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One in seven Medicare patients harmed by problems in hospital, HHS report finds

The New York Times: "One of every seven Medicare beneficiaries who is hospitalized is harmed as a result of problems with the medical care there, according to a new study [.pdf] from the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services. The study said unexpected adverse events added at least $4.4 billion a year to government health costs and contributed to the deaths of about 180,000 patients a year."

17 Nov 2010

FDA partners with CDC to kick off Get Smart about Antibiotics Week

This year, millions of antibiotics will be prescribed. Antibiotics can be used to treat bacterial infections; however, they are commonly over-prescribed. Patients sometimes ask their health care professional to prescribe antibiotic drugs for viral infections, like the common cold, despite the fact that they will not work and may lead to potentially harmful side effects. The misuse of antibiotics has contributed to one of the world's most pressing public health problems today, antibiotic resistance.

17 Nov 2010

Kansas may join health lawsuit; 71 lawmakers from 26 states ask to file brief to support law

Kansas City Star: "If Kansas Gov.-elect Sam Brownback and Attorney General-elect Derek Schmidt have their way, Kansas will soon be among" states participating in a federal lawsuit against implementation of the federal health law. "Although several of the lawsuits have been dismissed, one of the most prominent — filed by the state of Florida on behalf of 20 other states — was recently approved for further review.

17 Nov 2010

Maine has most improved health care quality; Kansas needs more dentists

Maine Public Broadcasting Network News: "Nationwide, Maine is most improved when it comes to health care quality, according to 2009 statistics from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In one year, Maine jumped from 12th place to fourth best in categories ranging from cancer to patient safety, from maternal and child health to long-term care.

17 Nov 2010

Medicare roundup: Payment cuts irk healthcare industry; officials mull new prostate-cancer treatment

Doctors across the United States are taking a wait-and-see approach while Congress decides whether or not to allow a scheduled 23% cut in Medicare reimbursement rates to take effect on Dec. 1.

17 Nov 2010

Officials look to 2 states for advice on setting up exchanges; other health overhaul news

Two states Massachusetts and Utah are forerunners in establishing health insurance exchanges, a key part of the health overhaul, and are likely to serve as models for other states, Politico reports.

17 Nov 2010

New safety reporting website for electronic health records launched

The Wall Street Journal: An alliance of executives from medical societies and professional liability carriers yesterday launched "EHRevent.org, a new safety reporting system for [electronic health records] EHRs. Doctors and other health-care workers can go online and report problems and mistakes they experience as they ramp up the use of digitized records.

17 Nov 2010

Berwick to testify for the first time as Medicare/Medicaid chief

Medicare and Medicaid chief Donald Berwick will testify before a congressional committee Wednesday for the first time since President Barack Obama avoided the Senate confirmation process to Republican protest by using a recess appointment to install Berwick as the administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

17 Nov 2010

Changes to flexible spending accounts; High co-pays prompt abandoned prescriptions

Minnesota Public Radio: "[T]he federal health care reform law is cutting back on what [flexible spending] accounts will cover and how much workers can put into them. … These two changes are designed to raise more tax revenue to help pay for insuring another 32 million Americans beginning in 2014.

16 Nov 2010

Nevada AG files antitrust lawsuit against health care merger

The Associated Press/KLAS-TV in Las Vegas: "The Nevada attorney general's office has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against a $3.1 billion health care merger it says would reduce competition for psychiatric care in Las Vegas. ... The lawsuit is aimed at a proposed merger between Universal Health Services Inc. and Psychiatric Solutions Inc."

16 Nov 2010

Republicans confront realities of health overhaul, position themselves in Congress

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the health overhaul is resting in the GOP's crosshairs. The ultimate defense to the repeal effort is the presidential veto pen. Even with a new majority in the House come January, Republicans concede that winning a repeal vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely and the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto, well out of reach.

16 Nov 2010

Omron supports American Heart Association's educational initiatives for hypertension treatment

Omron Healthcare today announced support for the American Heart Association's broad-based healthcare awareness campaign that will educate providers on hypertension treatment recommendations, including home blood pressure monitoring and best practices for integrating this into their standard of care.

