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CTS: More people are being admitted to Canadian hospitals each year with COPD

A review of Canadian data by the nation's leading lung specialists has provided the factual evidence to support what respirologists across the country have been suspecting for some time. Shockingly, more people are being admitted to Canadian hospitals each year with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) than any other major chronic illness (including heart attacks) and that number has been increasing dramatically in recent years.

2 Feb 2010

Infection rates for 25 Dallas/Fort Worth area hospitals: Consumer Reports

Hospitals in the Dallas/Fort Worth area vary dramatically in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable. On February 2, www.ConsumerReportsHealth.org will post hospital infection rates for 25 Dallas/Fort Worth area hospitals along with other critical patient safety and satisfaction information for consumers.

2 Feb 2010

Consumer Reports to post hospital infection rates for 10 Tampa/St. Petersburg area hospitals

Hospitals in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area vary dramatically in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable.

2 Feb 2010

Atlanta Hamilton Medical Center reports zero central line infection

Hospitals in the Atlanta area vary in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable. On February 2, www.ConsumerReportsHealth.org will post hospital infection rates for 12 Atlanta area hospitals that voluntarily reported their infection rates.

2 Feb 2010

Leapfrog Group urges hospitals to report infection rates for consumers’ benefit

For the first time, in 2009, The Leapfrog Group asked hospitals across the country on behalf of Leapfrog's purchaser members to publicly report their rates of one of the most common and deadly forms of hospital-acquired infections: central-line associated blood stream infections, or CLABSIs.

2 Feb 2010

Central-line bloodstream infections rate vary in San Francisco hospitals

Hospitals in San Francisco vary dramatically in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable.

2 Feb 2010

No Chicago hospital reports zero central line infections

Hospitals in the Chicago area vary dramatically in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable. On February 2, www.ConsumerReportsHealth.org will post hospital infection rates for 15 Chicago hospitals along with other critical patient safety and satisfaction information for consumers.

2 Feb 2010

Infection rates in Boston hospitals vary substantially, says Consumer Reports Health

Hospitals in the Boston area vary dramatically in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable.

2 Feb 2010

Hospitals in Houston area vary in terms of how well their ICUs prevent bloodstream infections

Hospitals in the Houston area vary in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable.

2 Feb 2010

Four Detroit area hospitals announce worse than average infection rates

Hospitals in the Detroit area vary dramatically in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable. On February 2, www.ConsumerReportsHealth.org will post hospital infection rates for 25 Detroit area hospitals, along with other critical patient safety and satisfaction information for consumers.

2 Feb 2010

New online ratings provide patients with easy access to hospital infection rates

Far too many hospitals expose patients to deadly central-line bloodstream infections despite the availability of a simple life-saving checklist proven to prevent hospital acquired infections, says a new investigative article in the March issue of Consumer Reports.

2 Feb 2010

Four Los Angeles area hospitals report zero central line infections

Hospitals in Los Angeles vary dramatically in terms of how well their intensive care units (ICUs) prevent central-line bloodstream infections, a cause of death, disability, and expense in our nations' hospitals that is largely preventable. On February 2, www.ConsumerReportsHealth.org will post hospital infection rates for 41 Los Angeles area hospitals, along with other critical patient safety and satisfaction information for consumers.

2 Feb 2010

Minimally invasive living donor liver retrieval for pediatric transplant

NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital is the only medical center in the United States to offer minimally invasive liver donation for pediatric transplantation. Surgeons use a laparoscopic technique to remove a section of liver from a living donor for implantation in a pediatric patient -- typically a parent donating to their child. The innovative approach promises dramatically improved recovery for the donor.

2 Feb 2010

ZOLL Medical offers PocketCPR training app for iPhone

ZOLL Medical Corporation today announced that the Company is offering its PocketCPR® training app for iPhone as a free download from the Apple iTunes App Store during February in recognition of the American Heart Association’s American Heart Month.

2 Feb 2010

MEND Program: Effective treatment for pediatric obesity

Ground-breaking results from a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the MEND Program (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition, Do it!), a multi-component community-based childhood obesity intervention (www.mendcentral.org), are published today in the US journal Obesity (www.nature.com/oby/journal/v18/n1s/abs/oby2009433a.html). The results coincide with the launch of Michelle Obama's initiative to reduce childhood obesity announced in the State of the Union speech.

2 Feb 2010

Decreased release of neurotransmitter acetylcholine contributes to heart failure

Scientists at the Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario, working in collaboration with researchers in Brazil, have used a unique genetically-modified mouse line to reveal a previously unidentified mechanism contributing to heart failure.

2 Feb 2010

Cardiac catheterization: A groundbreaking tool in the field of cardiology

Cardiac catheterizations have been a groundbreaking tool in the field of cardiology. This procedure offers a minimally invasive means for obtaining important information about the heart and its blood vessels, while also providing a less invasive treatment for certain heart conditions.

2 Feb 2010

Cardiac arrest sudden death: The seven warning signs

As Americans look to keep their fitness resolutions and increase their physical activity, Dr. Bing Liem, cardiologist and electrophysiologist at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Calif., is hoping to raise awareness of a critical but rare heart condition: congenital malformations of the heart or vascular system, which is to blame for the majority of sudden cardiac deaths in athletes under the age of 40.

2 Feb 2010

Simple genetic test can help in detecting heart abnormalities

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetic disease that causes the heart muscle to become abnormally large. It often goes undetected and, as a result, HCM has the dubious distinction of being the leading cause of sudden death in children, young adults and athletes.

2 Feb 2010

ADT can worsen heart risk factors and may increase the risk of heart attack

Androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT), commonly used to treat prostate cancer, can worsen heart risk factors and may increase the risk of heart attack and/or cardiac death, although the relationship between ADT and heart attack or cardiac death has not been definitively established, according to a science advisory published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association and CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

2 Feb 2010