Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

First Edition: September 28, 2011

Today's headlines include reports about the costs of employer insurance plans and the final installment of KHN's "Building Ambitions" series about children's hospitals.

28 Sep 2011

XECAN's RFID Oncology Solution integrated with ThingMagic Astra UHF Reader

Trimble announced today that m, a leading provider of RFID patient safety solutions, has integrated the ThingMagic Astra UHF Reader into its RFID Oncology Solution. The XECAN solution enhances the patient experience and significantly assists in the goal of eliminating treatment errors allowing healthcare organizations to offer a safer and more inviting medical experience.

28 Sep 2011

Top medical research organisations call EU for urgent clinical trial reforms

Top medical research organisations are calling on the European Union for urgent reforms to the way clinical trials are regulated across the continent.

28 Sep 2011

Viewpoints: Lots of advice for super committee on Medicare, Medicaid

Obama partisans, you must consider at least two, possibly mixed results - a politically risky legal battle on the individual mandate in the middle of a presidential campaign, and added insurance that Obama administration lawyers will see the case through its final appeal.

28 Sep 2011

Rising health insurance costs shifted to employees, survey finds

An annual employer health benefits survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust found that premiums for employer-provided health insurance jumped in 2011. The survey also found, though, that 2.3 million young adults have gained coverage through their parents' policies as a result of the 2010 health law.

28 Sep 2011

Survey: Many physicians say patients in their own practices receive too much care

About half, though, said they were giving their patients "the right amount of care." In other news, a study from the Archives of Internal Medicine, according to Medscape, concluded that more frequent office visits by patients leads to faster diabetes control.

28 Sep 2011

Survey shows rise in unprotected sex among youth, raises concern about sex education

"The number of young people having unprotected sex in the West has risen sharply over the past two years," according to a global survey conducted by the International Planned Parenthood Federation between April and May of this year, Agence France-Presse reports.

28 Sep 2011

Parents of babies born with genital ambiguity experience shock, anxiety

Parents of babies born without clearly defined male or female genitals experience a roller-coaster of emotions, including shock, anxiety and the need to protect their child, according to a study in the October issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

28 Sep 2011

Selling the American 'health ecosystem' internationally?

A coalition of U.S. health care businesses, including Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group and Medtronic, proposes to rebuild America's battered economy by selling the country's "health ecosystem" internationally.

From Medtronic 28 Sep 2011

New report explores early centre-based childcare

What type of childcare arrangements do parents choose before their children are 18 months old? Does the choice of childcare affect children's language skills and mental health at the age of five? These are some of the questions that are explored in a new report prepared by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health as part of a collaborative project with the Ministry of Education and Research. The report indicates that there is no evidence that early centre-based childcare is harmful for most children.

28 Sep 2011

Medical education must put greater emphasis on public health and prevention

If future physicians are to best serve the changing health needs of patients and their communities, medical education must put greater emphasis on public health and prevention, experts say in a supplement to October's American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

28 Sep 2011

Dialog Devices receives CE mark and ISO certification for Padd

A ground-breaking device which "sees" beneath the skin to spot circulation problems has passed an important milestone on its journey to commercialisation.

28 Sep 2011

Stimulant prescription use for ADHD has increased steadily from 1996-2008

The prescribed use of stimulant medications to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) rose slowly but steadily from 1996 to 2008, according to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The study was published online ahead of print September 28, 2011, in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

28 Sep 2011

Justice Department does not seek full appeals court review clearing path for high court to decide health law's constitutionality next summer

The Obama administration announced Monday that it won't press for an en banc appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Such an action would have delayed the legal process and likely pushed back the timing of a final Supreme Court decision until at least 2013.

28 Sep 2011

DMARDs appear to be more effective for children with arthritis

Medications known as disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, or DMARDs, appear to be more effective than other treatments for children with arthritis, but there is not enough evidence to support one kind of DMARD over another, according to a new report from HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

28 Sep 2011

Highly prevalent urinary and bladder symptoms will increase further

Nearly half of all adults over 20 will experience at least one lower urinary tract symptom by 2018 - an estimated 2.3 billion people and a worldwide increase of 18% in just one decade - according to research in the October issue of the urology journal BJUI.

28 Sep 2011

Healthcare becoming an overdrive model feel half of the primary physicians

In a new poll of primary care physicians, nearly half of them said their patients received too much medical care and more than a quarter said they were practicing more aggressively than they'd like to. This could mean ordering more tests, prescribing more drugs or diagnosing people with diseases, although they would never have experienced any symptoms. On the other hand, just six percent of doctors believed their patients were getting too little care.

27 Sep 2011

Insurers, patients wrestle with payment, care issues and strategies

News outlets report on a variety of issues reflecting the insurance hassles patients sometimes face and the efforts by insurance companies to find profits in better-coordinated care.

27 Sep 2011

Subtle and unspoken clues exchanged by patients, doctors exert an influence on medical care

Subtle and unspoken clues exchanged by patients and doctors exert an influence on medical care, according to a new study by the University of Michigan Health System. Researchers analyzed video recordings of routine checkups and conducted follow-up interviews with participants to help elucidate signals sent and received on both sides of the examination table.

27 Sep 2011

Patients with chronic conditions likely to change their preferences for CPR

Patients with chronic conditions are likely to change their preferences for receiving emergency procedures in the event of cardiac arrest, according to new findings.

27 Sep 2011