Health Care News and Research

RSS

Groups up ante in effort to end racial and ethnic disparities

Five prominent health care organizations upped the stakes in the fight to end disparities in care for racial and ethnic minorities, issuing a three-pronged "national call for action" to address the problem.

20 Jul 2011

Gang of Six plan to cut deficit by $3.7T includes doc fix, gets boost from Obama

President Barack Obama praised the bipartisan plan, which includes $500 billion in immediate deficit cuts as well as larger, longer-term entitlement reforms.

20 Jul 2011

Registration now open for Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics 2011

Registration is now open for TCT 2011(Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics), the annual scientific symposium of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, which will return to San Francisco, California, November 7-11, 2011.

20 Jul 2011

AP: Boomers are more obese than other generations

Cancer and memory loss are baby boomers' biggest health fears. Given their weight, maybe heart disease and diabetes should be. Boomers are more obese than other generations, a new poll finds, setting them up for unhealthy senior years.

20 Jul 2011

U.S. News recognizes U of U as No. 1 health care system in Salt Lake City metro area

University of Utah Health Care is the No. 1 health care system in the Salt Lake City metro area, according U.S. News & World Report's 2011-2012 Best Hospitals rankings.

20 Jul 2011

Efforts underway to fix health law glitch

Two separate bills have been introduced to address this health law issue, which inadvertently would make 3 million middle-income early retirees eligible for Medicaid because Social Security benefits would not be factored into their income. The fix could save $13 billion. However, it's not clear if either measure will move forward.

20 Jul 2011

Medicare bundled-payments rules expected before 2013 deadline

Regulators will accelerate release of rules implementing bundled payments under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a senior official at the CMS.

20 Jul 2011

IOM to issue report on preventive health care services for women

Is there nothing in last year's Affordable Care Act that people won't fight over? The latest battle is set to come to a head Wednesday, when the independent Institute of Medicine is expected to make recommendations about preventive health care services for women.

20 Jul 2011

Women with breastfeeding difficulties may experience postpartum depression

Women who have breastfeeding difficulties in the first two weeks after giving birth are more likely to suffer postpartum depression two months later compared to women without such difficulties.

20 Jul 2011

PCPCC coalition to trace progress of medical home at Oct. 21, 2011 Summit

Five short years ago, the patient centered medical home was a little-known model with the promise to improve patient outcomes and transform health care delivery. In October, the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative will trace the progress of the medical home in the context if its own five-year history of stakeholder collaboration focused on continued advancement of what is now the rapidly expanding medical home concept.

20 Jul 2011

USAID announces saving lives at birth challenge finalists

USAID on Friday announced 77 finalists in the Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development who will compete in a final review process at the DevelopmentXChange in Washington, DC, at the end of July, according to a USAID press release (7/15).

20 Jul 2011

FDA seeks input on proposed oversight approach for mobile medical apps

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced it is seeking input on its proposed oversight approach for certain mobile applications specific to medicine or health care called mobile medical applications that are designed for use on smartphones and other mobile computing devices.

20 Jul 2011

Regular physical activity may reduce rates of cognitive impairment in older adults

Engaging in regular physical activity is associated with less decline in cognitive function in older adults, according to two studies published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

20 Jul 2011

Papua New Guinea government stepping down as Global Fund grant principal recipient

Following an audit last year by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that found Papua New Guinea's National Department of Health (NDOH) "had not complied with grant guidelines and some $7 million had been misdirected," the government is stepping down as the principal recipient (PR) of Global Fund grants in order to "improve its response," IRIN reports.

20 Jul 2011

GAVI begins rotavirus immunization campaign

KPLU's "Humanosphere" blog describes the rollout on Monday of a rotavirus immunization campaign sponsored by the GAVI Alliance "that aims to reach millions of vulnerable children in 40 low- or middle-income countries."

20 Jul 2011

State roundup: Maine, Minn. GOP want insurance changes

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) told an enthusiastic crowd at the Heritage Foundation on Monday that his Republican administration thinks "taking off the shackles" from insurers is the way to keep healthcare costs low for rural residents.

20 Jul 2011

Viewpoints: Suggestions for reducing Medicare spending; Medicaid cuts hurt; personal health responsibility

Over the past months, Republicans enjoyed enormous advantages. Opinion polls showed that voters are eager to reduce the federal debt, and they want to do it mostly but not entirely through spending cuts. There was a Democratic president eager to move to the center. He floated certain ideas that would be normally unheard of from a Democrat.

20 Jul 2011

First Edition: July 19, 2011

Kaiser Health News staff writer Christopher Weaver reports: "New consumer-controlled health insurance plans could get seed money from the government to increase competition - and maybe cut prices -- under new rules announced Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services".

19 Jul 2011

USAID must overcome legal hurdle to providing humanitarian aid in Somalia

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's office said the U.S. is willing to provide humanitarian aid to Somalia, where the militant group al-Shabab controls parts of the country, but "in reality, her hands are tied by paperwork," Eliza Griswold, author and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, writes in a Daily Beast opinion piece.

19 Jul 2011

First U.N. emergency airlift arrives in Nairobi to provide drought aid

"The first U.N. emergency airlift flight arrived in" Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, on Sunday, "to assist the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have fled the drought and famine afflicting their homeland," ABC News reports.

19 Jul 2011