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Lower co-payments help companies, workers save health-care costs

Companies can cut health-care costs - for themselves and for their workers - by lowering co-payments on prescription drugs while promoting disease management, according to a comprehensive, three-year study commissioned by the Florida Health Care Coalition (FHCC).

7 Jan 2011

IDSA releases MRSA treatment guidelines

Physicians now have help in their battle against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a potentially deadly infection that initially was limited to hospitals and health care facilities but has become a growing problem in healthy children and adults. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has released its first guidelines for the treatment of increasingly common MRSA infections.

7 Jan 2011

Massachusetts General borrows $420 million for improvements; Detroit hospital penalty reveals new trend

Partners HealthCare System Inc., which runs Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital, is borrowing $420 million for improvements including electronic medical records and to refinance debt, with average tax-exempt yields at close to a 16-month high.

7 Jan 2011

Study examines link between media consumption, eating disorders among adolescent girls in Fiji

For parents wanting to reduce the negative influence of TV on their children, the first step is normally to switch off the television set. But a new study suggests that might not be enough. It turns out indirect media exposure, i.e., having friends who watch a lot of TV, might be even more damaging to a teenager's body image.

7 Jan 2011

Roundup: In Oregon, New Gov. Kitzhaber vows to change state's health care delivery system; In Ariz., 2nd person denied transplant coverage dies

Oregon Governor-elect John Kitzhaber, a Democrat who will be inaugurated in Salem on Monday (January 10), is no stranger to the state's top political office: He was a two-term governor between 1995 and 2003. ... An emergency-room physician by background, Kitzhaber, 62, also is no stranger to the nation's health care system, which he sees as costly, ineffective and unsustainable.

7 Jan 2011

HHS Secretary releases statement on Blue Shield of California’s proposed insurance rate increase

The people of California have a right to be concerned when they see this kind of rate increase month after month. We have reached out to California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones and know he is doing everything in his power to help consumers. We stand ready to assist him and the people of California in any way that we can.

7 Jan 2011

Opinions: Global health top foreign policy issue; Global food security; Opiate-substitution programs in Eastern Europe; Feed the future; Foreign aid lessons

In response to a story examining 2011's top foreign policy issues, Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, writes in a letter to the editor, published in The Hill, that "[g]lobal health was disturbingly absent from" the story. "Global health policy is at a critical turning point right now with the impending implementation of President Obama's Global Health Initiative, which will change our fundamental approach to health programs and policy," according to Sippel.

7 Jan 2011

Regular blood test shows pre-diabetes risk factors, reduces treatment costs

A simpler form of testing individuals with risk factors for diabetes could improve diabetes prevention efforts by substantially increasing the number of individuals who complete testing and learn whether or not they are likely to develop diabetes.

7 Jan 2011

New York Times examines bureaucracy at U.N.

"The United Nations is widely known for functions like peacekeeping, health programs, refugee support and the International Court of Justice. But those are just a part of its bureaucracy, whose size and structure still bewilder many of its own employees," the New York Times writes in an article that examines how the current economic situation could impact the role of the U.N. in the future.

7 Jan 2011

GOP officially takes the House; Pledges to make good on promises to repeal health law, slash spending

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, was sworn in Tuesday as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, kicking off a GOP agenda that press reports say will set the tone for the 2012 election. High on the Republican's priority list is undoing the the health law. Another important element of their plan will have to do with how they handle efforts to address government spending.

7 Jan 2011

California insurer seeks significant rate increase

Another one of California's largest health insurers has stunned individual policyholders with news of huge rate increases -- this time it's Blue Shield of California seeking hikes of as much as 59% for tens of thousands of customers March 1 (Helfand, 1/5).

7 Jan 2011

Today's Opinions: Views of the health law from Rove, Bachmann, Kondracke

A primary task for the new Republican House majority is to undo as many of the pernicious effects of ObamaCare that it can. One of these effects is the spectacle of employers going hat-in-hand to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for waivers from some of the law's more onerous provisions (Karl Rove, 1/6).

