Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

First Edition: October 19, 2011

Now on Kaiser Health News' blog, Capsules, Marilyn Werber Serafini reports: "Medicare might fare better than other health care programs if the congressional super committee fails to agree on a deficit-reduction package and automatic cuts kick in, but even 2 percent is a big problem when it comes on top of other recent hits, warn Rick Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association, and Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans."

19 Oct 2011

CDC: Visits to emergency rooms on the rise

Visits to hospital emergency departments increased to an all-time high of 136 million in 2009, according to new estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

19 Oct 2011

Republicans looking ahead with plans to dismantle health law

GOP activists, who increasingly consider both the Senate and White House to be within reach, are developing multi-pronged strategies to roll-back the health law beginning in 2013.

19 Oct 2011

Women more likely to develop lupus at earlier ages

Debilitating. Destructive. Life-altering. These are just a few words used to describe autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases affect women 8 times more often than men, with lupus being one of the most disruptive. Lupus is a disease that occurs when a person's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs instead of attacking foreign invaders such as common viruses and bacteria. Lupus often results in wide-spread inflammation, pain, swelling and organ/tissue damage throughout the body.

19 Oct 2011

Scott & White to create internships for doctoral psychology students

Scott & White Healthcare in Temple is one of three sites chosen for a $1.6 million initiative to create internships for doctoral psychology students that will help alleviate mental health workforce shortages in Texas.

19 Oct 2011

Donors need to look beyond emergency funding to long-term, strategic solutions

"Americans are among the most generous people in the world, giving more money to charities than citizens of any other nation in the world," but "much of our charity goes to disaster relief," entrepreneur and philanthropist Sheila Johnson writes in an opinion piece in the Huffington Post's "Black Voices."

19 Oct 2011

Confusion reigns after Obama administration suspends CLASS program

Even though the White House signaled that the long-term insurance program will not be implemented, President Barack Obama made clear yesterday that he is opposed to the measure's repeal. Meanwhile, the decision to suspend the plan from going forward has left many experts to ask what's next in the effort to address the nation's long-term care issues.

19 Oct 2011

Roundup: Mass. contemplates 'global payments'; rural hospitals struggling; Oregon liability cost studied

Although important details remain to be negotiated, the legislative leaders and Gov. Deval Patrick, all Democrats, are working toward a plan that would encourage flat "global payments" to networks of providers for keeping patients well, replacing the fee-for-service system that creates incentives for excessive care by paying for each visit and procedure.

19 Oct 2011

RTS,S vaccine reduces risk of severe malaria in African children

First results from a large-scale Phase III trial of RTS,S, published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), show the malaria vaccine candidate to provide young African children with significant protection against clinical and severe malaria with an acceptable safety and tolerability profile.

19 Oct 2011

First results from phase 3 malaria vaccine candidate trial

18 Oct 2011

With clock ticking, super committee weighs suggestions, battles doubts

Last week the deficit-reduction panel received a slew of recommendations from across Capitol Hill on how to tame the nation's deficit problems. The input evidenced partisan differences and intra-party fissures. All the while, questions persist about the committee's ability to actually reach a deal.

18 Oct 2011

Commercialization strategies for next-generation medicines

The Center for Biotechnology at Stony Brook University, in collaboration with Demy-Colton Life Science Advisors, and key opinion leaders from the biotech and biopharmaceutical industries, academia, medical research foundations, and investment community, has organized a two-day event to forge partnerships to accelerate the development of new treatments for some of the world's most devastating diseases affecting millions.

18 Oct 2011

Johnson & Johnson third quarter sales increase 6.8% to $16.0 billion

Johnson & Johnson today announced sales of $16.0 billion for the third quarter of 2011, an increase of 6.8% as compared to the third quarter of 2010. Operational results increased 2.6% and the positive impact of currency was 4.2%. Domestic sales declined 3.7%.

18 Oct 2011

New Regenstrief initiative to encourage and propel innovation

Integrating some of the best new practices of industry into the strengths of the academic research process, the Regenstrief Institute is launching an initiative to encourage and propel innovation. The Institute has over 40 years of experience as an international leader in improving healthcare delivery.

18 Oct 2011

Stochastic frontier estimation can identify problem of bias in self-reporting

Most people are rather vague when reporting on food and drink consumption, smoking and exercise habits. General practitioners, however, are skilled at interpreting phrases such as "I only have a few drinks rarely...each week" and "I get to the gym regularly" and can estimate based on symptoms and a person's physical appearance just how precise those claims are. However, it is crucial for healthcare research and epidemiology that relies on patient self-reporting that we find a more objective, rather than intuitive, way to identify bias in self-reporting.

18 Oct 2011

Takeda commences TAK-875 Phase 3 clinical trial program for type 2 diabetes

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Takeda Global Research & Development Center, Inc., and Takeda Global Research & Development Centre (Europe), Ltd., announced today the initiation of the Company's Phase 3 clinical trial program for TAK-875, an investigational therapy for type 2 diabetes.

18 Oct 2011

AHRQ: Asthma drug usage among children doubles

The proportion of children who used a prescribed controller drug to treat their asthma doubled from 29 percent in 1997-1998 to 58 percent in 2007-2008, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

18 Oct 2011

vRad announces premier radiology partnership with ICON

Virtual Radiologic (vRad), a technology-enabled national radiology practice, has announced a premier radiology partnership with ICON Medical Imaging (ICON), the medical imaging division of ICON plc.

18 Oct 2011

Viewpoints: Class Act's effect on health law; new prescriptions for Medicare; food marketing to kids

Now that one of ObamaCare's major new benefit programs has been scrapped, liberals are trying to make stone soup by claiming that the Obama Administration merely committed an act of "good government." They claim that when this long-term care insurance program proved to be unworkable, the Administration conceded as much, and now it's gone. So let's review the evidence, not least because it so perfectly illustrates the recklessness that produced the Affordable Care Act.

18 Oct 2011

Scientists discover enzyme that acts as a 'fertility switch'

Scientists have discovered an enzyme that acts as a 'fertility switch', in a study published in Nature Medicine today. High levels of the protein are associated with infertility, while low levels make a woman more likely to have a miscarriage, the research has shown.

18 Oct 2011