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Report recommends that Washington, D.C., spend $90 million on health care services in underserved areas

Washington, D.C., should spend $90 million of the funds it received from the 1998 tobacco settlement to expand services provided by community health centers in the district's underserved areas, according to a RAND report released on Thursday, the Washington Post reports.

2 Jul 2008

Lawmakers to introduce bill that would overturn Supreme Court decision on medical device liability

Democratic lawmakers recently announced plans to introduce legislation in the House and Senate that would overturn a February Supreme Court decision that FDA approval of certain medical devices protects manufacturers from product liability lawsuits filed in state courts, CQ HealthBeat reports.

2 Jul 2008

Shortcuts in using bar coding technology at hospitals undermines systems' safeguards, study finds

Bar coding in hospitals has not yet been proven to reduce medical errors, and shortcuts staff have developed to work around problems with bar codes often undermine the systems' safeguards, according to a report published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

2 Jul 2008

FDA finds many possibly life-threatening medical equipment malfunctions result from software problems

The Baltimore Sun on Monday examined how FDA, with help from experts in the information technology and scientific fields, has found that medical equipment "might not malfunction because it was poorly designed or badly made ... but because the computer code running it includes a mistake."

2 Jul 2008

White House, GOP leadership must take 'lead' in convincing senators to drop PEPFAR Reauthorization objections, editorial says

The White House and Republican leadership must "take the lead" in convincing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and other Republican senators to "change their minds" about holding up the proposed five-year extension of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a Washington Post editorial says.

2 Jul 2008

Bush Administration to temporarily keep Medicare physician payment rates at current levels after congress fails to pass legislation to delay scheduled cut

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt on Friday said that the agency will maintain the current Medicare payment rate for physicians because Congress was unable to pass legislation to avert a 10.6% cut scheduled to go into effect on Tuesday before lawmakers left for the Fourth of July recess, the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, congressional aides said the freeze to payment rates could last 10 days (Kane, Washington Post, 6/28).

2 Jul 2008

SureScripts, RxHub merge, create single e-prescription network

Officials from SureScripts and RxHub, two electronic prescription networks, on Tuesday will announce their merger in an effort to promote greater adoption of electronic prescribing by physicians, the Washington Post reports (Goldfarb, Washington Post, 7/1).

2 Jul 2008

Old order Amish, Mennonites reject health insurance, face high costs for care at not-for-profit hospitals

Old Order Amish and Mennonites in Lancaster County, Pa., "suffer from endemic proportions of certain deadly genetic diseases" because they do not marry outside their communities, and, as they "seek lifesaving treatments, the uninsured in these Pennsylvania communities are struggling with escalating costs of care" at not-for-profit hospitals, the Wall Street Journal reports.

2 Jul 2008

HIV/AIDS cases among adults ages 50, older in Georgia increasing

New HIV/AIDS diagnoses among adults ages 50 and older in Georgia has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, according to recent data from the state Department of Human Resources' Division of Public Health, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

2 Jul 2008

Federal Judge rejects request for injunction against Medicare competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment, editorial says

U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Ricardo Urbina on Monday rejected a request for a preliminary injunction against a Medicare competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment, CongressDaily reports (Edney, CongressDaily, 6/30).

2 Jul 2008

CDC report on new HIV cases among MSM shows need to continue prevention, treatment efforts

CDC's recently released HIV/AIDS data, which show an overall increase in new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men, is a "reminder that the work of keeping people HIV-negative and getting those who are HIV-positive into treatment is never done," a Washington Post editorial states.

2 Jul 2008

Draft G8 communique does not cite 2010 deadlines for development aid, universal access to HIV prevention, care

A draft communique scheduled to be issued at the Group of Eight industrialized nations summit in July in Hokkaido, Japan, does not cite 2010 targets for universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment or for $25 billion in annual aid to Africa that were set at the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the Financial Times reports.

2 Jul 2008

New American Medical Association adverts blast Senate inaction on Medicare cuts

Reflecting physicians' frustration with a group of senators that blocked action last week on legislation that would stop harsh Medicare physician payment cuts, the AMA began airing new TV and radio ads urging opponents of H.R. 6331 to put patients' access to care before insurance profits.

1 Jul 2008

Curbing kids' risk-taking behavior

Educating kids and their parents about the importance of wearing a helmet when riding a bike, and buckling up and riding in the back seat of the car, could help to cut down the more than 30 million injury-related emergency room visits that occur each year in the United States.

1 Jul 2008

Taking action against hospital acquired infections

Patients enter hospitals every day for a variety of reasons but usually without the thought of developing a new health problem. Yet every year thousands of hospitalized Americans acquire infections during hospital stays, causing risk of complications, prolonged stays and an increased burden on the health-care system.

1 Jul 2008

Travellers to China warned about dog bites

An estimated 600,000 foreign visitors and athletes, and as many as 2 million Chinese are expected to visit the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

1 Jul 2008

Sudden loss of hearing might be an early sign of stroke

Preliminary research culled from a national medical insurance records database in Taiwan suggests that sudden loss of hearing might be an early sign of vulnerability to stroke, foreshadowing an actual cerebrovascular event by as much as two years, according to a study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

27 Jun 2008

What price for a more effective Australian health care system?

The pressures from an ageing population on the rising costs of healthcare in Australia will be the subject of the third annual Menzies Oration to be held at The Australian National University tonight.

26 Jun 2008

New clinical trial for patients with asbestos-associated lung cancer

The Mesothelioma Center within the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center is now recruiting patients for a clinical research study of a new targeted radiation and chemotherapy protocol for pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung's lining that is almost always caused by previous exposure to asbestos.

26 Jun 2008

Medical professionals worldwide endorse WHO checklist for safer surgery

A new safety checklist for surgical procedures developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) won the endorsements of nearly 250 health organizations from over 40 countries at a launching event yesterday at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington, D.C

26 Jun 2008

Health Care News and Research

Report recommends that Washington, D.C., spend $90 million on health care services in underserved areas

Lawmakers to introduce bill that would overturn Supreme Court decision on medical device liability

Shortcuts in using bar coding technology at hospitals undermines systems' safeguards, study finds

FDA finds many possibly life-threatening medical equipment malfunctions result from software problems

White House, GOP leadership must take 'lead' in convincing senators to drop PEPFAR Reauthorization objections, editorial says

Bush Administration to temporarily keep Medicare physician payment rates at current levels after congress fails to pass legislation to delay scheduled cut

SureScripts, RxHub merge, create single e-prescription network

Old order Amish, Mennonites reject health insurance, face high costs for care at not-for-profit hospitals

HIV/AIDS cases among adults ages 50, older in Georgia increasing

Federal Judge rejects request for injunction against Medicare competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment, editorial says

CDC report on new HIV cases among MSM shows need to continue prevention, treatment efforts

Draft G8 communique does not cite 2010 deadlines for development aid, universal access to HIV prevention, care

New American Medical Association adverts blast Senate inaction on Medicare cuts

Curbing kids' risk-taking behavior

Taking action against hospital acquired infections

Travellers to China warned about dog bites

Sudden loss of hearing might be an early sign of stroke

What price for a more effective Australian health care system?

New clinical trial for patients with asbestos-associated lung cancer

Medical professionals worldwide endorse WHO checklist for safer surgery

Event guide: 3rd Measuring Patient Engagement Summit eBook

How ELRIG Is Helping Mid-Career Scientists Navigate Leadership, Career Change and Redundancy

The role of UV-Vis in biopharma QC

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