16 Nov 2010

Reuters reports on PLoS medicine series on water, sanitation

Nearly 20 percent of the world's population still defecates in the open, and action to improve hygiene, sanitation and water supply could prevent more than 2 million child deaths a year, health experts said" on Monday, following the release of a series of papers on water and sanitation published in the journal PLoS Medicine, Reuters reports.

16 Nov 2010

States seek ways to balance Medicaid budget, contemplate dropping out of program

Kaiser Health News: "As budget-weary state officials contemplate dropping out of the state-federal Medicaid program, a potentially game-changing question has arisen in Washington: Would poor people who lose Medicaid be eligible for subsidies to buy private coverage in an insurance exchange beginning in 2014? Cindy Mann, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, last week said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was considering the question.

16 Nov 2010

Insuring your health: Many individual health policies do not cover pregnancy

In her latest Kaiser Health News consumer column, Michelle Andrews writes: "Individual health insurance policies generally don't cover maternity care, as a recent investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce reported.

16 Nov 2010

KHN column: Health care – tell us the truth before you tell us why you are right

We need more proposals like those being made by the President's deficit reduction commission, and the Medicare reform proposal authored by Republican House members Ryan, Cantor, and McCarthy. Irrespective of whether they are the best proposals, their authors started from a place where they told the truth.

16 Nov 2010

Today's Op-Eds: Congress needs conservative leadership; reviving tort reform; can states afford to drop Medicaid?

Nothing has gone quite so awry as the massive, government-run Obama health program, and it is plain that the individual mandate, the employee mandate, the abortion funding, the tangle of outsider/insider councils like the comparative effectiveness board and the effective nationalization of healthcare under grants of authority to the Department of Health and Human Services.

16 Nov 2010

Hospital upgrades: Promises to keep

The Victorian Coalition has announced hospital upgrades around the state and softened its opposition of the national health agreement.

16 Nov 2010

BUSM professor wins 2010 Maurice Wood Award for Lifetime Contribution to Primary Care Research

Larry Culpepper, MD, MPH, chair and professor of family medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and chief of family medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC), is the recipient of the 2010 Maurice Wood Award for Lifetime Contribution to Primary Care Research.

16 Nov 2010

Study confirms healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health

Two large studies from Northwestern Medicine confirm a healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health. One study shows the majority of people who adopted healthy lifestyle behaviors in young adulthood maintained a low cardiovascular risk profile in middle age.

16 Nov 2010

Healthcare News

One in seven Medicare patients harmed by problems in hospital, HHS report finds

FDA partners with CDC to kick off Get Smart about Antibiotics Week

Kansas may join health lawsuit; 71 lawmakers from 26 states ask to file brief to support law

Maine has most improved health care quality; Kansas needs more dentists

Medicare roundup: Payment cuts irk healthcare industry; officials mull new prostate-cancer treatment

Officials look to 2 states for advice on setting up exchanges; other health overhaul news

New safety reporting website for electronic health records launched

Berwick to testify for the first time as Medicare/Medicaid chief

Changes to flexible spending accounts; High co-pays prompt abandoned prescriptions

Nevada AG files antitrust lawsuit against health care merger

Republicans confront realities of health overhaul, position themselves in Congress

Omron supports American Heart Association's educational initiatives for hypertension treatment

Reuters reports on PLoS medicine series on water, sanitation

States seek ways to balance Medicaid budget, contemplate dropping out of program

Insuring your health: Many individual health policies do not cover pregnancy

KHN column: Health care – tell us the truth before you tell us why you are right

Today's Op-Eds: Congress needs conservative leadership; reviving tort reform; can states afford to drop Medicaid?

Hospital upgrades: Promises to keep

BUSM professor wins 2010 Maurice Wood Award for Lifetime Contribution to Primary Care Research

Study confirms healthy lifestyle has the biggest impact on cardiovascular health

Advancing brain microphysiological systems (bMPS)

PhD researcher at LifeArc

Unveiling Hidden Potential: Organoids for Disease Modeling in Neuroscience Research

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