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UnitedHealth, Mayo partnering to merge insurance, care data

UnitedHealth announced it will partner with the Mayo Clinic to merge insurance and medical data to try to improve and standardize care in order to lower costs.

16 Jan 2013

Gates Foundation official discusses efforts to fight malaria

AllAfrica features an interview with David Brandling-Bennett, deputy director of the malaria program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in which he discusses "current tools being used to fight the disease, the prospect for a vaccine, and the hope of new drugs to accelerate progress," according to the news service.

16 Jan 2013

Florida Atlantic University announces $3M gift to endow medical student scholarships

Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine has announced a $3 million gift to endow medical student scholarships. The endowment will be named the "Dr. Morton and Cynthia Levitt Endowed Scholarship for Medical Education," and the announcement was made during the Schmidt College of Medicine's inaugural "Your Medical School" celebration honoring Dick and Barbara Schmidt.

16 Jan 2013

Flu: ERs seeing more patients, N.Y. declares state of emergency

Emergency rooms around America are dealing with an influx of those with the flu while the virus forces New York officials to declare a state of emergency.

16 Jan 2013

As debate heats up, how does Medicare fit into debt limit fight?

President Barack Obama signals an interest in "modest adjustments" to Medicare and other safety net programs -- but not in the context of debt limit discussions -- as Republicans demand spending cuts be part of a deal to raise the federal debt limit.

16 Jan 2013

Malaria control: an interview with Dr Jo Lines

Malaria is a tropical, mosquito-borne disease. It is found all over the tropics, in every continent but diminished now a great deal in most of Latin America, most of Asia. Still 90% of the world’s deaths due to malaria – are in Africa and most of them are in young children in Africa.

16 Jan 2013

Blog highlights global health challenges, opportunities in 2013

Chatham House's "Expert Comment" blog features commentary on four global health issues the organization's experts view as important in the year ahead.

16 Jan 2013

Capsules: Not too early to plan for health taxes, H&R Block says

Now on KHN's blog, Jay Hancock reports: Even if you owe Affordable Care Act taxes, you probably won't have to start paying them until next year. But H&R Block wants you to come in and talk about them now.

16 Jan 2013

DeParle reportedly exiting the White House, moving on to Brookings

Nancy-Ann DeParle, an Obama administration deputy chief of staff, played a prominent role in advancing the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

16 Jan 2013

Patients' health care decisions, spending key to future of medicine

As patients become more engaged in decisions related to treatment and health care, their role in holding down health care spending will likely become more prominent.

16 Jan 2013

It's still too early to evaluate whether flu season is worse than normal

New York officials declare a public health emergency as federal officials say the epidemic may have peaked.

16 Jan 2013

Polio official discusses eradication efforts in Gates Foundation blog interview

In the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Eric Porterfield, director of global health communications at the United Nations Foundation, interviews Jeffrey Bates, a polio communications for development (C4D) officer, about India's efforts to eradicate polio.

16 Jan 2013

Hospital fees, provider cuts to steady Medicaid programs in Ga., Calif. linger

New hospital fees and provider cuts in Georgia and California aim to make their Medicaid programs more solvent, but fights over details are keeping the plans shelved for now.

16 Jan 2013

GHTC blog discusses potential impact of sequestration on global health R&D

In the Global Health Technologies Coalition's (GHTC) "Breakthroughs" blog, Ashley Bennett, senior policy associate at GHTC, "provides a summary of what the compromise means for the federal budget, and what might happen to global health and international development programs."

16 Jan 2013

Zimbabwe continues to face medicine shortages, stock-outs, PlusNews reports

"Chronic shortages of generic and antiretroviral drugs, stock-outs, high medication costs, and long distances to clinics are some of the hurdles people face in their quest to access essential medicines in Zimbabwe," PlusNews reports.

16 Jan 2013

States to get more time to set up exchanges, flexibility in Medicaid expansion

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published a rule Monday detailing how states should coordinate certain elements of health exchanges and Medicaid.

16 Jan 2013

Hospital news: Nantucket's paradox; Maryland overbilling; Calif. fee complication

Nestled on an island 30 miles out to sea, Nantucket Cottage Hospital is the only rural hospital in Massachusetts, as defined by the federal government. Its weathered cedar shingles and widow's walk evoke the bygone era of its founding a century ago.

16 Jan 2013

DuiCam app lets the cell phone constantly record erratic drivers

Nearly 30 Americans a day die in vehicle crashes that involve drunk drivers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is so appalling to Frank Vahid, a computer science professor in the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside, that he plans to spend much of the rest of his academic career helping to eradicate the problem.

16 Jan 2013

Experts blame lack of immunization coverage for Pakistan's measles outbreak

In 2012, measles "claimed the lives of more than 300 children in Pakistan," with more than 200 of those deaths from Sindh province, and health experts and the WHO are saying "the huge difference in routine immunization coverage between the provinces, districts and cities is at the root of the measles outbreak," Inter Press Service reports.

16 Jan 2013

Aid transparency 'critical' for effective project design & implementation in Haiti, elsewhere

"Saturday marked the third anniversary of the tragic earthquake in Haiti that claimed between 230,000 and 300,000 lives," Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz of the Center for Global Development write in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog," adding, "The grim landmark has prompted much discussion about the struggles surrounding reconstruction and also some hope about what may come next."

16 Jan 2013