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Initiative pays primary-care docs for coordinating Medicare patients' care

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday a new initiative created by the health law that will ask physicians to focus on patients with chronic conditions. The program will be tested in five to seven markets across the country.

30 Sep 2011

Strides being made against trypanosomiasis

Rachel ter Horst, medical advocacy adviser at Medecins Sans Frontieres, describes findings presented at the recent 31st biennial International Scientific Council for Trypanosomiasis Research and Control in Bamako, Mali, in this "BMJ Group Blogs" post.

30 Sep 2011

Military benefits face same cost challenges as Social Security, Medicare

The federal government last year spent a record $275.2 billion on benefits for retired federal workers, two-thirds of it for military retirees. What's driving up costs: Congress has expanded benefits frequently and Baby Boomers are living longer, collecting pension checks longer and consuming more health care - the same issues challenging Social Security and Medicare.

30 Sep 2011

Small Phase I trial shows HIV vaccine candidate is most powerful to date

Researchers at the Spanish Superior Scientific Research Council (CSIC) have successfully completed a small Phase I human clinical trial of an HIV vaccine candidate that granted 90 percent of 30 study participants an immunological response against the virus, Gizmag reports.

30 Sep 2011

Viewpoints: Rising health costs and the health law

Even a slow economy can't stop healthcare costs from rising. A new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust shows that the cost of employer-provided insurance rose 9% this year - even as workers and their families were cutting back on trips to the doctor's office - and has more than doubled over the last decade.

30 Sep 2011

Gingrich issues new 'Contract with America'; includes health insurance proposal

Republican Newt Gingrich, who has positioned himself as the idea guy in this presidential campaign, will today call for Americans to have new choices in how they buy health insurance, pay their income taxes and save for retirement. In his '21st Century Contract with America' that he shared with The Des Moines Register and will officially release Thursday in Iowa, Gingrich says people should to be able to choose either a tax credit or the ability to deduct the value of their health insurance up to a certain amount.

30 Sep 2011

Medicaid payments in N.Y., Kentucky questioned

New York auditors says nursing homes were overpaid, while a Kentucky state senator says doctors at the University of Louisville misused Medicaid funds.

30 Sep 2011

Increased focus on vaccine for dengue fever is critical to curb spread of disease

In this GlobalPost opinion piece, Zulfiqar Bhutta, Husein Laljee Dewraj professor and head of the Division of Maternal and Child Health at the Aga Khan University Medical Center in Karachi, Pakistan, and Ciro de Quadros, executive vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and former director of the Division of Vaccines and Immunization at PAHO, examine the need for a dengue fever vaccine as Pakistan struggles to curb an outbreak of the disease that to date has killed 60 people and has infected more than 8,000.

30 Sep 2011

Jails are holding increasing numbers of mentally ill

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that in Georgia more mentally ill people are locked away than are treated in state psychiatric hospitals. In other state news about mental health, Florida seeks to recoup $4 million from company that managed Medicaid mental health services, and Milwaukee considers bolstering services.

30 Sep 2011

GlobalPost examines how Indian city of Surat cleaned up after 1994 plague outbreak

GlobalPost reports how, spurred by an outbreak of the pneumonic plague in 1994, the Indian city of Surat "successfully went from one of the country's dirtiest cities to one of its cleanest in 18 short months." The news service writes that "after 54 residents died and some 300,000 fled to escape a possible quarantine, the people who stuck around were willing to get with the program -- working to eliminate the tons of garbage and overflowing sewers that had inundated the city with disease-carrying rats."

30 Sep 2011

States join forces to fend off Medicaid cuts

With billions of dollars in Medicaid spending at risk in Congress, states are forming a loose confederacy to oppose any federal cuts that could damage state budgets already awash in red ink.

30 Sep 2011

Adult male circumcision not a cost effective anti-HIV tactic, panel of economists says

A panel of economists commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Centre who "conducted a first-ever cost-benefit analysis of the top AIDS-fighting approaches by comparing the costs of prevention and treatment options per lives saved ... said Wednesday that adult male circumcision, a global priority for preventing HIV infection, is not nearly as cost-effective as other methods of prevention," USA Today reports.

