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KHN column: Playing chicken

In his latest Kaiser Health News column, Jonathan Cohn writes: "A lot of people laughed when Sue Lowden, the Nevada Republican running for the U.S. Senate, suggested last month that people start paying for their medical care with chickens. I didn't. I thought about my late grandfather Kurt, a family doctor who practiced in Brooklyn starting in the 1940s.

3 May 2010

Health care practitioners call for national database to crack down on prescription drug abuse

The Associated Press reports on efforts in California, where "a state online drug database went into effect last year to thwart addicts who bounce from doctor to doctor to feed a habit or make a small fortune peddling meds" and efforts to set up a national program "to snare so-called doctor shoppers and curb drug abuse.

3 May 2010

Calif. doctors say e-health saved lives; in Mich., doctors visit patients online

Reuters/The Washington Post: An electronic medical system first introduced in 2007 has shown a 20 percent drop in hospital deaths -- the equivalent of about 36 lives saved -- over 18-months at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto California, doctors there have found. The system, a computerized physician order entry, or CPOE, allows "doctors to relay prescriptions to pharmacists without delay, and without the need for the pharmacist to decipher doctors' scrawl."

3 May 2010

As doctors frustration with Medicare payments grows, a few opt to leave the system

American Medical News reports on doctors' frustrations with the Medicare program and looks at the practice of Juliette Madrigal-Dersch, an internist in Marble Falls, Texas, who "decided to see Medicare patients only on a private-contracting basis. That means neither she nor her patients can claim any payment from Medicare. It also means she can charge what her services actually cost, not just what the government says it will pay. She also can choose not to charge anything, as is her policy for patients age 90 and older."

3 May 2010

Anesthesiologist group to-decertify physicians who help with lethal injections

The American Board of Anesthesiologists "has quietly decided to revoke the certification of any member who participates in executing a prisoner by lethal injection," according to The Washington Post. The decision "reflects its leaders' belief that 'we are healers, not executioners,' board secretary Mark A. Rockoff said. Although the American Medical Association has long opposed doctor involvement, the anesthesiologists' group is the first to say it will harshly penalize a health-care worker for abetting lethal injections.

3 May 2010

First Edition: May 3, 2010

Today's headlines include analysis of how this year's health reform debate is shaping other national policy initiatives and the upcoming mid-term elections.

3 May 2010

Decrease in hospital-wide mortality rates associated with CPOE system: Researchers

Researchers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine have shown for the first time that a significant decrease in hospital-wide mortality rates can be associated with implementation of a computerized physician order entry system.

3 May 2010

Pay-for-performance policies may create financial disincentives for doctors to treat obese patients

Pay-for-performance reimbursement of surgeons, intended to reward doctors and hospitals for good patient outcomes, may instead be creating financial incentives for discriminating against obese patients, who are much more likely to suffer expensive complications after even the most routine surgeries, according to new Johns Hopkins research.

3 May 2010

Parents administering highly complex medication regimens require additional supports

Parents of children with chronic conditions make many mistakes when giving lifesaving medicines, according to a study being presented Monday, May 3 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

3 May 2010

BioMedica Diagnostics’ flagship product monitors heart disease

BioMedica Diagnostics Inc, a company that uses innovative technology to link the medical needs of developed countries with those of less advantaged populations is growing.

3 May 2010

Cash crisis for infertility treatment prompting couples to go for multiple embryo implantations

With the rise in costs for fertility treatments, more and more Australian women are requesting their specialists to implant more than one embryo in their wombs. This is resulting in a rise in twin and triplet births.

3 May 2010

Majority of patients who appear healthy may be at risk for cardiovascular disease

Three separate studies announced today at the American Society of Hypertension Inc.'s 25th Annual Scientific Meeting and Exposition (ASH 2010) examined the cardiovascular consequences of relatively healthy patients - those who were asymptomatic and not classified as hypertensive or diabetic - and found that many patients who appear healthy may still be at risk for cardiovascular disease.

3 May 2010

NIEHS doctor to discuss impact of climate change on children's health

John Balbus, MD, MPH, Senior Advisor for Public Health at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), will discuss the significant public health threats and opportunities presented by climate change and how children around the world may be affected.

3 May 2010

Measuring children's blood pressure is complicated: Researchers

A Johns Hopkins Children's Center study of 2,500 patient records suggests that medical staff fails to check a child's blood pressure a fifth of the time, and is not recognizing what constitutes an abnormal reading in those whose blood pressure they do check.

3 May 2010

Mass. report on insurers' financial health provides mixed portrait

"A long-awaited state report to be released today will probably add fuel to the debate about surging health costs by portraying a mixed financial picture of Massachusetts health insurers. The state's eight health insurers finished 2008 with a total surplus of $2.5 billion, a more than four-fold increase from 1999 when the study period began, according to a 17-page executive summary of the report from the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy that was obtained by the Globe."

3 May 2010

Vitamin E effective in treating NASH: Study

Vitamin E has been shown effective in treating nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, an obesity-associated chronic liver disease that can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer, and death. NASH also is related to or a part of type 2 diabetes, lipid disorders and cardiovascular disease.

3 May 2010

Studies prompt attention to streamlining medical billing

The Wall Street Journal reports on two different studies published recently that focus on the billing practices of doctors. One, in the New England Journal of Medicine quantifies the work done in billing at a small primary care practice.

3 May 2010

Today's opinions: Ending rescissions, exploring issues of doctor payments and the Oklahoma abortion law

In all the recent discussions about health care reform, what had heretofore played out only beyond earshot of the exam room suddenly was very public: the tangled, uneasy and often antagonistic relationship between practicing doctors and the insurance companies who pay for the services they deliver (Dr. Pauline Chen, 4/29).

30 Apr 2010

New 4-D software program promises to improve treatment of lung cancer: Researchers

A new 4-dimensional software program promises to improve the treatment of lung cancer by allowing doctors to take the movement of breathing into account when administering radiotherapy, researchers announced today at the 2nd European Lung Cancer Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

30 Apr 2010

Skin-colored hospital gowns can help detect cyanosis

Changing the hue of hospital gowns and bed sheets to match a patient's skin color could greatly enhance a physician's ability to detect cyanosis and other health-related skin color changes, according to a new study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

30 Apr 2010

Doctor News and Research

KHN column: Playing chicken

Health care practitioners call for national database to crack down on prescription drug abuse

Calif. doctors say e-health saved lives; in Mich., doctors visit patients online

As doctors frustration with Medicare payments grows, a few opt to leave the system

Anesthesiologist group to-decertify physicians who help with lethal injections

First Edition: May 3, 2010

Decrease in hospital-wide mortality rates associated with CPOE system: Researchers

Pay-for-performance policies may create financial disincentives for doctors to treat obese patients

Parents administering highly complex medication regimens require additional supports

BioMedica Diagnostics’ flagship product monitors heart disease

Cash crisis for infertility treatment prompting couples to go for multiple embryo implantations

Majority of patients who appear healthy may be at risk for cardiovascular disease

NIEHS doctor to discuss impact of climate change on children's health

Measuring children's blood pressure is complicated: Researchers

Mass. report on insurers' financial health provides mixed portrait

Vitamin E effective in treating NASH: Study

Studies prompt attention to streamlining medical billing

Today's opinions: Ending rescissions, exploring issues of doctor payments and the Oklahoma abortion law

New 4-D software program promises to improve treatment of lung cancer: Researchers

Skin-colored hospital gowns can help detect cyanosis

Discover how SciY empowers scientists

Why use light scattering to analyze proteins and viral vectors?

Changing the landscape of R&D to build clinical success from the ground up

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