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First Edition: January 12, 2011

Today's headlines include reports about how the congressional health debate might proceed in the wake of last weekend's violence and more details on New York's Medicaid challenges.

12 Jan 2011

Insufficient evidence of interstitial brachytherapy's advantages for localized prostate cancer treatment

It remains an unresolved issue as to whether interstitial brachytherapy has advantages compared to other therapy options in men with localized prostate cancer, nor do newer studies provide proof in this respect. This is the result of a report published by the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) on 11 January 2011.

12 Jan 2011

Kaiser Permanente Northwest leads nation in counseling against childhood obesity

Kaiser Permanente Northwest leads the nation among all reporting commercial health plans with top marks in counseling children for physical activity and nutrition, according to the National Committee on Quality Assurance's Quality Compass for 2010.

12 Jan 2011

Health savings accounts and health reimbursement arrangements increase to 5.7M in 2010

The number of health savings accounts (HSAs) and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) increased to 5.7 million in 2010, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Assets in these account-based health plans increased to $7.7 billion in 2010.

12 Jan 2011

AMGA ACO Implementation Collaborative to meet January 26-28, 2011 in Scottsdale

The American Medical Group Association (AMGA) today announced 16 leading medical groups and organized systems of care that will be participating in its ACO Implementation Collaborative, scheduled to have its first meeting January 26-28, 2011 at the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona.

12 Jan 2011

Education for Health to help achieve Healthy People 2020 goals

Launched on December 2, 2010, Healthy People 2020 is an ambitious, science-based, 10-year agenda for improving the health of all Americans. A key component, Education for Health, is an educational roadmap to achieve the Healthy People 2020 goals.

12 Jan 2011

With repeal still on the table, health debate detente expected to be temporary

Although GOP interest in turning back the health law remains strong, lawmakers' face the challenge of tempering some of their rhetoric in the wake of the Tucson shootings. Meanwhile, people on both sides of the aisle say this "timeout" is likely to be only temporary.

12 Jan 2011

Major players join in collaboration to encourage new medical technologies

The Cleveland Clinic, one of the country's most prominent medical research centers, and MedStar Health, the largest health care provider in Maryland and the Washington region, will collaborate to bring medical inventions to market, according to a plan to be announced Tuesday.

12 Jan 2011

U.N. has 'largely' met its goals in Haiti since the quake, official says

The U.N. has mostly achieved its short-term goals since a major earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, Nigel Fisher, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Haiti, said during a video teleconference on Monday, Deutsche Presse-Agentur/M&C reports.

12 Jan 2011

Physicians who completed internal medicine training lack primary care knowledge: Study

Doctors who have completed training in internal medicine are in general poorly prepared for jobs as primary care physicians, most notably lacking the knowledge to best care for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

12 Jan 2011

Lancet series examines health challenges in India

"Indians are growing richer, but they are also adopting unhealthy lifestyles that could take years off their lives and threaten economic growth," according to an article published in Lancet Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reports (1/11). The article is one of seven published in the Lancet as part of a series that also includes a set of commentary pieces on health issues facing the country (1/11).

12 Jan 2011

Antibodies produced by people who recovered from H1N1 offer clues for universal flu vaccine

The antibodies produced by individuals who fought off H1N1 (swine flu) infection last year may bring researchers one step closer to their quest to develop a "universal" flu vaccine, U.S. researchers said Monday, HealthDay News/Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

12 Jan 2011

UH, Case Western University commence clinical trial for bipolar disorder

The Mood Disorders Program at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center, along with the Bipolar Trials Network, is launching Bipolar CHOICE.

12 Jan 2011

Reuters examines food prices in Africa

Reuters examines food prices in Africa after the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization last week said its global Food Price Index hit a record high. "The United Nations may have sounded the alarm about soaring global food prices, but in Africa a string of bumper harvests and a changing diet means the political fallout may be more muted than to past price bumps," the news service reports.

12 Jan 2011

Advisers poised to determine which insurance benefits are 'essential'

Meetings begin this week to determine what benefits insurers must cover under the new health law. The resulting regulation will be just one of the ways in which the new health law will change the health care landscape.

12 Jan 2011

Ruling may foreshadow Supreme Court's view of key health law provision

Legal experts are reviewing a recent ruling by the Supreme Court which involved the Commerce Clause, the central point in pending challenges to the health overhaul.

12 Jan 2011

Coventry Health Care offers new medicare plans for employer group

Coventry Health Care of Florida is first to the greater Tampa market with a portfolio of hybrid PPO health care plans that blend the best features of traditional co-pay based plans with the freedom and affordability of consumer-directed plans.

12 Jan 2011

More states join lawsuit challenging the health law

As power shifts at the state level, news outlets report that Georgia, Ohio and Wisconsin are joining the multi-state challenge. The individual mandate is the focus of this legal action.

12 Jan 2011

Digital medical records continue to trigger difficult issues

News outlets report on challenges associated with the push to go digital in the next five years.

12 Jan 2011

WSJ: After years of decline, abortion rate rises

Rachel Jones, senior research associate at Guttmacher, said the stalled decline may be tied to several factors, such as the fact that teenage-pregnancy rates appear to have stopped falling and the absence of any gains in contraceptive use in recent years.

12 Jan 2011