Healthcare News and Research

Latest Healthcare News and Research

New study evaluates complexity of patients undergoing head-CT examinations

Computed tomography of the head uses special X-ray equipment to help assess head injuries, dizziness, and other symptoms of the brain.

20 May 2019

Study: People with type 2 diabetes are at particular risk of deadly liver disease

Many patients with potentially deadly liver cirrhosis and liver cancer are being diagnosed at late advanced stages of disease, according to a study led by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Glasgow.

20 May 2019

Using health IT to reduce disparities in healthcare

An innovative health information technology program helps primary care providers to detect and manage depression and posttraumatic stress disorder in traumatized refugees, reports a study in a special June supplement to Medical Care.

18 May 2019

BMC develops EHR-based screener to address patients' unmet social needs

Boston Medical Center has implemented a social determinants of health screener for primary care patients in order to better identify and address patients' unmet social needs.

18 May 2019

Cedars-Sinai’s Music for Healing program provides medical benefits

On the worst day of her life, Rebecca Woolf found comfort in the most unexpected way. As her husband lay dying in his hospital bed, the sound of a harp wafted in.

17 May 2019

‘Sham’ sharing ministries test faith of patients and insurance regulators

Sheri Lewis, 59, of Seattle, needed a hip transplant. Bradley Fuller, 63, of nearby Kirkland, needed chemotherapy and radiation when the pain in his jaw turned out to be throat cancer. And Kim Bruzas, 55, of Waitsburg, hundreds of miles away, needed emergency care to stop sudden —and severe — rectal bleeding.

17 May 2019

Leveraging health information technology tools to reduce disparities in care

Disparities in health care delivery and health outcomes present distressing challenges to underserved populations, who often experience a greater burden of chronic diseases and are more likely to show signs of poor disease management.

17 May 2019

New app helps improve the lives of children with asthma

An app that allows parents and doctors to monitor a child's asthma has a big impact on managing the disease.

17 May 2019

Study may help identify patients at relapse risk after treatment for cocaine use disorder

A study conducted at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and described in an article published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence may help healthcare workers identify patients who risk relapse after undergoing treatment for cocaine use disorder.

17 May 2019

Researchers identify first gene that predisposes to fainting

Fainting is not solely caused by external factors. Your genes also play a part. This has recently been documented by research team from the University of Copenhagen, Statens Serum Institut and Rigshospitalet.

16 May 2019

Study: Many patients with schizophrenia and epilepsy die before reaching the age of fifty

Patients who suffer from schizophrenia and epilepsy are particularly vulnerable. In the study, the researchers followed more than 1,5 mio. people and classified them according to whether they were diagnosed with epilepsy, schizophrenia or the combination of epilepsy and schizophrenia on their twenty-fifth birthday.

16 May 2019

Penn Medicine launches free, 'self-service' AI tool for data analytics

The Penn Medicine Institute for Biomedical Informatics has launched a free, open-source automated machine learning system for data analysis that is designed for anyone to use, from a high school student looking to gain insight on their baseball team's statistics, to trained researchers looking for associations between cancer and environmental factors.

16 May 2019

Novel tool helps providers identify and track underlying causes of chronic conditions

An easy to use, brief, inexpensive new tool developed and validated by researchers at the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University will help healthcare providers track and potentially identify early onset of more complex, serious underlying issues that could otherwise go undetected.

16 May 2019

Quanterix announces $50,000 in grants to support promising oncology research

Quanterix announced a call for proposals for a new Accelerator Grant Program.

From Quanterix 16 May 2019

CRISPR uncovers which gene fusions are critical for growth of cancer cells

In the first large-scale analysis of cancer gene fusions, which result from the merging of two previously separate genes, researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, EMBL-EBI, Open Targets, GSK and their collaborators have used CRISPR to uncover which gene fusions are critical for the growth of cancer cells.

16 May 2019

How to find and use new federal ratings for rehab services at nursing homes

For the first time, the federal government is shining a spotlight on the quality of rehabilitation care at nursing homes — services used by nearly 2 million older adults each year.

16 May 2019

Longer-acting, injectable HIV treatments on the horizon

An HIV diagnosis was once a death sentence, but now people who receive treatment survive for decades with the disease. Keeping the virus at bay usually requires taking a pill every day, which aside from being inconvenient for some, is an unwelcome daily reminder of the disease.

16 May 2019

Surgical care improvement linked to hospital financial performance

Hospitals that perform better on steps to prevent complications after surgery also have better performance on measures of profitability, reports a study in the May/June issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management, an official publication of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

16 May 2019

Study finds extremely low use of weight loss medicines by veterans

Despite the availability of new weight management medications and several clinical guidelines recommending their use as part of a comprehensive treatment plan for obesity, a new study has found that their use is extremely low (about one percent) among eligible Veterans.

15 May 2019

WHO releases guidelines for preventing dementia, and they don't include supplements

The WHO has released new guidelines advising that people can reduce their risk for dementia by reducing modifiable risk factors such as smoking and a lack of exercise.

15 May 2019