Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

Typical smoker acquires one mutation for every 15 cigarettes and all cancers are caused by mutations

Research teams led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute announce the first comprehensive analyses of cancer genomes.

17 Dec 2009

RehabCare Group receives approval to acquire St. Agnes Long-Term Care Hospital

RehabCare Group, Inc. announced today it has received regulatory approval for the acquisition of St. Agnes Long-Term Care Hospital from Mercy Health System.

17 Dec 2009

Healthcare sector achieves modest revenue growth in 2008

Health care sector revenue increased by 5.7 percent in 2008 to $1.75 trillion, up from $1.66 trillion in 2007, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. This sector is classified under the North American Industry Classification System as NAICS 62.

17 Dec 2009

HCRS awarded a contract to support AETC with medical records coding and training services

HealthCare Resolution Services, Inc., a leading provider of program integrity support, health information technology services and professional medical and technical staffing services, announced today that it has been awarded a contract with the U.S. Air Force's Commodities Council to support the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) with medical records coding and analysis, auditing, and provider training.

17 Dec 2009

Unilife Medical Solutions to construct new global headquarters and commercial production facility

Unilife Medical Solutions Limited (Unilife or the Company) today announced the signing of agreements for the construction of its new global headquarters and commercial production facility in York, Pennsylvania.

17 Dec 2009

Portable bladder volume ultrasound now included in 2009 CDC guidelines for the prevention CA-UTIs

Verathon®, maker of BladderScan® bladder volume instruments is pleased to announce that portable bladder volume ultrasound is now included in the new 2009 CDC guidelines for the Prevention of Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CA-UTIs).

17 Dec 2009

Silence Therapeutics and Intradigm merge to form RNAi

The Boards of Silence Therapeutics plc and Intradigm Corporation are delighted to announce the merger of their businesses to form a leading company in the field of RNAi (RNA interference).

17 Dec 2009

MRG: Chinese drug-eluting stent market to reach more than $900 million by 2014

According to Millennium Research Group (MRG), the global authority on medical technology market intelligence, health care reforms in China supported rapid expansion of the Chinese drug-eluting stent market in 2009, and will continue to fuel growth in the coming years.

17 Dec 2009

St. Jude Medical applauds the updated level of evidence for FFR-guided treatment

St. Jude Medical, Inc. applauds the updated level of evidence for Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR)-guided treatment in the Guidelines on Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI).

17 Dec 2009

New security solution that integrates palm vein biometric technology introduced

IBM (IBM) and Fujitsu Frontech North America Inc. today announced a new security solution that integrates palm vein biometric technology from Fujitsu with IBM's leading enterprise single sign-on solution.

17 Dec 2009

New learning collaborative for healthcare organizations

HealthSciences Institute will sponsor a new learning collaborative for health care professionals, teams and organizations who serve individuals at risk of, or affected by, chronic diseases in employer, health plan, medical home and other provider settings.

17 Dec 2009

Infection control program protects immunocompromised cancer patients from H1N1 infection

Despite a 100-fold increase in H1N1 influenza cases in the Seattle area during spring 2009, an aggressive infection control program to protect immunocompromised cancer patients and thorough screening measures resulted in no corresponding increase in H1N1 cases among the total patient population at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, according to a new study by researchers and physicians at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the SCCA.

17 Dec 2009

KarmelSonix selects Blackfin digital signal processors from Analog Devices

Analog Devices, Inc. announced today that KarmelSonix, pioneers in medical device development for asthma management, have chosen Analog Devices’ Blackfin digital signal processors and advanced signal chain components to power its products.

17 Dec 2009

Siemens Healthcare announces series of flexible financing solutions for healthcare providers

Siemens Healthcare today announced a series of flexible financing solutions to help healthcare providers pursue meaningful use objectives and meet deadlines defined within the HITECH provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

17 Dec 2009

Hospitals increase charity care with customized scoring solution

Medlytix, a national healthcare consulting firm, reported success this week in reaching a key half-billion dollar milestone - the total amount of money that its hospital clients have provided in financial assistance to more than a half-million patients nationwide by doing a better job of properly classifying charity care - in less than two years.

17 Dec 2009

Obama 'cautiously optimistic' on reform after meeting with Senate Democrats

President Obama told Senate Democrats Tuesday in an hour-long meeting that they are on the "precipice" of health reform and said that he was "cautiously optimistic" that health reform would get done, the Los Angeles Times reports. "President Obama, acknowledging that he will have to accept serious compromises in the passage of a healthcare overhaul, insisted today that he would not let the public down on an issue that he had made the centerpiece of his first-year domestic agenda."

16 Dec 2009

More details emerge about UNITAID's plan for patent pool for HIV/AIDS drugs

News outlets continued to follow UNITAID's recent announcement to create a patent pool aimed at lowering the cost of HIV/AIDS drugs for low- and middle-income countries. Though UNITAID's board "voted Monday to create a board to run the new patent pool, and set a target of having five AIDS drugs in the pool by mid-2010," the group "punted on the thorny issue of which countries outside of Africa to include in the pool," Forbes reports.

16 Dec 2009

NanoBio, GSK partner to develop and commercialize novel cold sore treatment compound

GlaxoSmithKline plc and NanoBio Corporation today announced an exclusive licensing agreement in the United States and Canada for the over-the-counter (OTC) use of NB-001, a novel, patented compound representing the next advance in the treatment of cold sores. Developed by NanoBio, NB-001 provides significant antimicrobial activity against the virus that causes cold sores, herpes labialis.

16 Dec 2009

On and off Capitol Hill, politicians are taking positions on health bill

Roll Call: "Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Tuesday said she does not believe that the Senate Democratic health care reform bill will garner her vote, despite significant changes that are likely to be made to rid the bill of a public insurance option and an expansion of Medicare. Democrats have regarded Collins, along with fellow moderate Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, as potentially persuadable on the bill.

16 Dec 2009

States battle budget cuts and recession

Houston Chronicle: "Texas scores high in emergency preparedness during a time when many other states are suffering cuts in state and federal public health funding and losses in medical staff, according to the Ready or Not? report, sponsored by Trust for America's Health, a disease prevention advocacy group, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation." But, economic turmoil has led to a "nationwide backslide in overall emergency preparedness" (Burton, 12/15).

16 Dec 2009