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Home-based care increasingly seen as alternative to nursing homes

The health law includes provisions to assist people who want to stay in their homes longer. Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times reports on knowlege gaps among adult children who may become caregivers to aging parents.

20 Jun 2011

Baptist Health System to open four new emergency hospitals in Alamo City

Baptist Health System, San Antonio's healthcare leader for more than a century, plans to open four new emergency hospitals in the Alamo City, bringing emergency medical care closer to home for many residents. The hospital system is partnering with emergency medicine pioneer Emerus to manage the facilities based on the company's successful model in other cities throughout Texas.

20 Jun 2011

GOP fight against Planned Parenthood expands as Wis. prepares to cut funding

What started out as an amendment on the House floor to defund Planned Parenthood has made its way to key battleground states in the 2012 presidential election, with Wisconsin poised to become the fourth state to choke off funding for the women's health provider.

20 Jun 2011

Urinary incontinence after child birth increases risk of postpartum depression

Women with urinary incontinence after giving birth are almost twice as likely to develop postpartum depression as those without incontinence, according to a new study led by Wendy Sword, a professor in McMaster University's School of Nursing.

20 Jun 2011

Activists, advocacy groups rev up behind their causes, revisit health law positions

As Tea Partiers roll through Iowa on a bus tour, single-payer advocates rally outside the annual convention of the health insurer trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans. Meanwhile, as the American Medical Association's House of Delegates meets in Chicago, its members will revisit the organzation's position on the individual mandate.

20 Jun 2011

September will mark the end of HHS mini-med waiver program

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that it will stop accepting applications for waivers from the health law's minimum coverage requirements.

20 Jun 2011

Small health facilities, solo practices face health IT challenges

As part of the federal government's push to get hospitals and clinics to adopt electronic medical records, it's subsidizing IT training classes across the country. ...

20 Jun 2011

The complexities of Medicare's doctor pay dynamics

The Medicare physician payment formula is often attacked as a budget gimmick that holds down federal spending on paper, even though everyone knows the cuts it imposes will never come into effect.

20 Jun 2011

Medicare, Medicaid increasingly become hot topics in debt-ceiling talks

The future of these entitlement programs will be in play this week as negotiations continue, with both parties beginning to make concessions and hint that a deal could emerge.

20 Jun 2011

Genetic Technologies introduces BREVAGen genetic test for assessing non-familial breast cancer risk

Genetic Technologies Limited, through its North American division, Phenogen Sciences Inc., has launched the new BREVAGen genetic test for assessing non-familial breast cancer risk.

20 Jun 2011

Hospitals hope to make primary care docs salaried employees

In one of the first concrete steps to remake the way medical care is delivered, hospitals are competing to hire primary-care physicians, trying to lure them from their private practices to work as salaried employees alongside specialists (Sun, 6/19).

20 Jun 2011

First Edition: June 20, 2011

Today's headlines include reports about new trends in the health care marketplace, including efforts to help seniors live at home longer and why some consumers may face bigger bills for out-of-network care.

20 Jun 2011

Patients who receive poorly co-ordinated care more likely to report medication, treatment errors

Patients who received poorly co-ordinated care or were unable to afford basic medical costs were much more likely to report medication, treatment or care errors, according to an international study published in the July issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

20 Jun 2011

News media and childhood obesity

Where you get your news could play a significant role in determining what you perceive as the best strategy for addressing childhood obesity. According to a study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whether you believe the keys to combating childhood obesity are personal factors such as individual behavior changes or system-level factors such as marketing and the environment may depend on your primary news source.

20 Jun 2011

Novel biomarker-development pipeline approach for human diseases

Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated in mice that the performance of a novel biomarker-development pipeline using targeted mass spectrometry is robust enough to support the use of an analogous approach in humans.

20 Jun 2011

HHS announces deadline for health law waivers

The Obama administration said Friday that it was shutting down a program that had provided exemptions from the new health care law for many employers and labor unions offering bare-bones insurance coverage to workers.

20 Jun 2011

Health care politics: Anti-abortion group attacks Romney; Axelrod claims Huntsman supported Obama plan; Bachmann vows repeal

"President Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist is dismissive of the Republicans who want his boss' job, saying they are eager to criticize the Democratic incumbent without offering substantive ways to help the country. ... Axelrod said that when he was in China in the fall of 2009, he had a chance to talk with [former Utah Gov. John] Huntsman. "He was very effusive about what the president was doing. He was encouraging on health care".

20 Jun 2011

Scientists pinpoint how Michigan program reduced rates of deadly central line bloodstream infections

A team of social scientists and medical and nursing researchers in the United States and the United Kingdom has pinpointed how a programme, which ran in more than 100 hospital intensive care units in Michigan, dramatically reduced the rates of potentially deadly central line bloodstream infections to become one of the world's most successful patient safety programmes.

18 Jun 2011

Health insurance does not protect Arizonans from experiencing medical debt

Health insurance is not protecting Arizonans from having problems paying medical bills, and having bill problems is keeping families from getting needed medical care and prescription medicines, a new study has found.

18 Jun 2011

Additional funding announced for PEPFAR programs in Africa

In a post on State's "DipNote" blog, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby describes accompanying Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her trip to Africa.

18 Jun 2011