Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

AAPA honors Portsmouth physician assistant with Humanitarian PA of the Year Award

When Jack Gardner, PA-C, of Portsmouth, N.H., left a successful business career 12 years ago to become a physician assistant, he did not anticipate the number of lives he would touch as he pursued his dream to provide medical care to those in need.

22 May 2012

CTCA wins 2012 HealthGrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award

Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) at Midwestern Regional Medical Center (Midwestern) proudly announced today that it has received the 2012 HealthGrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award -- one of only four recipients in all of Chicagoland, one of 13 in Illinois, and one of 332 nationwide to receive the prestigious award. This is the third consecutive year that CTCA at Midwestern has been recognized with the honor.

22 May 2012

AAPA honors Touro University founder with PA Service to the Underserved Award

Three years ago, Vicki Chan-Padgett, PA-C, of Las Vegas, Nev., stumbled upon a troubling reality within the city's healthcare sector. Thousands of women and their children who were homeless or survivors of domestic abuse could not afford much-needed healthcare. Inspired to take action, Chan-Padgett opened a first-of-its-kind clinic to provide free, high-quality healthcare to Las Vegas women and children who need it most.

22 May 2012

Bayer’s Nexavar Phase 3 trial on NSCLC does not meet primary endpoint

Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals and Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that a Phase 3 trial evaluating Nexavar (sorafenib) tablets in patients with advanced relapsed or refractory non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease progressed after two or three previous treatments, did not meet its primary endpoint of improving overall survival.

22 May 2012

USPSTF issues final recommendation statement against PSA testing

The Prostate Cancer Roundtable expressed deep disappointment today as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued its final recommendation statement against the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing in the detection of prostate cancer.

22 May 2012

Socioeconomic factors associated with skin cancer screening

When it comes to getting screened for skin cancer, only one in 14 U.S. Hispanic adults is shown to have ever gone through the process, compared to one in four non-Hispanic white adults. Research from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) shows socioeconomic factors such as lack of health insurance and poorer access to healthcare serve as barriers for Hispanics who might otherwise receive this potentially lifesaving check-up.

22 May 2012

Airway inflammation linked with asthma-related mortality rates in older adults

Higher mortality rates among older adult asthma patients compared to their younger counterparts may be due, at least in part, to an increase in airway inflammation, according to a study conducted by researchers in Canada, who note that their results imply that elderly patients are either less likely to follow asthma medication dosing instructions, or that the underlying airway inflammation in elderly patients is relatively resistant to current anti-inflammatory therapies.

22 May 2012

Noninvasive test can reduce feeding-related complications among premature infants

Tufts Medical Center researchers have shown that presence of a gene strongly linked to appetite regulation is highly predictive of a premature infant's readiness to feed orally. An analysis of just a drop of an infant's saliva could be the key to preventing many feeding problems and the expensive medical complications that can occur when infants are fed by mouth too early.

22 May 2012

Intermountain signs collaborative research agreement with Myriad

Intermountain Healthcare and Myriad Genetics today announced they have signed a collaborative research agreement. The purpose of this agreement is to perform research and validation studies on transformative molecular diagnostic tests being developed by Myriad in an effort to improve the care and treatments for patients at Intermountain and around the world.

22 May 2012

CSA Medical unveils new truFreeze Spray Cryotherapy System

CSA Medical, Inc. unveiled the new truFreeze Spray Cryotherapy System this week at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2012 Annual Meeting in San Diego.

21 May 2012

Nighttime intensivists not associated with reduced mortality

Nighttime intensivist physician staffing in intensive care units (ICUs) with a low-intensity daytime staffing model is associated with reduced mortality, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference in San Francisco.

21 May 2012

Medicare expenditures, quality rating system grab headlines

Kaiser Health News looks at criticisms of the government's program for rewarding higher-quality Medicare Advantage plans, while Modern Healthcare reports on a memo from the Medicare actuary that projects expenditures in the federal healthcare program.

21 May 2012

New trial on home oxygen therapy for patients with chronic heart failure

Researchers at the University of Hull, in the UK, have just launched a major new trial investigating the effects of home oxygen therapy in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF).

21 May 2012

Some states taking federal funds are still hesitant about building health exchanges

Health and Human Services officials dispatched $181 million in grants to six states this week to help establish health insurance exchanges. But some state officials who are about to receive checks aren't rushing to create the new marketplaces.

21 May 2012

Two health care nonprofit co-ops receive health law loans

These two co-ops, located in Nevada and Michigan, received a total of $135 million in loans from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

21 May 2012

Government Information Strategy contains improvements for patients, though care will be needed to ensure records remain secure, says BMA

The launch of the government’s Information Strategy for health and social care contains positive improvements which should benefit patients, but it would need to be carefully implemented so it didn’t jeopardise patient confidentiality, the BMA said today (Monday 21 May 2012).

21 May 2012

Biomarker neutralizes effect of bevacizumab in pancreas and kidney cancer patients

Diether Lambrechts (VIB - KU Leuven) said "in two large clinical studies with patients with advanced stages of pancreas and kidney cancer a variant in the DNA was discovered that identified patients who did not respond well to the prescribed course of bevacizumab.

21 May 2012

AAPA honors Connecticut physician assistant with Outstanding PA of the Year Award

Since the early days of her career as a physician assistant in family practice, Cynthia Lord, MHS, PA-C, of Cheshire, Conn. has been driven by her passion for serving patients with the greatest need for care. Now, in her position as clinical associate professor at Quinnipiac University's PA program, Lord transfers her empathy for patients and her love of serving others in need to the next generation of PAs.

21 May 2012

NHS needs to do more to create a research culture: Survey

Survey published to coincide with International Clinical Trials Day shows NHS needs to do more to create a research culture.

21 May 2012

The Patient Status Engine™ – Industry’s First Cloud-Based Wireless Sensor Vigilance System for Real-time and Predictive Patient Status – Introduced by Isansys

Isansys Lifecare Limited, the provider of complete real-time physiological patient data services and systems, today announces the introduction of its Patient Status Engine™ – the first cloud-based patient digitization and analytic solution for monitoring and predicting the present and future clinical status of patients anytime, anywhere. The introduction of the Patient Status Engine provides the platform for Isansys’ “Vitals as a Service™” solution, which is now offered for priority beta deployments in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

From Isansys Lifecare Ltd. 21 May 2012