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Report: Spending on health care for children increased between 2009 and 2012

Spending on health care for children covered by employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) increased between 2009 and 2012, rising an average 5.5 percent a year, with more dollars spent on boys than girls, and higher spending on infants and toddlers (ages 0-3) than any other children's age group, finds a new report released today by the Health Care Cost Institute. Per capita spending on children reached $2,437 in 2012, a $363 increase from 2009. The study shows a growth in prescription use by children through age 18, as well as a rise in the number of teens being admitted for mental health and substance use (MHSU) treatment.

27 Feb 2014

Researchers launch new programme to remotely monitor patients undergoing chemotherapy

Researchers from the University of Surrey have today launched a new programme of research called eSMART (Electronic Symptom Management using ASyMS Remote Technology), that uses mobile phone technology to remotely monitor patients who are undergoing chemotherapy to treat breast, bowel and blood cancers.

27 Feb 2014

Wolters Kluwer Health agrees to publish AAOS' official clinical review journal

Wolters Kluwer Health and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons—the preeminent provider of musculoskeletal education to orthopaedic surgeons and others in the world—announced today an agreement to publish the Academy's official clinical review journal effective with the March 2014 issue.

27 Feb 2014

NAFC designates Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as Center of Excellence

The National Association For Continence has designated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as a Center of Excellence: Continence Care. Anurag K. Das, MD; Roger Lefevre, MD; Janet Li, MD; and Deborah A. Nagle, MD are the principle physicians for this COE.

27 Feb 2014

Viewpoints: Health law's forgotten taxes; 'lame documentation' by critics; hospital closing crisis

The Affordable Care Act contains at least two economically distinct taxes on labor market activity. Even the experts on the law have failed to recognize all of them (Casey B. Mulligan, 2/26).

27 Feb 2014

Simple change in hospital laboratory reports may improve antibiotic prescribing practices

A simple change in how the hospital laboratory reports test results may help improve antibiotic prescribing practices and patient safety, according to a pilot, proof-of-concept study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and now available online.

27 Feb 2014

Weighing Medicare claims and health law 'job killer' accusations

We have delved into this issue before and find the certainty with which both sides hold their positions to be dismaying. Each side can point to data to make their case, even though the law has only begun to be implemented (Kessler, 2/26).

27 Feb 2014

Researchers examine how breastfed children perform better in school

Loads of studies over the years have shown that children who were breastfed score higher on IQ tests and perform better in school, but the reason why remained unclear.

27 Feb 2014

Researchers use virtual computer environment for distance healthcare education

Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers have demonstrated the potential of using a virtual computer environment for distance healthcare education for an international audience that often has limited access to conventional teaching and training.

27 Feb 2014

Waiting room time helps in effective screening for depression and anxiety

A new study in General Hospital Psychiatry finds patients visiting the hospital for a variety of ailments can be easily screened for depression and anxiety as they wait for care, information that can then be sent immediately to their doctor to address.

27 Feb 2014

Record $4.3 billion in health care fraud recovered

Federal efforts to combat health care fraud recovered a record $4.3 billion in fiscal 2013 and have recouped more than $8 for every $1 spent on enforcement over the past three years, according to an annual report released Wednesday.

27 Feb 2014

Walgreens at UCSF aims to improve medication use, reduce hospital readmissions

UC San Francisco and Walgreens have opened a unique Walgreens store today on the UCSF campus that aims to improve medication safety, decrease health care costs and help patients use medicines more effectively by offering pharmacist-based patient care and expanded health and wellness services to the community.

27 Feb 2014

Dampening immune response may encourage lung transplant rejection

Organ transplant patients routinely receive drugs that stop their immune systems from attacking newly implanted hearts, livers, kidneys or lungs, which the body sees as foreign.

27 Feb 2014

Survival rates for bladder cancer in UK are falling, confirms new study

Of the top 10 cancers in the UK, bladder cancer is only one where survival rates have been shown to be getting worse. New figures published this month in the Journal of Clinical Urology confirm in a study of cases of bladder cancer in England over a 19 year period (from 1990 until 2009) that survival rates here in the UK are falling and are worse than in than in other European countries with similar incidence rates.

27 Feb 2014

Administration may be scaling back estimates of young adult enrollment

CNN reports that the White House tamps down expectations that the exchanges will meet CBO's original projection that 40 percent of enrollees would be between the ages of 18 and 34. Also, Politico Pro looks at the large number of states that are not carrying out health law provision that allows young adults who were enrolled in Medicaid before aging out of foster care to receive coverage through age 26.

27 Feb 2014

Organ recovery centers could improve efficiency, reduce costs associated with deceased organ donation

Free-standing organ recovery centers could markedly improve efficiency and reduce costs associated with deceased organ donation, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation.

27 Feb 2014

Medicare official defends proposed changes to prescription drug program

In written testimony, Jonathan Blum, deputy administrator of the Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services, says the changes are needed to head off cost increases, but an industry-sponsored study argues some of the changes could cost taxpayers more.

27 Feb 2014

Studies indicate that harvested rainwater frequently harbors pathogens

South Africa has been financing domestic rainwater harvesting tanks in informal low-income settlements and rural areas in five of that nation's nine provinces. But pathogens inhabit such harvested rainwater, potentially posing a public health hazard, especially for children and immunocompromised individuals, according to a team from the University of Stellenbosch.

27 Feb 2014

Health exchanges create cybersecurity challenges, hacker opportunities

The Associated Press reports that a number of state health exchanges that were supposed to link to the federal computer system were initially rated as "high risk."

27 Feb 2014

Mailing test results to patient’s home increase colon cancer screening rates by 40%

Colon cancer screening rates increased by nearly 40 percent when free stool tests were mailed to patients' homes, according to results of a pilot study published today in the journal BMC Cancer.

27 Feb 2014