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Flu worries continue

The flu season continues to affect more people. Experts have warned the Britons are still at risk as the surge in flu cases has still not yet peaked. The cases would increase they warn, over the next two to four weeks. World Health Organization released figures that show the rate of influenza-like illnesses is still low across continental Europe but has risen dramatically in Britain since the flu season began in October.

3 Jan 2011

Bacteria from cat fleas: 1st Australian case

Australia’s fist case of a human infected with bacteria from cat fleas has been reported by a Newcastle doctor who says the disease may be more common than the GPs thought. The case study appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia that documents a Victorian family infected with Rickettsia felis after exposure to a kitten infested with fleas. Murdoch University scientists confirmed the presence of R. felis in cat fleas on cats and dogs in WA for the first time in 2006.

3 Jan 2011

PharMerica acquires Lone Star Pharmacy

PharMerica Corporation, a national provider of institutional pharmacy and hospital pharmacy management services, announced today that it has acquired substantially all the assets of Lone Star Pharmacy based in Garland, Texas. Lone Star Pharmacy is a full service pharmacy to long-term care and assisted living facilities primarily in Dallas and Houston.

3 Jan 2011

FDA authorizes Juventas' JVS-100 Phase II clinical trial for critical limb ischemia

Juventas Therapeutics, a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company developing novel therapies for cardiovascular disease, announces that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized commencement of a Phase II clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of its lead product, JVS-100, for the treatment of critical limb ischemia (CLI).

3 Jan 2011

Today's Opinions: End-of-life counseling; Rising costs of boomers; Controlling infections in hospitals

Death panels. Government-sponsored euthanasia. Pulling the plug on grandma. Those were just some of the blatantly false terms conservatives threw around last year to scare Congress into stripping a provision out of the health-reform bill that would have allowed Medicare to reimburse doctors for providing voluntary, end-of-life counseling to their patients. The scare tactics worked (1/2).

3 Jan 2011

Cyfluent Chart, Version 2.0 receives Complete EHR certification

Cyfluent, Inc. announced today that Cyfluent Chart, Version 2.0, is 2011/2012 compliant and was certified as a Complete EHR on Friday, November 12, 2010 by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®), an ONC-ATCB, in accordance with the certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The 2011/2012 criteria support the Stage 1 meaningful use measures required to qualify eligible providers and hospitals for funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

3 Jan 2011

Saint John's Health System and St.Vincent Jennings parter with Indiana Health Information Exchange

Joining a network that includes 19,000 physicians and over 80 hospitals, long-term care facilities and other healthcare organizations, Saint John's Health System and St.Vincent Jennings Hospitals are now part of the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE). The two hospitals are now connected through their participation in IHIE's DOCS4DOCS ® Service.

3 Jan 2011

Golden Meditech obtains approvals for offering and listing of Taiwan Depositary Receipts

Golden Meditech Holdings Limited, Mainland China's leading integrated healthcare enterprise, is pleased to announce that the Company has obtained the approvals from the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taiwan Securities and Futures Bureau for its proposed offering and listing of Taiwan Depositary Receipts ("TDR") on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The Company will become the first Mainland Chinese healthcare enterprise to list its TDR on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

3 Jan 2011

MedCath completes sale of TexSan Heart Hospital to Methodist Healthcare System

MedCath Corporation announced today the completion of the sale of substantially all the assets of TexSan Heart Hospital, owned by MedCath and its physician investors, to Methodist Healthcare System of San Antonio. The transaction, which was announced in November, and was subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory requirements, was completed effective December 31, 2010.

3 Jan 2011

MEDNAX acquires Neonatal Medical Associates

MEDNAX, Inc., today announced the acquisition of a neonatal physician group in Long Beach, CA.

3 Jan 2011

First Edition: January 3, 2011

Today's headlines include forward looking reports about the health law's possible impact in 2011 as well as early plans for the new Congress.

3 Jan 2011

Book on the business side of medicine

The Medical Entrepreneur Pearls, Pitfalls and Practical Business Advice for Doctors (Nano 2.0 Business Press 2010) was written to help physicians, residents and medical students prepare for the business side of private practice. "In medical school curricula there is barely enough time to cover all the necessary medical courses so there certainly is no room for teaching the business of medicine," says Dr. Steven Hacker, author of The Medical Entrepreneur and a successful physician entrepreneur.

3 Jan 2011

LHC Group announces acquisition of hospice locations in Alabama and Louisiana

LHC Group, Inc., a national provider of home health and hospice, announced today that it has acquired hospice locations in Alabama and Louisiana and entered into a home health joint venture in Kentucky.

3 Jan 2011

Hydrocephalus in Ugandan children linked to farm animals, previous bacterial infection

Hydrocephalus in Ugandan children and other developing countries is seasonal, linked to farm animals and in part, caused by previous bacterial infection, according to an international team of researchers from Uganda and the United States, who believe that the best approach to this problem is prevention.

3 Jan 2011

Flu worries continue

As number of cases of flu rise in the UK, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is under pressure to strengthen the flu vaccination campaign. He reinstated a public health “Catch It, Bin It, Kill It” advertising campaign after he was warned by government advisers of the need to improve immunization rates which are at their lowest this winter for many years. It had been discontinued despite helping educate the public to adopt good hygiene habits during last year’s H1N1 swine flu epidemic at a cost of just £609,000. There were 12 more deaths in the last week from flu, bringing the total this winter to 39, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said today. Thirty-six were killed by H1N1 swine flu, which is the most virulent of the two main flu strains currently circulating. The others died after contracting Influenza B, the other strain. All except one of the 39 were under 65 and four were under five.

2 Jan 2011

General anaesthesia brings reversible coma and not sleep: Study

Anaesthesia has been one of the greatest gifts of science and use of general anaesthesia is a routine part of surgical operations at hospitals and medical facilities around the world. However precise biological mechanisms of the drugs’ effects on the brain are only now being analyzed. In a review article published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists have tried to analyze a range of disciplines, including neuroscience and sleep medicine to understand how anaesthesia actually works.

2 Jan 2011

A ‘tough’ 2011 for Britain’s NHS

The NHS would have a tough year ahead said the NHS Confederation suggesting 2011 could end up being the “toughest year” in the NHS’ 62-year history. The major issues would be the structural reforms from health secretary Andrew Lansley, the difficulty of finding £20 billion of efficiency savings and the uncertainty created by debate over a major piece of healthcare legislation would all contribute to a tough year.

30 Dec 2010

Home births on the decline in UK: Midwives protest

According to a leader of Britain’s midwives, more and more women are being discouraged from giving birth at home. Cathy Warwick, general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives said that many GPs are citing harms of a home birth like dangerous bleeding where their midwives may be unable to help. Warwick said, “There are doctors that still tell women scary things that aren’t evidence-based that then put them off having a home birth…

30 Dec 2010

Teenage autistic boy allowed sex change procedure

A 16 year old autistic schoolboy has been granted approval to begin treatment for a sex change. He will have the provision to have his sperm frozen in case he decides he wants children. The decision came from Family Court judge Justice Linda Dessau on an emergency application from the boy’s parents so that he can begin therapy before his puberty fully sets in.

30 Dec 2010

Adjusting mortality for reliability provides more stable estimates of hospital quality

New research published in the January issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery® explores the impact that adjustments in statistical reliability can have on hospital quality rankings for vascular surgery. A total of 14,569 patients who underwent common vascular procedures (open and endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, carotid endarterectomy, lower extremity bypass and aorto-femoral bypass) were identified through the 2007 National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (NSQIP).

30 Dec 2010