Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

Sebelius: Exchanges will strengthen employer health coverage

The health and human services secretary told Senate Finance Committee members she expects health insurance exchanges to give employers another option to provide coverage to workers. In the meantime, HHS is touting newly covered preventive services it says 86 million Americans have used.

17 Feb 2012

People experience eating problems and risk of malnutrition three months after stroke

People who suffered a stroke continued to experience eating problems and more than half still risked malnutrition after three months, even though there had been a marked improvement in most of their physical functions.

17 Feb 2012

State roundup: Settlements for mental health facilities lawsuits; Minn., Oregon insurers face scrutiny

But the survey underway in Prince George's County is intended to address a complex problem. Officials expect the data to give them a detailed look at the state of health and health care in the county, where conditions such as diabetes and heart disease are much more common than in the rest of the region and most of the state.

17 Feb 2012

Unique board game to help bridge gaps between various health disciplines

A unique board game developed by a group of medical students at Western University will help bridge gaps between various health disciplines to better educate students about their roles in interdisciplinary health teams.

17 Feb 2012

Female dog owners more physically active during pregnancy

Collaborative research from the WALTHAM- Centre for Pet Nutrition and the University of Liverpool has shown that pregnant women who own dogs are more physically active than those who don't.

17 Feb 2012

Brandeis professor investigates wallpaper-like liner technology for tackling malaria

Can an innovative wallpaper-like liner help reduce the number of cases of malaria, and if so, will it be cost effective? Donald S. Shepard, a professor at the Schneider Institutes for Health Policy at the Heller School wants to know. And he has gotten the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help. A grant, totaling nearly $500,000 over the next three years, will allow Shepard and collaborators to pursue their research in Kenya and Tanzania.

17 Feb 2012

First Edition: February 16,2012

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations include the latest reports on congressional efforts to block a cut in Medicare payments to doctors.

16 Feb 2012

AHF dismayed at FDA decision to expedite review for expanded use of Gilead's AIDS drug, Truvada

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation's largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit medical provider, today expressed its disappointment and dismay at the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to grant an expedited review for Gilead Sciences' application for expanded use of its blockbuster AIDS drug, Truvada, as a means of preventing HIV infection in non-infected people.

16 Feb 2012

Study investigates the whole process of stroke emergency treatment

Researchers from the University of Exeter, Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD), are working with clinicians from the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) and the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (RD&E) to reduce the time it takes from the start of a stroke to the administration of vital clot-busting drug treatment.

16 Feb 2012

Debate over Medicare, health law already playing out in 2012 races

Nearly all the candidates for president are weighing in on how to make Medicare fiscally sustainable, while Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says the health law will factor into which candidate he endorses.

16 Feb 2012

Obama praises congressional deal on doctor pay, payroll taxes

President Obama is praising an emerging congressional deal to extend the 2% payroll tax cut through 2012, and said he wants to sign it into law as soon as possible. "For starters, I'm glad to see that Congress seems to be on the way to making progress on extending the payroll tax cut so that taxes don't go up on you and 160 million working Americans," Obama told employees of the Master Lock company in Milwaukee today.

16 Feb 2012

Report looks at autoworker health care for spending variation clues

A new report looks at autoworker health care claims to find clues as to why spending varies by region and finds that hospital price variation made up one-third of the difference.

16 Feb 2012

Conservatives' mixed message on health care mandate

The New York Times explores the history of the individual mandate. In other health law articles, a Gallup poll finds small business owners worried about the costs they will incur and some doctors in favor of a single payer health system file a brief with the Supreme Court opposing the federal law.

16 Feb 2012

Hospitals would have to voluntarily return overpayments under new proposal

Even as officials announced record recoveries of fraudulent Medicare claims, they proposed new rules to force providers to voluntarily return overpayments within 60 days of discovering them. The proposal is intended to cut down on the need for criminal or civil investigations.

16 Feb 2012

Tentative deal reached to prevent physician pay cuts, preserve payroll tax cut

One day after House Republican leaders made a major concession on the payroll tax cut, congressional negotiators struck a tentative deal that also would extend long-term unemployment benefits and prevent drastic reductions in doctors' Medicare payments.

16 Feb 2012

CMS signals it may delay deadline on new codes to be used by doctors, hospitals

Acting Director Marilyn Tavenner says the agency will re-examine the October 2013 deadline for the coding system, known as ICD-10. It expands the number of codes used for billing medical services.

16 Feb 2012

CDC report: Suicide rate increases 2.4% in the U.S. between 2008 and 2009

The CDC report showed that between 2008 and 2009, the suicide rate increased 2.4 percent, with 36,909 suicide deaths reported nationally.

16 Feb 2012

Hospital news: Colorado hospital settles suit with Indian tribe; In Dallas, 'problems persist' at Parkland

Two years ago, a Cortez hospital turned away a Ute Mountain Ute woman who was seeking treatment because she allegedly had been raped. ... The settlement inked this week between the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Southwest Health Systems Inc., the company which operates Southwest Memorial Hospital, establishes new policies to ensure tribal members who come off reservations for medical treatment aren't discriminated against.

16 Feb 2012

Wolters Kluwer Health enters distribution agreement with NEJM

Wolters Kluwer Health today announced it has entered into an expanded distribution agreement with the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the "gold standard" for quality biomedical research and for the best practices in clinical medicine.

16 Feb 2012

CompuGroup Medical releases LabNexus system

CompuGroup Medical US, developer of the market-leading LabDAQ Laboratory Information System (LIS), is proud to announce the release of LabNexus, a new software solution to assist hospital and reference labs with their outreach programs. LabNexus allows laboratories to send orders and review results, all within a completely cloud-based system.

16 Feb 2012