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Improving hospital safety rating tools

In a bid to clean up misleading institutional safety comparisons and go further to fix safety problems, Johns Hopkins experts are proposing standard guidelines to be used as hospital safety rating tools.

6 Nov 2007

CMS informs some low-income Medicare drug plan beneficiaries that their coverage could change

About two million low-income beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare prescription drug plans could be moved to new plans in 2008, and millions of other beneficiaries will have to change plans if they want to avoid double-digit premium increases, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports.

6 Nov 2007

Fewer U.S. residents purchase prescription drugs from Canada, in part because of Medicare drug benefit

Online drug sales in 2006 from Canadian pharmacies to U.S. consumers dropped about 50%, from $420 million Canadian dollars in 2005 to $211 million Canadian dollars last year, according to data from IMS Health, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

5 Nov 2007

UAW agrees on tentative contract with Ford that includes voluntary employees' beneficiary association

Negotiators for United Auto Workers and Ford Motor on Saturday reached an agreement on a tentative four-year contract that follows the pattern set by General Motors and Chrysler Group and includes the creation of a voluntary employees' beneficiary association, the New York Times reports.

5 Nov 2007

Medicare lacks tools, incentives to enforce evidence-based coverage policies

According to new research at the University of Minnesota, Medicare lacks sufficient information in most cases to apply a policy and does not have the resources or incentives to acquire the information.

2 Nov 2007

PET scan distinguishes Alzheimer's from other dementia

A PET scan (positron emission tomography) that measures uptake of sugar in the brain significantly improves the accuracy of diagnosing a type of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer's disease, a study led by a University of Utah dementia expert has found.

2 Nov 2007

Heart attacks/pneumonia falls short of national goals

Emergency departments across the nation are failing to meet national goals in treating many heart attack and pneumonia patients, according to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers published in the October issue of Academic Emergency Medicine.

1 Nov 2007

Lobbyists push lawmakers to act quickly on Medicare physician payment rate fix

Physician groups are pushing members of Congress to work quickly on passing legislation to avert a 10% Medicare physician reimbursement rate cut scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2008, The Hill reports (Young, The Hill, 10/31).

31 Oct 2007

Pharmacies, drug wholesaler file lawsuit against Abbott over price of antiretroviral Norvir

Four pharmacy chains and one pharmaceutical wholesaler on Monday filed a lawsuit against Abbott Laboratories over the price of its antiretroviral drug Norvir, the Wall Street Journal reports.

30 Oct 2007

Efforts needed to address financial stability of entitlement programs

The "demands imposed by the retirement of millions of baby boomers will consume the federal budget and blight the prospects of the next generations" without efforts to address problems with the long-term financial stability of Medicare and other entitlement programs, columnist David Broder writes in the Washington Post.

30 Oct 2007

Government restrictions on weight loss surgeries limit access for poor, underinsured patients

Thresholds limiting bariatric surgeries to high-volume centers disproportionately restrict access for poor and underinsured patients, populations which are among the most in need of them, an analysis led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers shows.

30 Oct 2007

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report reports on Presidential campaigns related to health care

Forty-six percent of U.S. adults who responded to a recent survey conducted by Scripps Howard and Ohio University said that Democrats were more likely to improve access to health care than Republicans, Scripps Howard/Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. The survey, which included responses from 811 adults nationwide collected from Sept 24. to Oct. 10, has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

29 Oct 2007

5% of MRSA patients in U.S. died

One of every 20 (or 5 percent) of the roughly 368,600 patients treated in U.S. hospitals in 2005 for Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, died, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

25 Oct 2007

The financial burdens of overweight and obesity among elderly Americans

What many Americans eat and how little they exercise could wind up costing them - and American taxpayers - some serious money. Moreover, the overweight and obese may lose months from their lifespans.

24 Oct 2007

Spending more for lung cancer treatment did not substantially increase patients' lives

A new study finds that survival for elderly patients with lung cancer has changed little despite large increases in healthcare expenditures for lung cancer treatment.

22 Oct 2007

Endobronchial valve improves quality of life in emphysema patients

Emphysema patients whose lungs are implanted with a pencil eraser-sized, one-way endobronchial valve experience significantly improved measures of lung function and report better quality of life, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researcher Frank C. Sciurba, M.D., reported today at CHEST 2007, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.

22 Oct 2007

Early intervention dramatically improves outcomes for new dialysis patients

A program of education, close medical follow-up, and self-empowerment for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) newly starting dialysis, reduces complications and improves outcomes - including significant reductions in mortality and hospitalization rates, reports a study in the November Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

19 Oct 2007

Comparing public and private health insurance

The Manhattan Institute has released a new report by senior fellow Benjamin Zycher, entitled "Comparing Public and Private Health Insurance: Would a Single-Payer System Save Enough to Cover the Uninsured?" In it, Zycher dispels a common misconception regarding single-payer health insurance.

19 Oct 2007

Elderly Medicare, Medicaid patients not receiving quality care

If the care received by vulnerable older people concurrently enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid was evaluated on a grading scale, it would squeak by with a barely passing mark, a new UCLA study has found.

18 Oct 2007

Use of NSAIDs underreported

Patients underreported their use of common but potentially dangerous over-the-counter pain medications known as NSAIDs, according to research presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology.

16 Oct 2007