30 Sep 2011

VDC and P.A.D. Coalition present annual research awards at VDF's eighth annual meeting

The Venous Disease Coalition (VDC) and Peripheral Arterial Disease Coalition presented their annual research awards at the Vascular Disease Foundation's eighth annual meeting in Washington.

30 Sep 2011

Food aid reaches almost half of Somalis in need but threat of disease looms, U.N. agency says

"The U.N. on Wednesday said food assistance has reached nearly half the Somalis in need, and it warned cases of diarrhea and cholera could spike with the seasonal rains expected in October," the Associated Press reports.

30 Sep 2011

IOM offers additional ideas to revamp system of geographic adjustments to Medicare payments

The Institute of Medicine supplemented its earlier list of ideas for overhauling the system of geographic adjustments to Medicare payments with four more suggestions today.

30 Sep 2011

Invida, Sinclair IS launch two dermatology products in seven Asia-Pacific markets

Sinclair IS Pharma Plc, the international specialty pharmaceutical company, and Invida Holdings Private Limited, a leader in the commercialisation of specialty biopharmaceutical and healthcare products throughout Asia Pacific, announce that their partnership has already led to the launch of two Sinclair IS dermatology products in seven Asia-Pacific markets.

30 Sep 2011

Microbicide Trials Network stops tenofovir arm of study after findings show drug less effective than anticipated

"The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), which is funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, on Wednesday announced that it decided to stop one arm of a study involving more than 5,000 women in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Uganda" after "an interim review of the ongoing trial by an independent monitoring board found that the drug tenofovir when used as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) had less effect in protecting women than anticipated," Science Magazine's "Science Insider" blog reports.

30 Sep 2011

Global Fund board supports recommendations of Independent Review Panel, will implement 'wide-reaching reforms'

"The Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria approved an action plan Monday in response to recommendations made recently by the High-Level Independent Review Panel on Fiduciary Controls and Oversight Mechanism (HLP)," the Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog reports, adding, "The board stated that it accepts the underlying analysis made by the panel and that it 'presents a compelling case for a rapid and urgent transformation of the Global Fund.'"

30 Sep 2011

CVS Caremark, Dovetail Health partner to prevent avoidable hospital readmissions

Industry research finds that one in five seniors are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge, representing a prevalent and costly issue for health plan sponsors. Moreover, it is estimated that nearly 70 percent of adverse health events that take place after hospital discharge are related to medication management issues.

29 Sep 2011

First Edition: September 29, 2011

In today's headlines, reports that a Supreme Court ruling on the 2010 health law is now likely before the 2012 presidential election.

29 Sep 2011

Health Care News and Research

Initiative pays primary-care docs for coordinating Medicare patients' care

Strides being made against trypanosomiasis

Military benefits face same cost challenges as Social Security, Medicare

Small Phase I trial shows HIV vaccine candidate is most powerful to date

Viewpoints: Rising health costs and the health law

Gingrich issues new 'Contract with America'; includes health insurance proposal

Medicaid payments in N.Y., Kentucky questioned

Increased focus on vaccine for dengue fever is critical to curb spread of disease

Jails are holding increasing numbers of mentally ill

GlobalPost examines how Indian city of Surat cleaned up after 1994 plague outbreak

States join forces to fend off Medicaid cuts

Adult male circumcision not a cost effective anti-HIV tactic, panel of economists says

VDC and P.A.D. Coalition present annual research awards at VDF's eighth annual meeting

Food aid reaches almost half of Somalis in need but threat of disease looms, U.N. agency says

IOM offers additional ideas to revamp system of geographic adjustments to Medicare payments

Invida, Sinclair IS launch two dermatology products in seven Asia-Pacific markets

Microbicide Trials Network stops tenofovir arm of study after findings show drug less effective than anticipated

Global Fund board supports recommendations of Independent Review Panel, will implement 'wide-reaching reforms'

CVS Caremark, Dovetail Health partner to prevent avoidable hospital readmissions

First Edition: September 29, 2011

Event guide: 3rd Measuring Patient Engagement Summit eBook

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Expanding access to NMR with the Fourier 80 Duo

Advancing Intracellular Delivery with LumiPore®

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