Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

Premier healthcare alliance awards new agreement for specialty distribution-research

The Premier healthcare alliance today announced a new agreement for specialty distribution-research has been awarded to VWR International, LLC, a global laboratory supply and distribution company with worldwide sales in excess of $3.6 billion in 2010.

5 Dec 2011

Factors associated with increased risk of in-hospital falls after total hip or knee replacement surgery

Investigators from Hospital for Special Surgery have identified factors that are associated with an increased risk of in-hospital falls after total hip or knee replacement surgery.

5 Dec 2011

Medicare 'doc fix' on Congress' to-do list

News outlets report on Congress' pivotal week ahead, which could include an extension of the payroll tax break and a patch to prevent a scheduled cut in Medicare physician payments.

5 Dec 2011

Spacelabs Healthcare ranked top for Holter Monitoring solutions

According to MD Buyline's third quarter 2011 report, Spacelabs Healthcare is ranked #1 in overall customer satisfaction - having earned the industry's highest rating in all categories, including product performance, reliability, installation, implementation and applications training, as well as service response time and service repair quality - as related to Holter Monitoring solutions.

5 Dec 2011

gloStream to integrate DiagnosisOne's smartConsult CDS solution into CCHIT-certified EMR offering

DiagnosisOne, the clinical decision support and analytics company, today announced that gloStream has selected DiagnosisOne to provide clinical decision support (CDS) for its electronic medical record (EMR) solutions.

5 Dec 2011

Most healthcare workers do not believe that syringe needlestick injuries have been eliminated

MedPro Safety Products, Inc., a leading developer of transformational technologies that enable safer medication delivery and blood collection, surveyed 262 healthcare professionals at the APIC 2011 Annual Educational Conference held in June 2011.

5 Dec 2011

InfraReDx receives $10M senior secured multi-draw term loan from GE Capital

GE Capital, Healthcare Financial Services announced today that it was the sole lender on a $10 million senior secured multi-draw term loan to InfraReDx, Inc., a medical device company committed to advancing the diagnosis and management of coronary artery and other vascular diseases. The financing will be used to help support product commercialization efforts.

5 Dec 2011

Beyond Lucid Technologies launches MediView software platform

Beyond Lucid Technologies, Inc., a healthcare IT startup serving the emergency medical, disaster management, and First Response industries, today announced the launch of its MediView software platform at the mHealth Summit, and the publication of a first-of-its-kind white paper surveying technologies currently available to connect ambulances with hospitals via telemedicine.

5 Dec 2011

Toshiba adds two new enhancements to RADREX-i DR X-ray system

Improving patient care by enabling clinicians to better manage radiation dose for X-ray procedures, Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. has added two new enhancements to the RADREX-i digital radiographic (DR) X-ray system - DICOM Radiation Dose Structured Reporting and Reject Analysis software.

5 Dec 2011

Acadia prices 8.3 million public offering

Acadia Healthcare Company, Inc. today announced a public offering of 8,333,333 shares of its common stock, pursuant to a registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

5 Dec 2011

Berwick's exit interview with NY Times: 'I came with an agenda' for improvement

The official in charge of Medicare and Medicaid for the last 17 months says that 20 percent to 30 percent of health spending is "waste" that yields no benefit to patients, and that some of the needless spending is a result of onerous, archaic regulations enforced by his agency. The official, Dr. Donald M. Berwick, listed five reasons for what he described as the "extremely high level of waste." They are overtreatment of patients, the failure to coordinate care, the administrative complexity of the health care system, burdensome rules and fraud.

5 Dec 2011

Senate Republicans reject payroll tax extension measures

Proposals to extend payroll tax relief, as well as take steps to prevent a scheduled 30 percent reduction in Medicare physician reimbursements from taking effect in January, are high on the congressional to-do list. A House vote on a doc-fix patch could take place as soon as next week.

3 Dec 2011

Viewpoints: Is Berwick a scapegoat?; Rep. Smith on Kagan; Daschle on health IT

Don Berwick, the prominent pediatrician and Harvard School of Public Health professor who headed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has officially stepped down, another victim of Washington's hyper-partisan politics.

3 Dec 2011

On World AIDS Day, Obama announces plan to redirect $50 million to fight AIDS

President Barack Obama told advocates, patients and other stakeholders that his administration will do more to get antiretroviral drugs to people infected with HIV - in the United States and in low-income countries around the world.

3 Dec 2011

GOP develops strategies to focus on health law in upcoming election season

The 2012 election year will see a sustained Republican push to repeal the health care reform law in bits and pieces, members of both parties say. The new House majority's first major legislative effort back in January was a highly publicized party-line vote to repeal the whole law, a bill that, predictably, foundered in the Senate.

3 Dec 2011

IOM essential benefits recommendations draw criticism

A letter sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from more than 2,400 health care providers and advocates offered objections to the Institute of Medicine's recommendations regarding what benefits must be covered in state health insurance marketplaces. Additionally, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, offered a warning regarding an Internal Revenue Service proposal on premium assistance in the health law's insurance exchanges.

3 Dec 2011

Better medical care for kidney failure in Germany

In complex cases of kidney failure, medical care in Germany evidently operates better than in the US. Scientists at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin were able to show that German patients who have an increased risk of rejection reactions due to prior immunization have better survival rates than people with diseases of similar severity in the US.

3 Dec 2011

Obama announces new U.S. commitments to end AIDS domestically, globally

Speaking at the ONE campaign and (RED)'s "Beginning of the End of AIDS" event at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to mark World AIDS Day on Thursday, "President Obama ... announced a deepened U.S. commitment to fighting the pandemic, declaring 'make no mistake, we are going to win this fight,'" ABC News reports (Bruce, 12/1).

3 Dec 2011

HHS unveils MLR rule

The Department of Health and Human Services today released its final medical loss ratio rule. According to an HHS press release, the rule will ensure that health insurance companies spend at least 80 percent of consumers' health insurance premiums on medical care rather than on income, overhead and marketing expenses.

3 Dec 2011

Berwick's CMS exit

Today is Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald Berwick's last day. News outlets offer views on the agency's work during his tenure at its helm.

3 Dec 2011