might cripple progress as health programs dependent on external donors are cut back."

13 Sep 2012

Old anti-inflammatory drug possible candidate to treat TB

After testing about 5,600 existing medications for their effectiveness against drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis (TB), researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that oxyphenbutazone, "an anti-inflammatory medication marketed in the 1950s as Tandearil and still used in veterinary medicine," killed both latent and active TB bacteria in test-tube experiments, the Los Angeles Times' "Booster Shots" blog reports.

13 Sep 2012

Women, girls must be at center of water, food security efforts

Noting "World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security," Lakshmi Puri, assistant secretary-general and deputy executive director of U.N. Women, writes in this Inter Press Service opinion piece, "Creating a water- and food-secure world requires putting women and girls at the center of water- and food-related policies, actions and financing."

13 Sep 2012

HHS details consumer savings from lower premiums, rebates

A Health and Human Services Department analysis estimated that consumers have saved an estimated $2.1 billion from the health law's consumer protections, resulting in lower premiums and rebates.

13 Sep 2012

Nature examines efforts to combat antibiotic resistance in India

Nature examines efforts to combat antibiotic resistance in India, writing, "Antibiotic resistance is a problem worldwide, but is particularly worrying in India, where hospital standards are inconsistent and antibiotics are readily available over the counter at pharmacies."

13 Sep 2012

ACO 'predecessor' saved Medicare money, according to JAMA study

The study, found that the Medicare Physician Group Practice Demonstration resulted in health care savings.

13 Sep 2012

Exploring the presidential campaign's health policy buzzwords, proposals

The NewsHour compares the policies advanced by the Obama administration and the Romney campaign. Meanwhile, Bloomberg News offers an analysis on how GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney proposes to change Medicaid.

13 Sep 2012

With rock star Fanfare, Clinton talks health care on the campaign trail

Speaking to what the New York Times described as a sellout crowd in Florida, former President Bill Clinton reprised many of his convention speech themes regarding how the health law is strengthening Medicare and providing benefits to millions of Americans. The Obama campaign is expected to continue to rely on Clinton as a surrogate in battleground states.

13 Sep 2012

Resuscitation after cardiac arrest: an interview with Zach Goldberger

Cardiac arrest is an important clinical challenge. The event is unexpected and surprising; the patients are challenging, and the outcomes are poor.

13 Sep 2012

WHO says Nigeria not on track to turn back polio despite having tools, capacity

"The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday said Nigeria was not on track in the effort to eradicate wild polio virus before the end of December this year," Leadership/AllAfrica.com reports.

13 Sep 2012

Seniors: An increasingly politically motivated demographic

It's hard to come by numbers to describe how many retirees are going into politics. But organizations on the left and the right say that this year's election may be an especially active one for people of retirement age. It is the first presidential contest since the advent of the Tea Party movement, which has been driven largely by voters age 65 and older.

13 Sep 2012

Federal judges end challenge to Idaho's 'fetal pain' law that bans some abortion

The appeals panel says the woman bringing the suit didn't have standing to stop the law since she wasn't charged with a crime. In the meantime, however, the judges also found that the law places an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions.

13 Sep 2012

U.N. says 2.1M Somalis need food aid despite decline in number over past six months

"Around 2.1 million Somalis still need food aid and are facing a critical situation despite a fall in the number of people at risk in the last six months, the United Nations said Tuesday," Agence France-Presse reports.

13 Sep 2012

Joint E.U.-UNICEF program launched in Burkina Faso aims to improve nutrition security

"Support is being rolled out in Burkina Faso as part of a European Union (E.U.)-UNICEF joint action for improving nutrition security in Africa," UNICEF reports in an article on its webpage.

13 Sep 2012

IPS examines controversy over WHO-approved drug to prevent hemorrhage after labor

Inter Press Service examines the reaction to calls for the WHO "to reverse its listing in April 2011 of misoprostol among essential medicines that 'satisfy the health care needs of the majority of the population' and are 'available at all times in adequate amounts and in appropriate dosage forms, at a price the community can afford'" as a result of a study published in the August issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

13 Sep 2012

Case Western Reserve researcher discovers new antivirulence drugs against MRSA and strep

Menachem Shoham, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, has discovered novel antivirulence drugs that, without killing the bacteria, render Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and Streptococcus pyogenes, commonly referred to as strep, harmless by preventing the production of toxins that cause disease.

13 Sep 2012

Mayo Clinic receives FDA approval for Choline C 11 Injection to help detect prostate cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the production and use of Choline C 11 Injection, a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging agent used to help detect recurrent prostate cancer.

13 Sep 2012