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New website provides guidelines to optimal stroke care

The 2010 Canadian Best Practice Recommendations for Stroke Care emphasize the need to prevent stroke patients from falling through the cracks as they move from the ER to in-hospital care to rehabilitation therapy and back to the community. The recommendations were released today by the Canadian Stroke Network and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

8 Dec 2010

Employers pay more for health insurance, number of uninsured rises

PBS NewsHour: "The price businesses pay for their workers' health insurance has ballooned more than 41 percent over the past six years, according to a new study by the Commonwealth Fund. At the same time, many workers are getting less for the money -- per-person deductibles have risen 71 percent over those same years, according to the report.

8 Dec 2010

New Health Affairs study reexamines cost issues related to care in McAllen and El Paso

"Did McAllen get a bum rap? McAllen, Texas, spends more on Medicare patients than almost any other part of the country. A June 2009 New Yorker article by Atul Gawande attributed the high spending to a culture of doctors that 'came to treat patients the way sub-prime mortgage lenders treated home buyers: as profit centers.' The article became required reading in the White House and Congress during the health care debate and turned McAllen into shorthand for America's decadent medical spending problem."

8 Dec 2010

Issues in health delivery: Hospital-spread infections; Finger-prick blood tests for diabetes; Medicare spent millions on unnecessary stents

News outlets report on a variety of issues and developments related to quality of care and health delivery systems.

8 Dec 2010

Jackson Health System selects MedAssets as its strategic partner

MedAssets, Inc. announced today that Jackson Health System has selected the Company as its strategic partner to implement MedAssets' transformational approach to significantly lower supply costs, drive operational efficiencies and engage physicians in the cost and clinical utilization management improvement process.

8 Dec 2010

HHS reaches out to defiant states for health law support

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is personally contacting incoming governors — many of whom are Republicans who campaigned against the health law — to try to build relationships that could prove critical to the law's implementation.

8 Dec 2010

Test vote on health bill for Ground Zero workers expected today

The Wall Street Journal: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., "is trying to find one additional Republican senator to vote for a $7.4 billion" health care bill for Ground Zero workers. The bill would "re-open a victim-compensation fund and provide 10 years of health tracking and treatment for those who have become sick from exposure to the toxic dust and debris of the World Trade Center site. A test vote on the bill is expected Wednesday" (Barrett, 12/6).

8 Dec 2010

AMR begins nationwide initiative to implement Stryker-PRO XT powered stretchers

In an effort to further improve patient care and reduce lifting injuries, American Medical Response has started a nationwide initiative to replace its manual stretchers with state-of-the-art Stryker-PRO XT powered stretchers in every community it serves.

From Stryker 8 Dec 2010

N.Y. charges 33 with selling prescriptions to dealers

The Associated Press: Thirty-three people have been charged in Buffalo, N.Y., "in a large-scale investigation that has opened a window into an emerging class of suppliers in the illicit drug trade: medical patients, including many who rely on the publicly funded Medicaid program to pay for their appointments and prescriptions" who sell their prescription drugs.

8 Dec 2010

Conn. addresses insurance rates, Mass. physician groups evaluate controversial payment plan

"House and Senate leaders are eyeing passage of a second midyear spending bill before the start of the next legislative session to address more caseload-driven accounts that are running short on funds five months after Gov. Deval Patrick signed the fiscal 2011 budget. The deficiencies, which follow inaccurate enrollment estimates for MassHealth and other social service programs, threaten to eat into some the revenue surpluses the state has amassed over the first half of fiscal 2011, when tax receipts have exceeded projections" (Murphy, 12/7).

8 Dec 2010

Texas health officials confronting Medicaid costs

"The biggest culprit in Texas' growing debate over escalating Medicaid costs" is "[a] mathematical formula that calculates how much the federal government pays and what's left over for the state," Kaiser Health News, in collaboration with The Texas Tribune, reports. "Already facing a record budget shortfall, Texas' Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) will drop more than 2 percentage points in late 2011, equivalent to a $1.2 billion hit."

8 Dec 2010

Some in health industry raising concerns about Accountable Care Organizations

CQ HealthBeat: "The medical device industry told the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that it's concerned about whether accountable care organizations could give providers financial incentives to hold back on needed patient care, particularly on technology. Meanwhile, insurance plan executives warned CMS officials that the ACOs could give hospitals and doctors new bargaining leverage in negotiations with insurers.

8 Dec 2010

Concentrated nicotine in E-cigarattes poses unknown risks to consumers

What do some pesticides and "electronic cigarettes" have in common? According to a new report published in the American Journal of Public Health, the answer is unregulated concentrations of nicotine that may pose unknown risks to consumers who are exposed to them.

8 Dec 2010

Military health costs skyrocket

CNNMoney: "The cost of health care is blowing the top off the Pentagon's budget. Mirroring the private sector trend, expenses have skyrocketed within the military's health system. The military spent $19 billion on health care in 2001 — and $49 billion in 2010. The Department of Defense forecasts a continued rise of 5% to 7% a year.

8 Dec 2010

Company reaches $28 million settlement for Medicare program

The Tennesseean: "Healthways Inc. will return $28 million to Medicare's overseer under a settlement related to the company's participation in a pilot program to determine the effectiveness of its nurse-based health coaching for chronically ill seniors." The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had paid the company $72 million for the pilot program, which ended two years ago, under the condition that it meet "specific targets for cost savings, health outcomes and patient satisfaction."

7 Dec 2010

Deal for year-long doc fix in the works

Politico: Senators reached a tentative deal Monday that would tap health law funds to avert a scheduled pay cut for physicians. The deal would take back about $19.2 billion in health law subsidies to help people buy health insurance beginning in 2014. It "would change how much money consumers would have to repay if their income status changes mid-year, pushing them out of the eligibility bracket.

7 Dec 2010

eLINCx to implement GE's eHealth Information Exchange across Wooster, Dunlap Community Hospitals

eLINCx, founded earlier this year to provide quality healthcare services to central Ohio communities, and GE Healthcare announced today that eLINCx will implement GE Healthcare's eHealth Information Exchange across Wooster Community Hospital, Dunlap Community Hospital and more than a dozen physician practices.

7 Dec 2010

China Biologic receives license to commence commercial plasma collection at Yishui station

China Biologic Products, Inc., one of the leading plasma-based biopharmaceutical companies in the People's Republic of China, operating through its indirect majority-owned subsidiaries, Shandong Taibang Biological Products Co., Ltd. and Guiyang Dalin Biologic Technologies Co., Ltd., and its equity investment in Xi'an Huitian Blood Products Co., Ltd., today announced that it has received a plasma collection license from the Shandong Province Health Department for its newly built plasma collection station in Yishui county, Shandong province.

7 Dec 2010

Lutheran Medical Center implements Medsphere's OpenVista EHR solution

Lutheran Medical Center (LMC) and Medsphere Systems Corporation today announced the successful implementation of Medsphere's OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR) solution throughout the hospital. The full service 476-bed teaching hospital is now on track to achieve meaningful use and qualify for millions of dollars made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

7 Dec 2010