7 Jan 2011

Administration reverses federal rule on End-of-life planning

News outlets are reporting that some observers view the step an "embarrassing episode" for the administration and note that some of the rule's supporters consider it a "flip flop." All in all, the rule change and the reaction to it appear to highlight the continued politics that surround the issue.

7 Jan 2011

Oxfam, Amnesty International release reports almost one year since Haiti's earthquake

"A new report from international aid agency Oxfam says reconstruction work has barely begun in Haiti following the country's catastrophic earthquake a year ago," RTE News reports (1/6).

7 Jan 2011

New York Times reports on rise, fall of microloans in developing countries

The New York Times reports on how microlending has "prompted political hostility in Bangladesh, India, Nicaragua and other developing countries." Such negativity "toward microfinance is a sharp reversal from the praise and good will that politicians, social workers and bankers showered on the sector in the last decade."

7 Jan 2011

U.S. health expenditures increased 4% in 2009

This increase represents the smallest one in at least a half a century. At the same time, though, medical costs ate up a record share of the overall economy. Experts pointed to the recession as a key explanation.

7 Jan 2011

Obama health team undergoes reorganization

As work to implement and defend the health law kicks into high gear, the Obama administration is making major changes among the key players.

7 Jan 2011

22.5% implanted defibrillators are unnecessary: Study

According to a new study nearly 20% of American patients who receive an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) may not need it. These ICDs when unnecessary could put the patients at higher risk of death and serious complications than patients who meet the criteria for the life-saving device say authors of the study published in the Jan. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

6 Jan 2011

Reuters examines foreign aid's prospects in new Congress; Foreign Policy looks at Clinton's State Dept. staff memo

Reuters examines how the efforts of "budget-minded lawmakers [in the new U.S. Congress who will] seek to curb costs without undercutting military operations" could impact U.S.-backed aid programs, including those in Afghanistan.

6 Jan 2011

Impact of flu vaccine opt-out is being seen as A(H1N1) returns to Europe

As the UK and a number of European countries are now experiencing epidemics of influenza, including A(H1N1) which was the 2009 pandemic virus, the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) warns that the consequences of non-vaccination could emerge as a new flu emergency and are calling for greater efforts to encourage vaccination, not only for at risk groups but also health care workers.

6 Jan 2011

Health Care News and Research

Lower co-payments help companies, workers save health-care costs

IDSA releases MRSA treatment guidelines

Massachusetts General borrows $420 million for improvements; Detroit hospital penalty reveals new trend

Study examines link between media consumption, eating disorders among adolescent girls in Fiji

Roundup: In Oregon, New Gov. Kitzhaber vows to change state's health care delivery system; In Ariz., 2nd person denied transplant coverage dies

HHS Secretary releases statement on Blue Shield of California’s proposed insurance rate increase

Opinions: Global health top foreign policy issue; Global food security; Opiate-substitution programs in Eastern Europe; Feed the future; Foreign aid lessons

Regular blood test shows pre-diabetes risk factors, reduces treatment costs

New York Times examines bureaucracy at U.N.

GOP officially takes the House; Pledges to make good on promises to repeal health law, slash spending

California insurer seeks significant rate increase

Today's Opinions: Views of the health law from Rove, Bachmann, Kondracke

Administration reverses federal rule on End-of-life planning

Oxfam, Amnesty International release reports almost one year since Haiti's earthquake

New York Times reports on rise, fall of microloans in developing countries

U.S. health expenditures increased 4% in 2009

Obama health team undergoes reorganization

22.5% implanted defibrillators are unnecessary: Study

Reuters examines foreign aid's prospects in new Congress; Foreign Policy looks at Clinton's State Dept. staff memo

Impact of flu vaccine opt-out is being seen as A(H1N1) returns to Europe

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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