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Doctors adopt new checklist to ensure patients are asleep during surgery

At a meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists in Atlanta, new standards were approved on preventing a rare but terrifying situation in which patients wake up during surgery and sometimes feel excruciating pain without being able to cry out.

27 Oct 2005

Beds closed as thousands wait for surgery in Western Australia

Many West Australians could die long before they are able to undergo surgery for painful conditions, the Australian Medical Association (WA) said last week.

26 Oct 2005

E-Health to accelerate information, education and take-up of electronic health initiatives by Australian doctors

Australian Medical Association (AMA) President, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, announced yesterday that the AMA will host an innovative high-level expert E-Health Forum in Canberra in December to accelerate information, education and take-up of electronic health initiatives by Australian doctors.

26 Oct 2005

Unique report on global long-term care worker migration

Who will provide long-term care to you or your loved ones? If you live in developed countries like the US or the UK, the answer may surprise you according to a new report issued by the AARP Public Policy Institute.

26 Oct 2005

Doctors call for urgent review of UK cancer initiative

Hospital doctors are calling for an urgent review of the UK Government’s two-week cancer wait, saying there’s no evidence that the initiative has had any impact on survival rates.

26 Oct 2005

Hope for better return for health spending in Australia

Health leaders have called for action in reforming primary health care to tackle the 'juggernaut' of chronic disease issues about to hit the health system at a meeting in Melbourne.

25 Oct 2005

New website in Ontario gives info on hospital waiting lists for surgery

In a new initiative patients in Ontario, Canada can now gain information on waiting times for key surgical procedures from a government website designed to track access to various health services.

24 Oct 2005

Situation-specific policies can reduce antibiotic resistance in hospital

The mass use of antibiotics has caused a rise of bacterial resistance to these drugs that is threatening to destroy the power of these life saving drugs.

23 Oct 2005

NHS needs an independent regulator

The NHS should have an independent regulator like other public utilities in the UK, argues a senior doctor in this week’s British Medical Journal.

20 Oct 2005

Health insurers are turning to a new approach to get doctors and hospitals to do better

In this approach, insurers offer financial rewards for better or more efficient care and sometimes create penalties for poor performance. Even though it has become commonplace, there is little evidence about its impact on care, says R. Adams Dudley, MD, MBA, a professor in the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Department of Medicine.

18 Oct 2005

Controlling antibiotic-prescribing practices in hospitals

Plenty of promising strategies exist to control antibiotic-prescribing practices, but no single method emerges as the best for hospital patients, according to a new review of studies.

18 Oct 2005

Scottish hospitals to issue 'red cards' to violent patients

Medical staff in hospitals and health clinics in Glasgow, Scotland, have been given the power to refuse to treat patients who submit them to physical or verbal attacks.

17 Oct 2005

Tool to help vulnerable people to manage their medicines

Dr Karen Rosenbloom from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Hertfordshire and Ruth Goldstein from the Midlands have won first prize in the regional Health and Social Care Awards awarded by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. Their research now goes forward to the national awards final which will take place on 13 December.

13 Oct 2005

Complementary medicine represents an additional cost to usual care with questionable clinical benefit

The cost-effectiveness of using complementary treatments in the United Kingdom has been the subject of much speculation and controversy.

13 Oct 2005

Liver services in the United Kingdom need better funding and better staffing

Mortality from liver disease is increasing in the UK. In 2000 liver disease killed more men than Parkinson's disease and more women than cancer of the cervix. Deaths from alcoholic liver disease has doubled in the past 10 years, while liver disease arising from hepatitis C infection is expected to treble by 2020.

13 Oct 2005

Hospitals alter billing and collection practices for uninsured patients

Many hospitals have adopted more generous charity-care guidelines for uninsured patients after a barrage of publicity about aggressive hospital billing and collection practices and a spate of lawsuits alleging hospitals overcharged uninsured patients, according to a study released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).

12 Oct 2005

Changes in health care services related to changes in PLI premiums

Florida physicians reportedly continued to decrease or eliminate important health services in 2004 in response to difficulties in finding or paying for professional liability insurance, according to a study in the October 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

10 Oct 2005

Britain's Naional Heath Service is being taken over by big business

Britain's Naional Heath Service is being taken over by big business so that money that could go towards clinical care is diverted to corporations and their shareholders, warn two senior doctors in this week's British Medical Journal.

9 Oct 2005

Recent shelving of a flagship PFI venture in West London may herald the end for the PFI healthcare experiment in the UK

Government enthusiasm for the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the health service - private sector investment in hospital building projects - may be dropping because of its high cost, says an editorial in this week's British Medical Journal.

9 Oct 2005

Day surgery rates continue to rise - still room for improvement

New figures published by Dr Foster in the British Medical Journal show that day surgery rates continue to rise, yet there is still considerable scope for improvement. These findings support a recent Healthcare Commission report showing that day surgery units are not being used to their maximum capacity.

9 Oct 2005