Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

Kaiser Permanente workers to join NUHW

The National Labor Relations Board has scheduled a government-protected mail ballot election beginning Sept. 13 for nearly 44,000 Kaiser Permanente workers to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers and kick out the incumbent union SEIU.

31 Jul 2010

Perrigo files ANDA for butoconazole nitrate vaginal cream

Perrigo Company announced that it has filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration an Abbreviated New Drug Application for butoconazole nitrate vaginal cream, 2% and that is has notified KV Pharmaceutical Company, the owner of the New Drug Application as well as FemmePharma, the listed owner of the patent, of its ANDA filing. KV is a licensee under the patent. Perrigo believes it is first-to-file on this product.

31 Jul 2010

Oil spill inflicts widespread psychological distress among coastal residents: Survey

The oil spill ravaging the Gulf of Mexico has inflicted widespread psychological distress among coastal residents of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, etching scars even deeper than those whipped by Hurricane Katrina, according to a survey by Ochsner Health System, a nonprofit, academic healthcare delivery system.

31 Jul 2010

Healthcare workers in Northern California prefer to stay with SEIU-UHW

This week, healthcare workers in two nursing homes and two hospitals in Northern California all chose to stay with their current union, the Service Employees International Union -United Healthcare Workers, West.

31 Jul 2010

HHS anounces availability of $1M in grants per state and calls for public input on health insurance Exchanges

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced two key steps in the process of partnering with states and other stakeholders to begin establishing health insurance Exchanges. HHS announced the availability of up to $1 million in grants per state to help states begin work to establish Exchanges and published a request for comment calling for public input as HHS develops standards for the Exchanges.

31 Jul 2010

Department of Health launches “Immunizations across the Lifespan” campaign

Secretary of Health Everette James today urged all Pennsylvanians to ensure they are fully immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases, noting that August is National Immunization Awareness Month.

31 Jul 2010

New white paper shows how hospitals can get a "quick win" on their EMR initiatives

Now that the CMS has released its final rule on the "meaningful use" criteria for Electronic Medical Record systems, what should hospitals do next? According to William Bria, president of the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems, "We need to start to focus not on the most exotic examples of information sharing, but on the more simplistic ones."

31 Jul 2010

Football, cheerleading-related head and neck injury prevention tips from AANS

With kids going back to school soon and football practice already underway in many communities, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) is issuing an injury prevention message about football and cheerleading. "We decided to focus on this topic for Neurosurgery Outreach Month because there needs to be greater awareness about the potentially devastating consequences of head and spinal cord injuries associated with these sports," said Gail L. Rosseau, a Chicago-area neurosurgeon and AANS spokesperson.

31 Jul 2010

GHX Market Intelligence data increases growth of medical-surgical revenue through distribution by 6.42% in 2009

An analysis of medical-surgical sales through distribution conducted by GHX has found that among the top 100 U.S. medical-surgical manufacturers by dollar spend, those that use GHX Market Intelligence data grew medical-surgical revenue through distribution by an average of 6.42 percent in 2009, while non-users grew similarly classified revenue by an average of only 3.88 percent. Furthermore, GHX's analysis also found that those manufacturers employing more granular-level market data from GHX increased revenue at a faster rate than those using higher-level data.

31 Jul 2010

Poll: Many Americans not sure of provisions of new healthcare legislation

Not sure what's in—and not in—the new healthcare legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama in March? You're not alone. More than 2,100 adults were given a list of 18 reform items and asked to identify what's included and what's not included in the law. Only four items were correctly identified by the majority of those polled.

31 Jul 2010

Sodium Working Group recommends reducing sodium intake among Canadians

The federally-mandated Sodium Working Group has released the Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada. The three-pronged strategy contains six over-arching and 27 specific recommendations for a population health strategy for reducing sodium intake among Canadians.

31 Jul 2010

Florida judge blocks state constitutional amendment on federal health law

A Leon County circuit judge today blocked a proposed [state] constitutional amendment that targets the federal health-reform law, saying Florida Republican lawmakers included wording in the proposal that would mislead voters. Judge James O. Shelfer said the proposal --- dubbed by lawmakers as the 'Health Care Freedom' amendment --- should not go on the November ballot. He described wording in a ballot summary as 'manifestly misleading.'

31 Jul 2010

Circuit Court Judge removes Amendment 9 from November ballot

Today, Circuit Court Judge James Shelfer removed Amendment 9—modeled after the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act now proposed in 42 states—from the November ballot. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is expected to appeal to Florida's Supreme Court.

31 Jul 2010

Abortion rights supporters, children's groups, GOP pushing back on various health law provisions

"Elective abortions will be prohibited and people with pre-existing conditions will be able to get comprehensive benefits without paying any more than healthy people, under new federal regulations for high-risk health insurance pools released ... by the Obama administration," according to Kaiser Health News.

31 Jul 2010

Water Street Healthcare Partners acquires Medical Specialties Distributors

Water Street Healthcare Partners, a leading private equity firm focused exclusively on health care, announced today that it has acquired Medical Specialties Distributors, LLC (MSD). Headquartered in Stoughton, Massachusetts, MSD is the nation's leading provider of infusion products, supplies, biomedical services and technology solutions to the growing home infusion therapy market. The acquisition expands Water Street's current group of health care companies to 12.

From Baxter International Inc. 31 Jul 2010

The House fails to pass aid measure for sick 9/11 responders

The Associated Press: "A bill that would have provided up to $7.4 billion in aid to people sickened by World Trade Center dust fell short in the House on Thursday, raising the possibility that the bulk of compensation for the ill will come from a legal settlement hammered out in the federal courts." The measure failed to draw the necessary two-thirds majority. Democrats had opted for this procedural route rather than a simple majority because it blocked potential GOP amendments.

31 Jul 2010

Adequate calcium intake maintains optimum bone mass

A broad range of scientific research has demonstrated that an adequate intake of calcium plays an important role in building and maintaining optimum bone mass, and a recent meta-analysis published online in the British Medical Journal should not cause consumers to doubt the value of calcium supplements for maintaining bone health.

31 Jul 2010

Northstar plans non-brokered private placement of common shares to Canada Healthcare Acquisition

Northstar Healthcare Inc. today announced that it plans to complete a non-brokered private placement of common shares to Canada Healthcare Acquisition Inc., a corporation indirectly controlled by Dr. Donald L. Kramer, M.D., a former CEO and former director of Northstar.

31 Jul 2010

Research Roundup:COBRA subsidies; Children's insurance and dental coverage; Adopting health IT; Race and heart treatments

Archives of Internal Medicine: Racial Differences In Admissions To High-Quality Hospitals For Coronary Heart Disease - "Racial disparities in the management of coronary heart disease (CHD) are widely documented, yet the reasons behind persistent gaps in quality of care are not fully understood," write the authors, who examined "Medicare patients with acute myocardial infarction and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) admitted during 2002 through 2005 to hospitals located in markets with top-ranked cardiac hospitals, as ascertained from the US News and World Report 'America's Best Hospitals' annual rankings."

31 Jul 2010

Recent releases in Global Health

A Center for Global Development memo offers suggestions for the U.S. to improve its commitment to policies that benefit poor countries after it ranked 17th out of 22 wealthy in the 2009 Commitment to Development Index. Among a set of 20 recommendations, the authors suggest the U.S. "[i]ncrease foreign aid, especially through such vehicles as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which gives to relatively well-governed countries, or a global 'Cash on Delivery' fund that would pay countries after making confirmed progress toward agreed-upon outcomes, thereby reducing the proliferation of aid projects," the authors write(Prieto/Roodman).

31 Jul 2010