Healthcare News

RSS

NEJM publishes 'The 2010 Dietary Guidelines -- The Best Recipe for Health?'

USDA's interest protects that of Industry -- not the American public, conclude leading researchers Water C. Willett, MD, PhD, and David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD in their article, "The 2010 Dietary Guidelines -- The Best Recipe for Health?" published in the prestigious peer-reviewed The New England Journal of Medicine.

4 Nov 2011

Glaxo pays $3 billion to settle investigations involving alleged marketing missteps and Medicaid fraud

GlaxoSmithKline PLC said it will pay the U.S. government $3 billion to settle several long-running criminal and civil investigations into the company, including allegations that Glaxo marketed some drugs illegally and defrauded the Medicaid program. The settlement will also cover a Department of Justice probe into Glaxo's development and marketing of the diabetes drug Avandia, which has been linked to heart attack risks.

4 Nov 2011

Study: NPs can decrease unnecessary ED visits

Adding a nurse practitioner (NP) to a busy hospital staff can decrease unnecessary emergency department (ED) visits, according to a study published in the latest issue of Surgery by researchers at Loyola University Health System.

4 Nov 2011

Family planning a cost-effective strategy to reduce poverty, conflict and environmental damage

In his New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof writes that family planning is "a solution to many of the global problems that confront us, from climate change to poverty to civil wars," but that it "has been a victim of America's religious wars" and is "starved of resources."

4 Nov 2011

NewYork-Presbyterian ranked 23rd on 2011 InformationWeek 500

NewYork-Presbyterian is ranked 23rd on the 2011 InformationWeek 500 - the magazine's annual list of the top technology innovators in the United States - and is the second highest ranking hospital in the nation.

4 Nov 2011

The skinny on 'narrow networks'

Health Net of Arizona is joining with Banner Health to offer a new type of HMO plan. In other news, Health News Florida reports on WellCare and Humana's profits.

4 Nov 2011

ACP tells 112th Congress to 'go big' by reforming Medicare payments

The American College of Physicians (ACP) today told the 112th Congress to "go big" by reforming Medicare payments, including enacting a permanent end to scheduled Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR) physician payment cuts.

4 Nov 2011

Ten rules for good sleep

Generally, it is always easier to stay up an hour later than to go to sleep an hour earlier, so most people have relatively little problem setting the clocks back in the Fall. This is because our basic circadian rhythm (the "body clock") actually seems to be programmed for a longer than 24 hour day: it runs a little slow.

4 Nov 2011

Longer looks: A doctor's dilemma on C-sections; apology for a death sparked a hospital's change

I was the obstetrician on hospital duty that Sunday morning, so I introduced myself and learned that the patient, pregnant with her first child, wished to have as few interventions as possible. Respecting her desire, we decided to reevaluate her in a few hours to see how her labor had progressed. But would she get her wish? ... the odds were greater than 1 in 4 that this woman would end up not with the natural delivery she wanted, but with a surgical delivery in one of the two operating rooms down the hall.

4 Nov 2011

Mental health intervention can help prevent suicides among youth

Roughly 1 million people die by suicide each year. In the U.S., where nearly 36,000 people take their own lives annually, more than 4,600 victims are between the ages of 10 and 24, making suicide the third leading cause of death in this age group.

4 Nov 2011

PlusNews reports on importance of cost-effectiveness of ZAMSTAR study for policymakers, donors amid economic downturn

PlusNews reports on the results of the Zambia-South Africa TB and AIDS Reduction (ZAMSTAR) study released on Monday at the International Lung Health Conference in Lille, France, which show that "home-based tuberculosis (TB) education and testing reduced community TB prevalence by about 20 percent."

4 Nov 2011

Climate change, environmental destruction threaten improvements among world's poorest, UNDP report warns

"Unchecked environmental destruction will halt -- or even reverse -- the huge improvements seen in the living conditions of the world's poorest people in recent decades," the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warns in its 2011 Human Development report, which was released on Wednesday, the Guardian reports.

4 Nov 2011

VOA News program examines international humanitarian aid in Horn of Africa

The VOA News audio program "Explorations" on Tuesday discussed international humanitarian aid in the Horn of Africa.

3 Nov 2011

First Edition: November 3, 2011

Today's headlines include reports about a bipartisan group of lawmakers who are urging the super committee to consider "all options."

3 Nov 2011

WHO's Chan tells Executive Board reform is necessary under budget constraints

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan on Tuesday at the opening session of the agency's Executive Board special session on reform in Geneva "stressed that planned reforms are intended to make the agency more efficient as it strives to improve global health amid multiple challenges that have an impact on human well-being," the U.N. News Centre reports.

3 Nov 2011

Study assesses value of current scenario-based training programs for firefighters

Current training programs may not effectively prepare firefighters for the range of scenarios they are likely to encounter, according to human factors/ergonomics researchers Michael R. Baumann, Carol L. Gohm, and Bryan L. Bonner.

3 Nov 2011

EAU, ESTRO and ESMO to host European conference on urological cancers

The 3rd European Multidisciplinary Meeting on Urological Cancers will kick off this Friday, bringing together representatives of three adjacent fields involved in the management of prostate, bladder, kidney, testicular and penile cancer.

3 Nov 2011

Budget experts focus on health costs

Four well-known budget gurus testified Tuesday in a public super committee hearing, telling the panel they should raise revenues and overhaul expensive federal health programs in order to develop a budget compromise that will meet the $1.2 trillion, 10-year mandate.

3 Nov 2011

Elsevier's 2012 eBook Frontlist collections available on SciVerse ScienceDirect

Elsevier, the world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today that its 2012 eBook Frontlist collections are available for advance purchase on SciVerse ScienceDirect, Elsevier's online platform for scientific content.

3 Nov 2011

UNICEF asks donors to fully fund request to assist North Koreans facing malnutrition

"Millions of children and women of child-bearing age in North Korea face malnutrition which can leave them at higher risk of death or disease, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday," Reuters reports.

3 Nov 2011