Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

HRSA's Wakefield talks about ACOs and community health centers

Joining me today is Dr. Mary Wakefield, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). An agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, HRSA is committed to improving access to healthcare services for some of our nation's most vulnerable citizens.

12 Jan 2012

States file briefs against health law's Medicaid expansion

In a brief filed Tuesday, the 26 states that are involved in a challenge to the health law argued the measure's Medicaid expansion is "unconstitutional coercion" and linked it to the individual mandate.

12 Jan 2012

Raising Medicare's eligibility age would save money, but also shift costs

A new Congressional Budget Office estimate found the federal government could save $148 billion over 10 years by gradually increasing the Medicare age to 67.

12 Jan 2012

Geisinger announces it will not hire smokers

Also in hospital news, a Denver Hospital will pay $6.3 Million to settle overbilling allegations and officials at the University of Louisville Hospital look to Kentucky's governor for a financial plan.

12 Jan 2012

APHON receives prestigious Gold Award in Association TRENDS' 2011 All-Media Contest

APHON has been honored with a Gold in Educational Program in Association TRENDS' 2011 All-Media Contest. It was one of more than 450 entries in the association publications contest.

12 Jan 2012

Health Fidelity, Columbia University enter license agreement to commercialize MedLEE NLP

Columbia University and Health Fidelity, Inc. announced today that they have entered into a license agreement for commercialization of Columbia's MedLEE Natural Language Processing technology.

12 Jan 2012

Arena agrees to sell 9,953,250 shares of common stock

Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that it has agreed to sell 9,953,250 shares of its common stock, at a price of $1.65775 per share, and approximately 9,953 shares of its Series D Convertible Preferred Stock, at a price of $1,657.75 per share, in a registered direct public offering to entities affiliated with Deerfield Management, a healthcare investment organization.

11 Jan 2012

Regular aspirin may not be good for all: Study

Researchers suggest that healthy individuals who take aspirin to prevent a heart attack or stroke could be doing more harm than good. An analysis of more than 100,000 patients, published in Archives of Internal Medicine, concluded the risk of internal bleeding was too high. The UK-led study said only people with a history of heart problems or stroke should take the tablets. Experts however added that any decision should be made with a doctor.

11 Jan 2012

DNA decoder – cheaper and faster

Life Technologies Corp. – a biotechnology company announced Tuesday that it has developed a machine to decode an individual's DNA in a day for just $1,000. The company said it was taking orders for the technology, which it expects to deliver in about a year. The Carlsbad, California, company said three major research institutions had already signed up for the $149,000 machine: the Baylor College of Medicine, the Yale School of Medicine and the Broad Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

11 Jan 2012

Study finds home-visit program could keep diabetes patients out of the hospital

A special Medicare program that stresses home health visits for patients with chronic diseases helped keep diabetes patients out of the hospital and may have lowered costs using time-honored prevention methods, researchers reported on Monday.

11 Jan 2012

Questions continue about the health law's future

CQ HealthBeat reports on the courses available for the law's implementation as stakeholders await the Supreme Court's rulings. Politico Pro reports that the recent denials by the Department of Health and Human Services regarding state medical-loss ratio adjustment requests is very different than earlier experiences.

11 Jan 2012

OMB Chief Jack Lew tapped as new White House chief of staff

Jack Lew will replace Bill Daley in the post later this month after work is completed on the 2013 budget. Democrats and progressives are cheering this Obama administration pick because he has a long record of protecting entitlement programs, especially Medicaid.

11 Jan 2012

Prevalence of cirrhosis may climb among older Americans

Older patients with cirrhosis have significant functional disability, require twice the amount of informal caregiving, and contribute added strain on the health care system, according to U-M research published in Hepatology.

11 Jan 2012

Viewpoints: Renewing the call for a public option; Keep all justices on health law case

In Washington, the three major health insurers - Premera Blue Cross, Regence BlueShield and Group Health Cooperative - are sitting on a total of more than $2.4 billion above and beyond what they expect to ever pay out in claims.

11 Jan 2012

JoVE, Medicine X partner to report emerging technologies in healthcare

The Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is partnering with Stanford University's Medicine X Conference to present groundbreaking research on the intersection between healthcare and social media.

11 Jan 2012

Oramed files provisional patent application with USPTO for combination diabetes therapy

Oramed Pharmaceuticals Inc., a developer of oral drug delivery systems, announced today that it has filed a provisional patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a combination therapy of its lead compound, ORMD-0801 in combination with its oral exenatide formulation, ORMD-0901. There is no such approved combination product available on the market today.

11 Jan 2012

Roundup: States facing across-the-board cuts; Gov. opposes Kentucky hospital merger

As a result of last summer's deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, and the consequent failure of the congressional "super committee" to decide on budget cuts, states are bracing for automatic across-the-board cuts in education, social welfare and other programs for the upcoming 2013 fiscal year.

11 Jan 2012

Brief adherence programs improve diabetes test results and depression symptoms

Patients simultaneously treated for both Type 2 diabetes and depression improve medication compliance and significantly improve blood sugar and depression levels compared to patients receiving usual care, according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

11 Jan 2012

Experts recommend vitamin D supplementation for menopausal women

A group of experts has prepared a report on vitamin D supplementation for menopausal women after it was revealed that Europeans have suffered an alarming decrease in their levels of this vitamin. In their opinion, the ideal would be to maintain blood levels above 30 ng/ml. Vitamin D is essential to the immune system and processes such as calcium absorption.

11 Jan 2012

Fortis Institute initiates enrollment for new PN – RN Associate Degree Bridge Program

Fortis Institute, Nashville, a post-secondary healthcare education institution, is enrolling qualified candidates for the April start of the campus' new PN – RN Associate Degree Bridge Program. The program enables the region's licensed practical nurses (LPNs) to earn an Associate Degree in Nursing in as little as 14 months and qualify to sit for the Registered Nurse (RN) licensure exam.

11 Jan 2012