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High health care burden of acute chest pain

Chest pain accounts for almost three quarter of a million emergency care visits in England and Wales every year - around double previous estimates - indicates research in Heart.

16 Jan 2005

Alarming ignorance about cancer in Britain

There is an alarming ignorance about cancer and how to reduce the risk of the disease which is Britain's biggest killer – a special survey reveals today.

13 Jan 2005

New tool to assess the quality of home health care

University of Michigan researchers are part of a team that has developed a new tool to assess the quality of home health care, with the goal of improving care and providing meaningful feedback about the care.

12 Jan 2005

Lowering health care costs overall seen as top U.S. health priority

The public favors reducing jury awards in malpractice lawsuits and allowing drugs to be imported from Canada, but ranks them relatively low on a list of 12 health care priorities for President Bush and Congress to address this year, according to a new post-election survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

12 Jan 2005

First deceleration in U.S. national health spending growth in seven years

The pace of health spending growth slowed in 2003, marking the first deceleration in national health spending growth in seven years, a report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary shows. The annual report is published in the January/February 2005 issue of Health Affairs.

12 Jan 2005

Financial barriers to a career in medicine are growing

The financial barriers to a career in medicine are growing, the BMA says today (Friday 7 January 2005), as new figures show the average fifth year medical student is in debt by £19,248 - 16% higher than last year - and many owe more than £30,000.

7 Jan 2005

Treatment centres threaten NHS Trusts

Responding to the Secretary of State for Health, John Reid's, report today (7 January 2005) on NHS and Independent Treatment Centres, the Chairman of the BMA's Consultants' Committee, Dr Paul Miller, warned that the centres were destabilising NHS hospitals.

7 Jan 2005

New guidelines for treating diabetes

Every year, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) issues Clinical Practice Recommendations, a series of updated recommendations to help health care providers treat people with diabetes using the most current research available.

7 Jan 2005

Medicare: Incompetence-Based Bureaucracy

In 2002, the General Accounting Office (GAO), now known as the Government Accountability Office, published a study revealing that 85 percent of the time Medicare customer service representatives (CSRs) gave the wrong answer to questions posed by physicians regarding the proper way to bill Medicare so as to obtain payment.

3 Jan 2005

Obesity may impose a smaller healthcare cost on African-Americans than other demographic groups

Obesity may impose a smaller healthcare cost on African-Americans than other demographic groups, according to a study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) that found spending on obesity-related problems becomes progressively higher as adults grow older.

28 Dec 2004

Patients' bills of rights laws don't actually protect health care providers

Despite critics who say patients' bills of rights laws are actually designed to protect health care providers, new research published in the current issue of the American Journal of Medicine found just the opposite.

23 Dec 2004

Rural imaging center takes aim at medical mistakes in healthcare

Thumb MRI Center is taking the initiative to decrease costly medical errors and increase the quality of healthcare by integrating a patented artificial intelligence technology developed by AIdentity Matrix.

22 Dec 2004

Race appears to be a factor in how doctors communicate with their patients

Race appears to be a factor in how doctors communicate with their patients, according to a new study of primary care visits conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine.

22 Dec 2004

Liberal Social Security reform plan would reduce the economy by $87 billion per year by 2025

A new report released today by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the leading liberal Social Security reform plan would lead to large, permanent tax increases and benefit cuts for future seniors, and would also shrink the U.S. economy.

22 Dec 2004

BMA survey shows too many consultant vacancies remain unfilled

A significant number of hospital consultant posts remain vacant after three months or more and in many cases trusts are not actively trying to fill these vacancies, according to figures released today (21/12/04) by the British Medical Association (BMA).

21 Dec 2004

Australia leads the way in new screening technology for babies

Australia is one of the first countries in the world to implement new screening technology across all States that will help detect an increased number of diseases in newborns.

21 Dec 2004

20 new policies adopted by American Public Health Association

The American Public Health Association recently adopted 20 policies addressing a broad range of issues in public health from underage alcohol consumption and nutrition labeling in restaurants to the supply of flu vaccinations and threats to immigrants’ health care.

21 Dec 2004

Quarter of all deaths in England and Wales in 2003 were caused by cancer

The main causes of death in 2003 were circulatory diseases (38 per cent), which include coronary heart disease and strokes, followed by cancers (26 per cent) and respiratory diseases (14 per cent), which includes pneumonia.

21 Dec 2004

The costs of caring for elderly patients hospitalized for colon surgery are not reduced by Medicare HMOs

The costs of caring for elderly Florida patients hospitalized for colon surgery are not reduced by Medicare HMOs, report University of South Florida researchers in the December issue of the Archives of Surgery.

21 Dec 2004

Health impact of resolving racial disparities

Lives saved by reducing the mortality rate of African-Americans to the rate of whites are five times those that could be saved by improvements in medical technology. So said the authors of "The Health Impact of Resolving Racial Disparities: An Analysis of US Mortality Data," published in the December edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

20 Dec 2004