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Hospitals facing pressure to hold down costs and cut infections; drug shortages reported

For the first time in its history, Medicare will soon track spending on millions of individual beneficiaries, reward hospitals that hold down costs and penalize those whose patients prove most expensive. The administration plans to establish "Medicare spending per beneficiary" as a new measure of hospital performance, just like the mortality rate for heart attack patients and the infection rate for surgery patients.

1 Jun 2011

New online tool can help detect and monitor dengue outbreaks

Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and Google.org have found web-based search data to be a viable source of information for early detection and monitoring of outbreaks of dengue, an emerging mosquito-borne virus found in tropical areas of the world.

1 Jun 2011

Surgeons minimize amputation rate among patients injured in Haitian earthquake

A team of plastic and orthopedic surgeons achieved a high success rate in limb salvage—minimizing the need for amputations—among patients injured in last year's devastating earthquake in Haiti, reports a study in the June issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

1 Jun 2011

POWER study examines impact of HIV infection on Ontario women

Despite significant clinical advances in HIV care, an estimated 25 per cent of new HIV infections in Ontario from 2006 to 2008 were among women, according to a health study by researchers from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and St. Michael's Hospital.

1 Jun 2011

IPSOGEN announces two studies on Genomic Grade test to be presented at ASCO 2011

IPSOGEN SA today announces that two studies on the Genomic Grade test will be presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, that will take place June 3-7, 2011, in Chicago, Ill, USA.

1 Jun 2011

As work changes, docs and nurses changing too

There are no national surveys that track doctors' political leanings, but as more doctors move from business owner to shift worker, their historic alliance with the Republican Party is weakening ... Doctors were once overwhelmingly male and usually owned their own practices. They generally favored lower taxes and regularly fought lawyers to restrict patient lawsuits.

1 Jun 2011

Cell phones of hospital patients, visitors likely to contain potentially dangerous bacteria

Cell phones used by patients and their visitors were twice as likely to contain potentially dangerous bacteria as those of healthcare workers, according to a study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of APIC - the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

1 Jun 2011

Eculizumab effective for treating hemolytic-uremic syndrome from EHEC

In the online version of the New England Journal of Medicine, physicians and scientists in Heidelberg, Montreal, and Paris reported on the successful treatment of three young children who were suffering from a severe hemolytic-uremic syndrome after an infection with enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli.

1 Jun 2011

Queensland health director general quits

The director-general of Queensland Health will leave the department this week as the fallout from the failed payroll disaster continues. It was known that Mick Reid would vacate the director's chair after three years in the role. His contract expires later this month, however he will take leave from his position from Friday.

1 Jun 2011

4,000 Australians are dying each year of a disease as treatable as appendicitis

The report Bowel Cancer: One of Australia’s Most Common Diseases, being released this week by the GI CANCER Institute, says that while bowel cancer is one of the most curable diseases when diagnosed at an early stage, over 4,000 Australians continue to die of it each year.

1 Jun 2011

Increased stress not linked to multiple sclerosis

According to a new study that refutes earlier evidence, stress does not appear to increase a person's risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS). The research is published in the May 31, 2011, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

31 May 2011

Latest Breast cancer screening guidelines deemed unsafe by 80% women

Nearly 80 percent of women feel the new guidelines against breast cancer are unsafe as they stated that screening for those under 50 is not mandatory. The controversy over screening mammography flared up in late 2009, when a government-funded group of independent experts decided to change its recommendations. Instead of advising annual mammograms in all women age 40 and above, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said women shouldn't routinely get screened until they hit 50, and those between 50 and 74 should only have mammograms every two years. But most of the women also seriously overestimate their risk of developing the disease, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester found.

31 May 2011

First Edition: May 31, 2011

Today's headlines include articles on the federal efforts to improve hospital quality, the politics of Medicare and the move by some GOP governors to set up health exchanges.

31 May 2011

EURETINA honors Retina Implant founder with Innovation Award in the field of artificial vision

Retina Implant AG today announced that the Company's founder Professor Eberhart Zrenner M.D. was awarded the second prize by The European Society for Retina Specialists.

31 May 2011

BioAlliance's appeals in SpePharm litigation rejected

SpePharm Holding B.V. announces that the appeals lodged by BioAlliance Pharma S.A. - a French company listed on Paris Euronext - before the Paris Court of Appeals have been rejected.

31 May 2011

Scientists develop carbohydrate-based vaccine against C. difficile infection

There is now a promising vaccine candidate for combating the pathogen which causes one of the most common and dangerous hospital infections. An international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam has developed a vaccine based on a carbohydrate against the Clostridium difficile bacterium, which is known to cause serious gastrointestinal diseases mainly in hospitals.

31 May 2011

CMAJ report outlines challenges, approaches to manage and identify NDM-1 antibiotic resistant enzyme

An enzyme associated with extensive antibiotic resistance called New Delhi metallo---lactamase-1 (NDM-1), endemic in India and Pakistan and spreading worldwide, has been found in two people in the Toronto area, one of whom acquired it in Canada, states a case report in CMAJ.

31 May 2011

Some Veterans' health jeopardized due to poor infection control

Herman Williams came home safely after fighting in the jungles of Vietnam as a Marine. He was shocked to learn four decades later that his military service had again placed him in jeopardy — this time, because he got a tooth pulled. Williams is among 13,000 U.S. veterans who have been warned in the last two years that their blood should be tested for potentially fatal infections after possible exposures by improper hygiene practices at five VA hospitals in Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee.

31 May 2011

Study on entire Swedish population affirms significance of hereditary factors for venous thromboembolism

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is the third most common type of cardiovascular disease after coronary heart disease and stroke. Researchers at the Centre for Primary Health Care Research in Malmö have mapped the significance of hereditary factors for venous thromboembolism in the entire Swedish population by studying the risk of VTE in children of parents with VTE compared with the children of parents who have not had VTE.

30 May 2011

HHS uses new devices to meet growing need of joint replacements among baby boomers

"The number of patients in their 50s coming into my office asking for joint replacement is higher than ever," says Dr. Steven B. Haas, a knee surgeon at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

30 May 2011