Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

Overweight women not receiving proper advice on healthy weight gains during pregnancy

Overweight women are not receiving proper advice on healthy weight gains or appropriate exercise levels during their pregnancies, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

11 Dec 2012

Study examines 3 main relative contributors to pedestrian death

Worldwide, more than 1.2 million traffic fatalities occur yearly, and the lives of pedestrians account for a third of those lost. In the United States, pedestrians make up 12 percent of deaths from traffic collisions. According to a newly published study, male pedestrians struck by vehicles are more than twice as likely to die as their female counterparts.

11 Dec 2012

New taxes, Medicaid expansion requests and health insurance portability make health law news

News outlets examines a host of health law issues including new taxes on the rich -- set to soon take effect -- meant to pay for parts of the health law, governors' latest requests on expanding Medicaid, health insurance portability for older workers and dealing with chronic care.

11 Dec 2012

Throat swabs should be included in S. aureus screening programs

Performing throat swabs, in addition to nasal swabs, in Staphylococcus aureus screening programs may improve rates of detection, suggest study findings.

10 Dec 2012

SAS and Optum team up to improve healthcare fraud, waste and abuse services

Optum, an industry leader in health care payment integrity services, is working with SAS to further enhance its comprehensive health care anti-fraud, waste and abuse services. This enhanced solution combines detection, investigation, prevention, case development and recovery services to provide commercial health plans with a flexible approach to ensuring proper payments to care providers.

10 Dec 2012

New executive education healthcare program from Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School (HBS) announces Emerging Issues in Healthcare, a new executive education program taking place March 3-5, 2013 on the HBS campus. This unique program will examine forces that are shaping the future of healthcare and how leaders can prepare their organizations for inevitable changes in the industry.

10 Dec 2012

GAO takes hard look at anti-fraud effort inefficiencies in Medicare, Medicaid

The Medicaid program has government employees and contractors doing some of the exact same work, which is wasting government time and money, according to a new Government Accountability Office report to be released on Monday.

10 Dec 2012

Roundup: Texas Medicaid funding fight looms; Minn. facing federal Medicaid scrutiny; health care jobs 'boom'

If the Texas Legislature is in session, there must be a fight about Medicaid going on. The health care program for the disabled, the elderly poor and the impoverished raises hackles every two years, mostly because the number in need keeps rising alongside health care costs.

10 Dec 2012

JPND invites proposals from researchers to understand the underlying causes of neurodegenerative diseases

The EU Joint Programme - Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND) is inviting calls for proposals from research teams across Europe to increase understanding of the factors that put people at risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases (ND) such as Alzheimer's and also to evaluate health and social care strategies for people living with these debilitating illnesses.

10 Dec 2012

Bay Bridge Capital Partners acquires Plum Healthcare Group

GI Partners ("GI"), a leading mid-market private equity firm, announced today the sale of its portfolio company, Plum Healthcare Group, LLC ("Plum"), one of the fastest growing companies in healthcare services, to Bay Bridge Capital Partners ("Bay Bridge"). The sale of Plum generated a return of approximately three times invested capital for limited partners in GI Partners Fund II L.P.

10 Dec 2012

CareView Communications and IASIS Healthcare sign multi-hospital agreement

CareView Communications, Inc., an information technology provider to the healthcare industry, today announced the signing of a multi-hospital agreement with IASIS Healthcare, a leading owner and operator of acute care hospitals in urban and suburban markets ("IASIS").

10 Dec 2012

Bicycle Therapeutics secures £3.75 million equity financing for drug discovery

Bicycle Therapeutics, a next generation biotherapeutics company co-founded by Sir Gregory Winter and Professor Christian Heinis, today announced that it had secured a tranched equity financing of £3.75 million to invest in selection of drug candidates using its bicyclic peptide technology platform.

10 Dec 2012

Apollo launches telemedicine service in Yangon

The Apollo Group of Hospitals, one of Asia's largest healthcare providerm, formally announced the launch of its telemedicine service in Yangon on 4th December 2012.

10 Dec 2012

Genzyme receives EC approval for Thyrogen product label expansion

Genzyme, a Sanofi company, today announced it has received European Commission approval of a product label expansion for the use of Thyrogen (thyrotropin alfa) with a wider irradiation dose range for postoperative thyroid remnant ablation.

10 Dec 2012

Researchers track emergence and global spread of healthcare-associated C. difficile

Researchers show that the global epidemic of Clostridium difficile 027/NAP1/BI in the early to mid-2000s was caused by the spread of two different but highly related strains of the bacterium rather than one as was previously thought. The spread and persistence of both epidemics were driven by the acquisition of resistance to a frontline antibiotic.

10 Dec 2012

American Journal of Psychiatry publishes results from Successful Aging Evaluation study

Presently, there are about 40 million Americans over the age of 65, with the fastest-growing segment of the population over 80 years old. Traditionally, aging has been viewed as a period of progressive decline in physical, cognitive and psychosocial functioning, and aging is viewed by many as the "number one public health problem" facing Americans today.

9 Dec 2012

GOP Sen. Corker says party should accept tax hikes to get spending cuts

As pressure builds for a "fiscal cliff" deal, several key players talked about strategy on the Sunday morning news shows. Meanwhile, Politico reports that Republicans' hope of a big victory on cutting entitlement spending has dimmed while The Hill looks at Democrats' new willingness to consider means testing for Medicare.

9 Dec 2012

International community should 'not forget' importance of treatment, care for children with HIV

The "progress and momentum" behind stopping mother-to-child HIV transmission is "reason to celebrate," Charles Lyons, president and CEO of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and Peter Twyman, CEO of Keep a Child Alive, write in The Hill's "Congress Blog."

8 Dec 2012

Baby boomers with liver cancer drive demand for liver transplantation

New research reveals that the greatest demand for liver transplantation due to hepatitis C (HCV)-related liver disease occurs among Americans born between 1941 and 1960. Findings in the December issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), suggest that continuing increased demand for transplantation is driven by the development of liver cancer in baby boomers with HCV, but that the demand may decrease as patients born in this time period continue to grow older.

7 Dec 2012

Roundup: Ga. 'provider fee' defeat could mean $430M less for Medicaid; Minn. health programs in line for $37M cut over fiscal cliff; Calif. stem cell board criticized

Just weeks before the 2013 General Assembly convenes, the state's provider fee, called a "bed tax" by some, remains a high-profile wild card -- one that could deal Georgia's hospital industry a crippling blow. If the fee is not renewed -- and anti-tax forces will oppose it -- the Medicaid system may lose $430 million-plus that the assessment now generates. That loss would swell the state's Medicaid financial shortfall, which is already about $400 million (Miller, 12/6).

7 Dec 2012