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Medicare fraud and abuse associated with patient mortality, hospitalizations

Patients treated by health care professionals later excluded from the Medicare program for committing fraud and abuse were between 14 to 17 percent more likely to die than similar patients treated by non-excluded physicians, nurses, and other professionals, according to a new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

29 Oct 2019

Wisconsin study: 3 in 5 people with Down syndrome diagnosed with dementia by age 55

Not so many years ago, people with Down syndrome rarely survived to middle age. Many died young due to heart problems associated with the congenital condition.

29 Oct 2019

Moved overseas for school, stayed for insulin

Every now and then, Katie West considers returning to the United States. She moved to Germany for graduate school three years ago and now works as a health systems researcher in Hamburg. Her family is an ocean away. Then she remembers why she stays.

29 Oct 2019

Hospitals take shot at opioid makers over cost of treating uninsured for addiction

While thousands of cities and counties have banded together to sue opioid makers and distributors in a federal court, another group of plaintiffs has started to sue on their own: hospitals.

29 Oct 2019

Employers are scaling back their dependence on high-deductible health plans

Everything old is new again. As open enrollment gets underway for next year's job-based health insurance coverage, some employees are seeing traditional plans offered alongside or instead of the plans with sky-high deductibles that may have been their only choice in the past.

29 Oct 2019

States try a gentler approach to getting Medicaid enrollees to work

Under pressure from the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature to require Medicaid recipients to work as a condition for coverage, state health officials have devised a gentler approach to getting beneficiaries into jobs.

29 Oct 2019

NEOMED professor receives DOD grant to explore if exercise proves to be neuroprotective

Sheila Fleming, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Northeast Ohio Medical University, was recently awarded a three-year, $954,566 grant by the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity for the project titled, "Exercise Effects on Synuclein Aggregation, Neuroinflammation, and Neurodegeneration."

29 Oct 2019

Pro-inflammatory protein could play key role in protecting against herpes virus

Researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix have discovered a function in a pro-inflammatory protein that could play an important part in improving current and future therapeutics for the herpes virus.

29 Oct 2019

Snooze you can use: California legislates more sleep for better health

Teenagers don’t get enough sleep, and California's effort to fix the problem may serve as a wake-up call to other states' lawmakers.

29 Oct 2019

Farmworkers face daunting health risks in California’s wildfires

Farm laborers in yellow safety vests walked through neatly arranged rows of grapes Friday, harvesting the last of the deep purple bundles that hung from the vines, even as the sky behind them was dark with soot.

29 Oct 2019

WHO expert panel discusses digital technology in public health

For the first time ever, the World Health Organization (WHO) has brought together experts in the domain of public health to discuss how digital health technologies can help achieve its goals of global health. The panel, called the Digital Health Technical Advisory Group, discussed a wide range of topics from how data is dealt with, through issues of cost-effectiveness and evidence-based decision making, to making digital health a widely available and ethically bound solution.

28 Oct 2019

NCCN ORP plans to support phase II randomized trial for lung cancer patients

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network Oncology Research Program today announced plans to support a phase II randomized trial for lung cancer patients.

28 Oct 2019

Older people with Down syndrome at higher risk for Alzheimer's disease, dementia

A study of Wisconsin Medicaid enrollees with Down syndrome has found that more than half of those ages 55 and older have filed at least three claims for dementia and nearly a third have filed at least three claims for Alzheimer's disease.

28 Oct 2019

Large gap between norms and actual quality of primary care in Canadian kidney patients

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a condition commonly encountered in primary health care the world over. However, a new study published in JAMA Network on September 4, 2019, shows that the standard of primary care is quite variable.

26 Oct 2019

Health algorithm biased against black individuals finds study

A new study has revealed that a commonly and widely used healthcare algorithm may be biased against blacks and may be denying them of vital medical treatment. The study titled, “Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations,” was published this week in the latest issue of the journal Science.

26 Oct 2019

Developing AI-assisted telecoaching solution for people with disabilities and diabetes

Mohanraj Thirumalai, Ph.D., has received a three-year National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research grant to investigate and develop an artificial intelligence-assisted telecoaching solution for people with disabilities and diabetes.

25 Oct 2019