Health Care News and Research

RSS

Leavitt Partners introduces Health Reform Bracketology

Lots of people handicap elections. Very few take the next step and say what it means for health reform. Borrowing from the time-worn tradition of creating brackets for various sporting events, Leavitt Partners introduces Health Reform Bracketology, a systematic analysis of various election outcomes and what it means to the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

8 Oct 2010

Presbyterian Hospital collaborates with New York Center for Autism to establish Institute for Brain Development

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, along with its affiliated medical schools Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Weill Cornell Medical College, announced its collaboration with the New York Center for Autism to establish the Institute for Brain Development, a comprehensive, state-of-the-art institute dedicated to addressing the pressing clinical needs of individuals living with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disorders of the brain, across their lifespan.

8 Oct 2010

CMA to apply intervener status in Insite case

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) Board of Directors has decided that the CMA will apply for intervener status before the Supreme Court of Canada in its pending appeal of a case involving Insite, the supervised injection facility in Vancouver, British Columbia.

8 Oct 2010

US continues to lag behind other nations when it comes to gains in life expectancy: Study

America continues to lag behind other nations when it comes to gains in life expectancy, and commonly cited causes for our poor performance-obesity, smoking, traffic fatalities and homicide-are not to blame, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

8 Oct 2010

ABMS awarded HHS contract to align meaningful use of HIT, ABMS MOC program

The American Board of Medical Specialties announced today a contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to align the meaningful use of health information technology and the ABMS Maintenance of Certification program, which was created by ABMS and its 24 Member Boards to promote lifelong learning and self assessment for physician specialists. The contract was awarded by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for HIT.

8 Oct 2010

IMNG relaunches websites for Internal Medicine News, Hospitalist News

International Medical News Group, an Elsevier company that provides medical news to physicians, today announced the relaunch of its websites for Internal Medicine News (www.internalmedicinenews.com) and Hospitalist News.

8 Oct 2010

Researchers identify risk factors that cause bicycling injuries

The streets of New York City can be dangerous for bicyclists, but they can be especially risky for young adult male bicyclists who don't wear helmets, have too much to drink, or are listening to music through earphones, a group of investigators from New York City's Bellevue Hospital reported at the 2010 Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

8 Oct 2010

CDC issues new universal influenza vaccination recommendation for all Americans

With the influenza vaccine already available and more supply anticipated than ever before, the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases convened ten of the country's leading medical and public health groups to call on all Americans to get vaccinated this season.

8 Oct 2010

Dengue fever spreads in Asia, WHO warns 2.5B people at risk

The WHO "has warned that 2.5 billion people are at risk" of dengue fever, "which has 'grown dramatically in recent decades,'" Agence France-Presse reports. WHO officials cite higher temperatures, growing populations and international travel for the "rapid rise in urban mosquito populations" and in dengue. Seventy percent of the at-risk population is in Asia, the WHO said.

8 Oct 2010

Firm sees drugs sales rising 5 to 7 percent next year, other drug industry news

The Associated Press reports that global prescription drug sales should rise 5 percent to 7 percent next year reaching at least $880 billion, fueled by new drugs and rising sales in developing countries, according to drug data firm IMS Health.

8 Oct 2010

Mayo Clinic enters network relationship with UnitedHealthcare to serve commercial plan participants

Mayo Clinic has announced a new network relationship with UnitedHealthcare, giving UnitedHealthcare commercial plan customers in-network access to Mayo Clinic physicians and hospitals beginning Nov. 1, 2010.

8 Oct 2010

N.Y. officials seek to ban purchase of sugary drinks with food stamps

"New Yorkers on food stamps would not be allowed to spend them on sugar-sweetened drinks under an obesity-fighting proposal being floated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. David Paterson. Bloomberg and Paterson planned to announce Thursday that they are seeking permission from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the nation's food stamp program, to add sugary drinks to the list of prohibited goods for city residents receiving assistance. If approved, it would be the first time an item would be banned from the federal program based solely on nutritional value" (Kugler Frazier, 10/7).

8 Oct 2010

U.S. to provide $120M for Haitian rebuilding, rubble removal; Haiti Commission approves 18 projects worth $777M

The U.S. on Wednesday announced that it will contribute $120 million to the Haiti Recovery Fund, the New York Times reports. Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, announced the funding during the third meeting of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC).

8 Oct 2010

Tight finances creates competition among AIDS researchers

As the economic downturn depresses global investment in AIDS prevention, scientists and those who fund them are struggling to set priorities among several competing research methods that could slow the spread of the disease, which causes about 2.7 million new infections worldwide a year, CQ HealthBeat reports.

8 Oct 2010

ABC news announces one-year reporting series on global health issues

ABC News on Wednesday announced a yearlong project to focus attention on the diseases and health conditions that afflict the world's poorest people the Associated Press reports.

8 Oct 2010

HHS official: Medical loss ratio rules will allow 'flexibility'

A senior health official has promised insurers "discretion" - especially for "smaller" and "newer" plans - in pending regulation that will require them to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health services, Insurance News Net reports.

8 Oct 2010

U.N. Secretary-General urges funding for GAVI during replenishment meeting

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged more funding for the GAVI Alliance to help achieve its childhood vaccine targets and the related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), TopNews reports.

8 Oct 2010

Opeds: Editorials weigh in on success -- or not -- of 'Obama's' health reform

Six months after the passage of health care reform, it is easy to forget how far we have come in such a short time. It will take years to make the law's most important changes.

8 Oct 2010

Michigan judge rules individual mandate in health law is constitutional

"A U.S. judge on Thursday upheld a key part of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law that requires Americans to obtain coverage, rejecting a challenge by a conservative interest group. The Thomas More Law Center filed a lawsuit in Michigan the day Obama signed it into law. It argued that the provision requiring Americans buy coverage by 2014 under threat of penalty was beyond Congress' authority and an unconstitutional tax" (Pelofsky, 10/7).

8 Oct 2010

Inviragen, PharmaJet awarded NIAID contract to develop needle-free, easy to administer dengue vaccine

Inviragen and PharmaJet announced the award of a five year, $15.5 million dollar contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to advance the development of a needle-free, easy to administer dengue vaccine. The award will fund preclinical studies, regulatory filings, manufacturing and clinical testing of Inviragen's tetravalent dengue vaccine, DENVax delivered with PharmaJet's convenient needle-free injection device.

8 Oct 2010