Medical News

RSS

Feds push Maryland to think big on health cost control

Kaiser Health News staff writer Jay Hancock, working in collaboration with Politico, reports: "If quiet negotiations between policymakers and industry bear fruit, Maryland could join the short list of states attempting to go far beyond the Affordable Care Act in improving health and limiting spending."

29 Aug 2012

Anova Cancer Care to participate in CyberKnife research study

Anova Cancer Care has been chosen to participate in a landmark national prostate cancer study. The goal of the two-year study is to determine the best treatments for prostate cancer. The study will look specifically at prostate cancer radiosurgery.

29 Aug 2012

Insuring your health: Health law has gaps in men's care

In her latest Kaiser Health News consumer column, Michelle Andrews writes: "The federal health care overhaul greatly expanded women's access to free preventive services, particularly for sexual and reproductive health. Men didn't fare nearly as well."

29 Aug 2012

UMHS, MidMichigan Health announce plans to affiliate as clinical and business partners

MidMichigan Health and the University of Michigan Health System have announced plans to affiliate as clinical and business partners.

29 Aug 2012

As GOP convention picks up, health issues draw attention

News outlets report on how the most conservative Republicans are uniting around Mitt Romney, even as he appears more open to embracing the Massachusetts health law he signed while that state's governor.

29 Aug 2012

Genetic investigation of tribes may explain why East Asians have lower skin cancer rates

Genetic investigation of a Malaysian tribe may tell scientists why East Asians have light skin but lower skin cancer rates than Europeans, according to a team of international researchers. Understanding the differences could lead to a better way to protect people from skin cancer.

29 Aug 2012

Capsules: Vermont goes for gold (silver, bronze and platinum, too)

Now on Kaiser Health News' blog, Vermont Public Radio's Bob Kinzel, working in partnership with KHN and NPR, reports: Vermont is the only state in the nation on a path to a single payer health system.

29 Aug 2012

Johns Hopkins' Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality receives Moore Foundation grant

Johns Hopkins' Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality has received an $8.9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the first award given as part of an ambitious new $500 million, 10-year program designed to eliminate all preventable harms that patients experience in the hospital.

29 Aug 2012

Exchange planning takes hold in states -- each with different flavor

Vermont, the District of Columbia and Connecticut are among those planning health law-mandated marketplaces where consumers and small businesses can buy insurance -- each with its own twist.

29 Aug 2012

HealthPartners receives Acclaim Award from American Medical Group Association

The American Medical Group Association (AMGA) today announced that the recipient of the 2012 AMGA Acclaim Award is HealthPartners for "Triple Aim 2.0: Designing Culture to Support Better Health, Better Experience at a Lower Cost," an inventive and patient-centered approach to align the Institute of Medicine's Aims to identify and drive performance improvement, innovation, and culture throughout the organization.

29 Aug 2012

Preventing falls in older people: an interview with Professor Lindy Clemson

We often think of tripping over a step edge or pathway obstruction but there can be a range of things that can contribute to a fall. One of the most common is that our ability to balance can be reduced. This means that we don’t recover from a trip and are at more of a risk of losing our balance.

29 Aug 2012

Boehner predicts GOP victory, but not a mandate to overhaul Medicare

At a lunch with reporters, Mr. Boehner said that the nation's dire fiscal position, driven by health care spending, would confront Washington next year "regardless of who wins the election." But he was cautious about predicting a mandate for the House Republican plan to end the government guarantee for Medicare, replacing the program with fixed contributions that older Americans would use to buy private health insurance or pay into the government plan.

29 Aug 2012

New treatment for severe dry eye is now available at U-M’s Kellogg

A new treatment available at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center—prosthetic replacement of the ocular surface ecosystem or PROSE—provides relief to patients who suffer from severe dry eye, often the result of cancer or complex corneal disease.

29 Aug 2012

Global Fund, Nigeria sign agreements worth $225M to prevent, treat malaria

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Nigeria on Friday "signed two grant agreements ... worth a total of $225 million to support programs that will prevent and treat malaria," a Global Fund press release reports.

29 Aug 2012

FISH assay identifies only few lung cancer patients who could benefit from crizotinib

Break apart a couple worm-like chromosomes and they may reconnect with mismatched tips and tails - such is the case of the EML4-ALK fusion gene that creates 2-7 percent of lung cancers. Almost exactly a year ago, the FDA approved the drug crizotinib to treat these ALK+ lung cancer patients, who were likely never smokers. Informed doctors use the test called a FISH assay to check for the EML4-ALK fusion gene, and then if the test is positive, ALK+ patients benefit greatly from crizotinib.

29 Aug 2012

Fear of stigma prevents pregnant women from seeking prenatal care, studies show

Though many pregnant women are aware that treatment could save their lives and the lives of their infants if they test HIV-positive during prenatal care, a new study and literature review have found that a "fear of being stigmatized as an AIDS patient is still a major barrier to good medical care for pregnant young women in many countries," the New York Times reports.

29 Aug 2012

Deep-brain stimulation may stop uncontrollable shaking in patients with Parkinson's

Deep-brain stimulation (DBS) may stop uncontrollable shaking in patients with Parkinson's disease and essential tremor by imposing its own rhythm on the brain, according to two studies published recently by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers in the journal Movement Disorders.

29 Aug 2012

Voters need more information on free trade agreement that could impact drug prices

In an opinion piece in the Guardian's "Comment is Free" blog, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, discusses potential policies contained within the "Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a pact that the United States is negotiating with Australia, Canada, Japan and eight other countries in the Pacific region."

29 Aug 2012

Novelos expects to submit CLR1502 IND with FDA for non-invasive tumor imaging

Novelos Therapeutics, Inc., a pharmaceutical company developing novel drugs for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, today announced that it is developing CLR1502 (GLOW2), a preclinical cancer-targeted optical imaging agent for intraoperative tumor margin illumination and non-invasive tumor imaging.

29 Aug 2012

Study to investigate how breast cancer patients might benefit from exercise

Researchers in Edmonton and Calgary want to recruit 1,500 breast cancer patients over the next decade to find out how exercise and fitness affects cancer survival and recovery.

29 Aug 2012