Primary Care News and Research

Latest Primary Care News and Research

Efforts to make medicine cheaper, more efficient underway

One of Minnesota's largest providers of supportive housing for seniors will begin testing telemedicine and sensor technology to help frail seniors stay healthier and delay institutional care under an $8 million grant announced Wednesday. It will be the largest project of its kind in the nation, involving about 1,600 clients in 40 rural cities.

25 Jun 2010

Automated calls can increase colon cancer screening rates by 30%: Study

Simple, automated telephone reminders can increase colon cancer screening rates by 30 percent, according to a Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study funded by the National Cancer Institute that appears in the July print edition of Medical Care.

25 Jun 2010

Latino population less likely to receive basic preventive tests, says study

"Prevention" is the new buzzword for health professionals and the new emphasis for containing future health care costs. Yet Latinos, who currently represent about 15 percent of the U.S. population, have the lowest level of preventive care of all racial and ethnic groups in the nation.

25 Jun 2010

Cognitive behaviour therapy effective for treating anxiety disorders

Brief therapy at the GP's surgery can effectively treat anxiety and depression. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Medicine found that cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) was effective for treating anxiety disorders, while CBT, problem solving therapy (PST) and counseling were all equally effective in treating depression and mixed anxiety and depression.

25 Jun 2010

Six-month Medicare patch slows Medicare meltdown for now

“The six-month Medicare patch Congress passed today is a very temporary reprieve for seniors and baby boomers who rely on the promise of Medicare. Delaying the problem is not a solution. It doesn’t solve the Medicare mess Congress has created with a long series of short-term Medicare patches over the last decade – including four to avert the 2010 cut alone.

24 Jun 2010

MHQP survey assesses patients' experiences with primary care since health reform law implementation

A report released today by Massachusetts Health Quality Partners provides the first comprehensive assessment of how patients rate their experiences with primary care since the state's groundbreaking health reform law was implemented.

24 Jun 2010

Americans spend more on health and get poorer care: Report

According to a Commonwealth Fund report released this Wednesday, Americans spend nearly twice as much as people from other developed countries on healthcare but get lower quality of care, less efficiency and have the least equitable health care system. The comparison was drawn with six other countries, Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, and the United States ranked last. The report collected data from nationally representative patient and physician surveys in these seven countries in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

23 Jun 2010

US physicians concerned about health risk to patients from heat-damaged medicinal products

In a recent Harris Interactive survey of US physicians about the proper storage and handling of temperature-sensitive medicines prescribed and administered to patients, physicians reported being concerned about this issue, and the overwhelming majority are concerned that heat-damaged products resulting from cumulative exposure to temperatures outside the specified temperature range pose a health risk to patients. The announcement of the study findings was made today by Temptime Corporation.

23 Jun 2010

US lags in health system performance

Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall compared to six other industrialized countries-Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom-on measures of health system performance in five areas: quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and the ability to lead long, healthy, productive lives, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.

23 Jun 2010

Only doctors familiar with local health services should provide out of hours primary care: Experts

Only doctors familiar with local health services should provide out of hours primary care, argue two experts, following the death of a patient given an overdose of diamorphine by an out of hours doctor.

23 Jun 2010

Obama warns health insurers against using reform to boost premium rates, unveils new patient bill of rights

Today, during an address in the East Room of the White House following a meeting with executives of leading health insurance companies and state insurance commissioners, "President Barack Obama warned insurance firms … not to use his healthcare overhaul as an opportunity to enact big rate increases and said the federal government would work with states to monitor them."

23 Jun 2010

HHS, insurers, health systems preparing for health law's impact

Politico reports on the Department of Health and Human Services' HealthCare.gov, "the new Web portal that goes live July 1 and is designed to give consumers a place to research and compare health insurance plans. Since it will be the most tangible link to the health reform law for many Americans, health policy experts and administration officials say it's crucial that the site is well-designed, easy to navigate and free of the jargon that makes the field of health insurance so unintelligible to the public. ... When HealthCare.gov launches next Thursday, it will have information about insurance plans that users can sort based on their own situation and their eligibility for public insurance programs, like Medicare, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the new high-risk pools for individuals with pre-existing conditions" (Kliff, 6/22).

