Healthcare News

RSS

State lawmakers take up contraception coverage, abortion fights

States are taking up the fight over the Obama administration's contraception coverage mandate with several state legislatures proposing bills of their own to block the mandate. In the meantime, Virginia mulls a bill that would require women to get a sonogram before an abortion, and a federal judge is set to rule on requiring pharmacists there to carry emergency contraception.

23 Feb 2012

Kaiser Permanente to display new mobile offerings at HIMSS12

Kaiser Permanente, the nation's leading health care provider and not-for-profit health plan, will showcase its new collection of industry-leading mobile health applications at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society 12th Annual Conference and Exhibition at the Venetian Sands Expo Center.

23 Feb 2012

AHCA, NCAL announce multi-year Quality Initiative

Long term and post-acute care leadership from the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) announced a multi-year initiative this week to meet new quality goals, including reducing hospital readmission rates and improving staff retention.

23 Feb 2012

A job doesn't always solve health insurance difficulties

Bronner is one of six people from the St. Louis area whom NPR has been following for a little more than a year. Like the others, she started 2011 unemployed and searching for work. Like so many Americans who have struggled in this tough labor market, the people we followed have had difficulty getting health coverage. And for some, including Bronner, it didn't stop when they got jobs.

23 Feb 2012

New model to evaluate probiotic survival in the gut

Functional foods containing bacteria with beneficial health effects, or probiotics, have long been consumed in Northern Europe and are becoming increasingly popular elsewhere. To be of benefit, however, the bacteria have to survive in the very hostile environment of the digestive tract.

23 Feb 2012

Studies provide global perspective on condom use problems and errors

Problems with the correct use of the male condom, such as not wearing a condom throughout sex or putting it on upside down, are common in the U.S. and have become a major concern of public health officials. New research shows that countries around the world are facing similar challenges.

23 Feb 2012

State officials debate whether, how to set up health exchanges

Lawmakers in Maryland, Nebraska and Kansas consider bills to advance or block the marketplaces; California officials wrestle with the nitty gritty of implementation.

23 Feb 2012

ValueOptions, LifeWIRE partner to create mobile monitoring, intervention and counseling program

ValueOptions, the nation's largest independent behavioral health and wellness company, and LifeWIRE announced today a joint teaming agreement to create a mobile monitoring, intervention and counseling program.

23 Feb 2012

Adoption of Health IT still an uphill climb

The effort to drag the health-care industry into the technology age trudges onward, and it's still not clear whether the nation's 500,000 to 600,000 physicians will successfully make the journey. That's the finding from a number of health-care industry officials charged with pulling the medical profession into the 21st Century when it comes to managing patient records as well as automating the back-office operations of hospitals and clinics.

23 Feb 2012

GOP presidential hopefuls face off in two battleground states

Issues ranging from plans to cap or cut Medicaid spending to voting positions on the Medicare prescription drug program are among the policies being tossed about as candidates jockey for Tea Party votes and conservative credentials.

23 Feb 2012

Pediatricians should screen all children for vitamin D deficiency

As study after study shows the fundamental role vitamin D plays in disease and health, vitamin D deficiency — which often develops insidiously in childhood — should be on every parent's and pediatrician's radar, say physicians from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

23 Feb 2012

HIMSS awards Kaiser Permanente for leadership in use of health information technology

Kaiser Permanente, the nation's leading health care provider, with the largest private-sector electronic health record system in the world, received two awards today from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society for its leadership in the use of health information technology.

23 Feb 2012

Ariz. advocates ask for better pay for disabled caregivers, Va. disabled find new home

Arizona patient advocates are asking lawmakers to pay providers more who tend to the severely disabled. In the meantime, in Virginia, the older disabled find a new home.

23 Feb 2012

Experts discuss Universal Health Coverage at CFR roundtable

This post in the UHC Forward blog describes the second meeting of the Universal Health Coverage Roundtable Series, "Toward Sustainable Universal Health Coverage," which was hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on February 9.

23 Feb 2012

Accelitech announces new CyberKnife Cancer Institute of Chicago

Accelitech LLC, a leading developer of stereotactic radiosurgery and cancer treatment programs, is pleased to announce its newest CyberKnife cancer center, which will begin treating patients in Chicago in the summer of 2012.

23 Feb 2012

Teleflex announces two new agreements with HealthTrust

Teleflex Incorporated, a leading global provider of medical devices for critical care and surgery, has announced two new agreements with HealthTrust Purchasing Group, L.P.

23 Feb 2012

South Asia makes little progress in meeting maternal, child mortality MDGs, U.N. report says

"South Asian nations are making the least progress in the Asia-Pacific region on meeting key development goals, which they pledged to achieve by 2015," Bindu Lohani, vice president for sustainable development at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), said on Friday at the launch of a U.N. progress report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Reuters reports.

23 Feb 2012

Viewpoints: Real 'doc fix,' Saint Santorum and why Supreme Court TV is 'a bad idea'

In last week's flurry of budget deals, Congress patched together yet another temporary fix for a flawed formula used to calculate the fees paid to doctors by Medicare. It will hold payments flat for the next 10 months instead of cutting them by 27 percent as the formula required, and the $18 billion to pay for it will be taken from other health care programs. But the fix only lasts until the end of the year. On Jan. 1, doctors will face another big cut unless Congress again steps in.

23 Feb 2012

Cholera epidemic spreads in DRC; Efforts to combat disease remain underfunded, U.N. reports

"A cholera epidemic has spread to nine out of 11 provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations said on Tuesday," SAPA/News24 reports.

23 Feb 2012

Dems schedule own contraception hearing

House Democrats have scheduled their own hearing in response to last week's all-male panel organized by House Republicans on the Obama administration's contraception rule. The Dems have invited a young woman to testify, but say that GOP leaders won't allow them to televise it.

23 Feb 2012