Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

Patient satisfaction benchmarking program makes list of top 10

The American Medical Group Association announced that its Patient Satisfaction Benchmarking Program was recently recognized among the largest patient-satisfaction firms in 2006 by Modern Healthcare.

17 Dec 2007

HHS releases new tools with aim to make health care safer

An array of toolkits designed to help doctors, nurses, hospital managers, patients and others reduce medical errors was released by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

17 Dec 2007

For babies with specific complex heart defects, death risk is far lower at most experienced hospitals

Each year, thousands of babies are born with severe heart defects that must be operated on within days or weeks of their birth.

17 Dec 2007

Only half of all Americans age 50 and over have had a colonoscopy

Only half of all Americans age 50 and over have had a colonoscopy, one of several common screening tests for colon cancer, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

17 Dec 2007

U.S. hospitals charged $873 billion in 2005

U.S. hospitals charged $873 billion in 2005 – a nearly 90 percent increase from the $462 billion charged in 1997 – according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research.

17 Dec 2007

Do people make better decisions when they understand average risk?

If there were a pill that would cut your risk of breast cancer in half, would you take it" What if you were told your risk of breast cancer was already below average"

14 Dec 2007

Green tea for Parkinson's disease

Does the consumption of green tea, widely touted to have beneficial effects on health, also protect brain cells? Authors of a new study being published in the December 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry share new data that indicates this may be the case.

14 Dec 2007

Chronic knee pain: Is surgery the only solution?

The results of a study published in the online open access journal, BMC Medicine indicate that sufferers of chronic patellofemoral syndrome (PFPS), a chronic pain in the front part of the knee, gain no extra benefit from surgery.

14 Dec 2007

CDC uses new technical approach to enable hospital reporting of healthcare-associated infections

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with timely assistance from the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), is developing a standards-based solution for transmission of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) data from existing commercial software systems to the agency's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

14 Dec 2007

Blood transfusions linked to surgery complications in women

Women die and get infections more often than men after heart surgery because they tend to receive more blood transfusions, which boost the risks of bad outcomes, according to a study published in the December Journal of Women's Health.

13 Dec 2007

Obese adults have more hospitalizations

Obese adults are admitted to the hospital more frequently and for more days than adults who are normal weight, finds a new study that looks at how being obese leads to a need for more health care services.

13 Dec 2007

Time to remove the stigma associated with incontinence

An independent panel convened this week by the NIH found that fewer than half of individuals experiencing fecal or urinary incontinence - the inability to control bowel movements or urination, respectively - report their symptoms to healthcare providers without being prompted.

13 Dec 2007