23 Jun 2010

Benioff family gifts $100 million for construction of new UCSF Children's Hospital at Mission Bay

Salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff and his family have given a $100 million private gift to help fund the construction of the new UCSF Children's Hospital at the UCSF Mission Bay campus near downtown San Francisco. The gift is both the largest gift the donors have ever made and the largest gift ever granted specifically to the UCSF Children's Hospital.

22 Jun 2010

Gardner Family Health Network to deploy NextGen Ambulatory EHR, Practice Management, QSI Dental System

NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, Inc. and a leading provider of healthcare information systems and connectivity solutions, today announced an agreement with Gardner Family Health Network to deploy NextGen® Ambulatory EHR and NextGen® Practice Management, as well as the QSI Dental System. Gardner is the 42nd health center in California to partner with NextGen Healthcare.

22 Jun 2010

Study shows vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in patients with Type 2 diabetes

Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in patients with Type 2 diabetes and may be associated with poor blood sugar control, according to a new study. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

22 Jun 2010

Diabetes disease management program helps Medicare patients reduce cost of medical care: Study

Medicare patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease can significantly reduce both the cost of their medical care and rates of hospitalization by participating in a telephone-based diabetes disease management program, a new study finds. The authors will present their results Monday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

22 Jun 2010

Reform law gives major boost to community health centers, medical homes

The Washington Post: "The health-care legislation signed into law in March provides a major boost to community health centers: $11 billion over five years. The first of these federally supported primary-care clinics opened in 1965." The law also provides funding designed to increase the supply of primary-care providers. And, "[o]n Wednesday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced that the federal government will spend $250 million in programs to increase the number of doctors, nurses and other care providers.

21 Jun 2010

Doctors, Pelosi pan Senate-passed 'doc fix' plan

USA Today: Doctors are limiting the number of new Medicare patients they are seeing, concerned about reimbursements pay from the federal program. "Recent surveys by national and state medical societies have found more doctors limiting Medicare patients, partly because Congress has failed to stop an automatic 21% cut in payments that doctors already regard as too low.

21 Jun 2010

HHS Secretary announces new $250M investment to improve health and well-being of Americans

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced $250 million in new Affordable Care Act investments to support prevention activities and develop the nation's public health infrastructure.

19 Jun 2010

Medicare begins 21% payment cuts to physicians

Today, Medicare begins processing physician payments with the drastic 21 percent cut that Congress failed to stop, and now seniors and physicians are paying the price of Congress' Medicare mismanagement.

19 Jun 2010

Primary Care News and Research

Latest Primary Care News and Research

Efforts to make medicine cheaper, more efficient underway

Automated calls can increase colon cancer screening rates by 30%: Study

Latino population less likely to receive basic preventive tests, says study

Cognitive behaviour therapy effective for treating anxiety disorders

Six-month Medicare patch slows Medicare meltdown for now

MHQP survey assesses patients' experiences with primary care since health reform law implementation

Americans spend more on health and get poorer care: Report

US physicians concerned about health risk to patients from heat-damaged medicinal products

US lags in health system performance

Only doctors familiar with local health services should provide out of hours primary care: Experts

Obama warns health insurers against using reform to boost premium rates, unveils new patient bill of rights

HHS, insurers, health systems preparing for health law's impact

Benioff family gifts $100 million for construction of new UCSF Children's Hospital at Mission Bay

Gardner Family Health Network to deploy NextGen Ambulatory EHR, Practice Management, QSI Dental System

Study shows vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in patients with Type 2 diabetes

Diabetes disease management program helps Medicare patients reduce cost of medical care: Study

Reform law gives major boost to community health centers, medical homes

Doctors, Pelosi pan Senate-passed 'doc fix' plan

HHS Secretary announces new $250M investment to improve health and well-being of Americans

Medicare begins 21% payment cuts to physicians

Mastering RNA extraction for plant and fungal research – eBook eBook

Evolving spectrophotometry for modern biopharma workflows

Scaling B-cell cloning workflows for antibody development

Fluidics in Modern Healthcare & Medical Device Innovation

Primary Care News and Research

Latest Primary Care News and Research

Mastering RNA extraction for plant and fungal research – eBook eBook

Evolving spectrophotometry for modern biopharma workflows

Scaling B-cell cloning workflows for antibody development

Fluidics in Modern Healthcare & Medical Device Innovation

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