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Four insurers may help provide answers to health cost puzzle

Four major health insurers announced plans yesterday to pool their health care claims data into a single database to enable researchers to mine for information about trends in costs, utilization and intensity of care.

22 Sep 2011

Addressing the exclusion of mental health from the MDGs

PRI's "The World" highlights the state of mental health care in Uganda in an examination of how the exclusion of mental health from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has, according to some advocates, held back mental health as a global health issue. Julius Kayiira, director of Mental Health Uganda, an organization that provides social support, job training and care to people with mental illness, "says organizations like his face an enormous funding gap, and he blames that gap, in part, on the United Nations," according to "The World."

22 Sep 2011

Indian government responds to new avian flu outbreak

"Authorities in eastern India will start culling chickens and destroying eggs to contain a new outbreak of H5 bird flu, the government said in a statement on Tuesday, as a mutant strain of the virus is spreading elsewhere in Asia," Reuters reports.

22 Sep 2011

'ResistanceMap' tracks antibiotic resistance online

"Extending the Cure," a research project of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy that looks at antibiotic resistance, on Wednesday launched a map "designed to be a tool for public health, researchers, doctors, the media and the public to track resistant pathogens, which is a growing problem around the world," the Washington Post's "The Checkup" blog reports.

22 Sep 2011

HSPH receives CDC grant to evaluate HIV combination prevention initiative in Botswana

A new four-year, $20 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will enable Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers to evaluate the impact and cost-effectiveness of a unique combination of HIV prevention strategies in Botswana.

22 Sep 2011

Rockefeller: 'Blended rate' proposal could be end of CHIP

The $320 billion package of Medicare and Medicaid cuts President Obama announced yesterday as part of his plan to reduce deficit spending would effectively end the Children's Health Insurance Program, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV said Tuesday. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., a leading advocate of the program on Capitol Hill, was referring specifically to a part of the plan, known as the "blended rate" proposal that would start in 2017.

22 Sep 2011

USA Today: Seniors key to fighting Medicare fraud

Officials believe that if older Americans - including the growing crop of eligible Baby Boomers - know how to spot errors and fraud, "more criminals will be put in jail where they belong," Barbara Dieker told a group of volunteers recently. Dieker directs the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Elder Rights, which oversees the Senior Medicare Patrols.

22 Sep 2011

Archbishop Tutu calls on Obama to lead the world in expansion of HIV treatment

Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes in a Washington Post opinion piece that President Barack Obama "is in a position to make a game-changing impact on the war against AIDS" and he "should lead the world in a massive effort to expand access to treatment and rid humanity of AIDS -- the most devastating disease of our time."

22 Sep 2011

States get grants to aid rate-review efforts

On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced $109 million in grants to states to help them improve insurance industry oversight, especially regarding their scrutiny of premium increases.

22 Sep 2011

HHS spending bill stalled by House impasse

The Senate Appropriations Committee's consideration of the spending measure will likely be largely symbolic and the actual spending it covers will be handled later this year. The appropriations process, however, has been used by Republicans to attack the health law's funding.

22 Sep 2011

Stanford Hospital & Clinics inaugurates new Brain Tumor Center

Today, Stanford Hospital & Clinics inaugurates its new Brain Tumor Center, framing its considerable corps of top-notch specialists into a treatment team driven by expertise, experience and compassion.

22 Sep 2011

Celebrating partnerships that lead to sustainable, locally managed HIV/AIDS response efforts

Mary Fanning, South Africa's country coordinator for PEPFAR, writes in a New Age guest column, "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, this is a time of hope. It's also a time to celebrate the partnerships that are advancing this work and to recommit to a plan to ensure prevention, treatment and care for those infected and affected is sustainable and locally managed."

22 Sep 2011

Insurance commissioners plan to challenge efforts to extract more money from Medigap plans

Members of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners are developing a letter to members of Congress in which they will oppose attempts to extract more money from Medicare enrollees who buy Medigap insurance - an option the president has now backed for new enrollees.

22 Sep 2011

State roundup: Consumer advocates oppose Ga. request to ease rules on insurers' profits

The state's request to ease new federal restrictions on health insurer spending would cost Georgia insurance policyholders an estimated $34 million in rebates, consumer advocacy groups say.

22 Sep 2011

Sanofi-aventis sponsors People vs. Cancer initiative

Sanofi-aventis Canada is proud to be the national sponsor of People vs. Cancer, a speaking tour of three Canadian universities featuring Stephen Lewis, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations and United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

22 Sep 2011

SAMHSA selects 11 organizations to receive 2011 Science and Service Awards

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has selected 11 organizations to receive the agency's 2011 Science and Service Awards. These awards recognize exemplary implementation of evidence-based interventions shown to prevent and/or treat mental illnesses and substance abuse.

22 Sep 2011

Obama's deficit plan focuses on cutting health programs but not benefits; experts wonder how patients will fare

President Obama and some members of Congress assert that, in cutting Medicare and Medicaid, they can whack health care providers while protecting beneficiaries. But experts say it is not so simple.

22 Sep 2011

U.N. calls for advancement on goal to save women and children; poorest countries, drug company contribute to fight

Speaking at a high-level meeting at U.N. headquarters on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, while lauding the progress made under the Every Woman Every Child initiative since its launch one year ago, noted that millions of women and children "are still dying needless deaths and called for advancing the goal of saving 16 million lives by 2015," the U.N. News Centre reports.

22 Sep 2011

New initiative for effective two-way communication between patients and clinicians

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) today launched an initiative with the Ad Council to encourage clinicians and patients to engage in effective two-way communication to ensure safer care and better health outcomes.

22 Sep 2011

Viewpoints: Progressives relish fight for 'shared sacrifice;' Desmond Tutu seeks to renew battle against HIV

To get our books in order, Obama would raise taxes on the rich while gaining savings by ending the wars abroad and reducing Medicare and Medicaid's unnecessarily high payments to drug companies. Republicans rise in defense of tax cuts for the wealthy and insist that deficit reduction come solely from cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and other "entitlements." The president stands for shared sacrifice; the Republicans for sheltering the privileged few. Progressives will have no problem standing with the president in this fight.

22 Sep 2011

Healthcare News

Four insurers may help provide answers to health cost puzzle

Addressing the exclusion of mental health from the MDGs

Indian government responds to new avian flu outbreak

'ResistanceMap' tracks antibiotic resistance online

HSPH receives CDC grant to evaluate HIV combination prevention initiative in Botswana

Rockefeller: 'Blended rate' proposal could be end of CHIP

USA Today: Seniors key to fighting Medicare fraud

Archbishop Tutu calls on Obama to lead the world in expansion of HIV treatment

States get grants to aid rate-review efforts

HHS spending bill stalled by House impasse

Stanford Hospital & Clinics inaugurates new Brain Tumor Center

Celebrating partnerships that lead to sustainable, locally managed HIV/AIDS response efforts

Insurance commissioners plan to challenge efforts to extract more money from Medigap plans

State roundup: Consumer advocates oppose Ga. request to ease rules on insurers' profits

Sanofi-aventis sponsors People vs. Cancer initiative

SAMHSA selects 11 organizations to receive 2011 Science and Service Awards

Obama's deficit plan focuses on cutting health programs but not benefits; experts wonder how patients will fare

U.N. calls for advancement on goal to save women and children; poorest countries, drug company contribute to fight

New initiative for effective two-way communication between patients and clinicians

Viewpoints: Progressives relish fight for 'shared sacrifice;' Desmond Tutu seeks to renew battle against HIV

Obesity, GLP-1s, and metabolic care

Automation in cell-based workflows

Data management challenges in scientific research

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