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LUMC recognized as one of the nation's Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems

Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC) has been named one of the nation's Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems, according to results of the 2011 Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study.

29 Jul 2011

State roundup: Mass. communities look to new law for health savings

Area cities and towns are salivating at the prospect of saving millions of dollars in insurance costs in coming years, under a new law making it easier to change health coverage for their employees.

29 Jul 2011

Viewpoints: Pessimism on partisan debt dealings; supporting community clinics; 'mystery shopper' should go forward

FDR began the entitlement era with the New Deal and Social Security, but for decades it remained relatively limited. … That changed in the mid-1960s with LBJ's Great Society and the dawn of the health-care state. Medicare and Medicaid were launched in 1965 with fairy tale estimates of future costs. Medicare, the program for the elderly, was supposed to cost $12 billion by 1990 but instead spent $110 billion.

29 Jul 2011

First Edition: July 28, 2011

In today's headlines, reports about the ever-growing US health health care tab and about the petition filed by a conservative legal center to bring their health law challenge to the Supreme Court.

28 Jul 2011

All Canadian provinces except Quebec announce funding agreement for PNH drug, Soliris

L'Association Québécoise de l'HPN regrets that Quebec remains one of the only jurisdictions in the developed world to decline including the only effective life-saving treatment against an ultra-rare blood disease - paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) - on its public drug insurance plan drugs list.

28 Jul 2011

ELPA, WHA to launch PATH B programme for patients with chronic hepatitis B

The European Liver Patients Association (ELPA) and the World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA), announced today on the 4th annual World Hepatitis Day that 'PATH B - "Patients and Professionals Acting Together for Hepatitis B" - My journey with chronic hepatitis B', a comprehensive educational resource designed to improve the lives of people living with chronic hepatitis B, is to be launched in August 2011.

28 Jul 2011

Brooklyn drugstores accused of Medicare Part D fraud

With a blue awning with the Russian word for pharmacy written on it and a sign hung in the window declaring "We Accept All Medicare Part D Plans," Monica's looks like a typical mom-and-pop Brooklyn drugstore.

28 Jul 2011

Eli Lilly introduces physician payment registry for public

Eli Lilly and Company today announced the launch of a physician payment registry to help the public better understand how the company works with U.S. physicians and compensates them for their services – and how these collaborations benefit patient care.

28 Jul 2011

World Bank urges China to address NCDs or face economic consequences

In a report released on Tuesday, the World Bank urged China to step up its efforts to fight non-communicable diseases (NCDs), "the main cause of death in the country, warning of rising health expenditure and an economic slowdown if rapid action is not taken," Reuters reports.

28 Jul 2011

U.N. warns 3.5M Kenyans will need food aid by September

The U.N. on Tuesday said approximately 3.5 million Kenyans will need food aid due to drought by September, "while European officials warned such crises would flare up again unless more money was directed at prevention efforts," Reuters reports.

28 Jul 2011

Two large insurers profit by Americans' postponement of care

WellPoint Inc and Aetna Inc , the second and third-biggest U.S. health insurers by market value, are set to report second-quarter earnings on Wednesday that will likely be helped by Americans avoiding doctor visits and delaying medical procedures. The industry has benefited from Americans postponing such care during the weak economy.

28 Jul 2011

Law center presses its health law challenge

"The Thomas Moore Law Center formally asked the Supreme Court Tuesday to reverse an appeals court decision upholding the health care reform law. Marking the first appeal of its kind to reach the nation's highest court, the conservative legal group continues to insist the mandate requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional".

28 Jul 2011

Pharmaceutical companies' profit protection hurts global AIDS fight

In her latest piece on the New York Times' "Opinionator" blog, author and journalist Tina Rosenberg argues that the terms of Gilead's recent agreement with the Medicines Patent Pool is "confirmation of a dangerous new trend: middle-income countries as a target market for drug makers."

28 Jul 2011

Bill introduced to increase Medigap MLR

The AARP endorsed the measure, introduced in both the House and Senate, which in 2014 would require Medigap insurers to spend 85 percent of every premium dollar in the group market on medical care.

28 Jul 2011

Boehner plan faces delay as debt deal continues to be elusive

The delay was caused both by a Congressional Budget Office analysis that found the proposal by House Speaker John Boehner didn't score the promised savings and by conservatives' skepticism about the plan.

28 Jul 2011

Consumers would pay more for insurance that caters to their needs

Almost half of insurance customers would be willing to pay more for health insurance that caters to their needs, according to a new report from the consulting firm Accenture.

28 Jul 2011

CIA's use of vaccine program to hunt Bin Laden hurt U.S. health diplomacy

The incoming C.I.A. director, David Petraeus, ought to impose clear restrictions and prohibitions on medically oriented spy tactics so that the integrity and humanitarian purpose of U.S. health aid are affirmed and that current and future health aid operations will not be misused," Jack Chow, a former U.S. global AIDS ambassador and assistant director-general of the WHO, writes in a New York Times opinion piece responding to reports that the U.S. used a vaccination campaign in Pakistan to help locate and kill Osama bin Laden.

28 Jul 2011

New report is setback for 9/11 responders and cancer costs

The report concluded that medical research does not prove that those working at the World Trade Center disaster site have an increased risk of developing certain forms of cancer.

28 Jul 2011

Social media may improve public health system's ability to prepare, recover from disasters

Social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare may be an important key to improving the public health system's ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters, according to a New England Journal of Medicine "Perspective" article from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania to be published this week.

28 Jul 2011

As they age, some women face retirement nightmare

The percentage of adult children providing personal care or financial assistance to a parent has more than tripled since 1999, according to a 2011 study by MetLife Mature Market Institute.

28 Jul 2011