Jean DerGurahian May 25, 2009 With speed and accuracy the name of the game for laboratory results, Great Basin Scientific hopes its new diagnostic tool will help providers find infections quickly and efficiently so that care delivery can be improved. ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch May 25, 2009 An alliance of nurses unions rallied in Washington this month for new workplace regulations in hospitals—an agenda the unions and other nurse advocacy groups have had mixed results in pushing piecemeal state by state. ... FULL STORY
David May May 25, 2009 As the healthcare reform debate has sharpened in recent months, few issues have become more pointed than the “public option”—mandating some form of government health plan as part of a revamped system. ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 HealthEast Care System, St. Paul, Minn., agreed to pay the U.S. government $2.3 million to settle False Claims Act allegations that patients undergoing a minimally invasive spine procedure were unnecessarily admitted to three of its hospitals, drawing excessive reimbursement from Medicare. The... ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 A 66-year-old woman diagnosed a month ago with terminal pancreatic cancer is the first person to end her life under Washington state’s Death with Dignity Act. Linda Fleming, of Sequim, Wash., took a lethal dose of prescribed medication, as allowed under the act, according to Compassion and Choices... ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 Universal Health Services, King of Prussia, Pa., said its board of directors elected Marc Miller as president of the company, taking over one of the roles that his father, Chairman and CEO Alan Miller, held. Marc Miller, 39, has worked for UHS since 1995, starting as an assistant administrator at... ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 Healthcare products company Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, N.J., signed an agreement to buy Los Angeles-based cancer-drug developer Cougar Biotechnology for $1 billion, according to a news release. Terms of the all-cash deal call for Cougar to be folded into Centocor Research & Development, a... ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 A crew operating in South Florida under the direction of the New York-based Bonanno crime family engaged in a wide-ranging criminal enterprise that included Medicare fraud along with conspiring to commit murder, arson, violent extortion and narcotics trafficking, according to a grand jury... ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 Teaching hospitals would have to pay a total of $1.6 billion a year in additional labor costs if recent Institute of Medicine recommendations for limiting resident work hours are implemented, according to a report by the RAND Corp. and University of California at Los Angeles researchers in the May... ... FULL STORY
Jean DerGurahian May 25, 2009 With speed and accuracy the name of the game for laboratory results, Great Basin Scientific hopes its new diagnostic tool will help providers find infections quickly and efficiently so that care delivery can be improved. ... FULL STORY
Matthew DoBias May 25, 2009 Pressure began to build on Democratic lawmakers seeking to pass healthcare reform to make some sort of concrete progress. ... FULL STORY
Joe Carlson May 25, 2009 Hunting for cash to pay for reform, lawmakers have once again started talking about limiting or even eliminating the tax exemptions enjoyed by most U.S. hospitals. ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch May 25, 2009 With scant money in the federal budget available to overhaul the way healthcare is provided and paid for in the U.S., the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress would like their hands on tens of billions of Medicare and Medicaid dollars lost each year to fraud and abuse. ... FULL STORY
Melanie Evans May 25, 2009 Not-for-profit hospitals and health systems have closed or unveiled deals recently that suggest improvement in shaky credit markets for healthcare borrowers. ... FULL STORY
Vince Galloro May 25, 2009 The Federation of American Hospitals swung from a small gain to a small loss in 2008, according to its annual tax filing that the federation recently submitted to the Internal Revenue Service. The culprits were a reduction in their investment gains and the longevity of federation President Chip... ... FULL STORY
Jennifer Lubell May 25, 2009 Hospitals and other providers have made progress on an incremental scale to reduce patient errors since the release of a landmark report 10 years ago, but national interventions are still falling short, a panel of healthcare safety experts said at the National Patient Safety Foundation Congress... ... FULL STORY
Shawn Rhea May 25, 2009 Positioned to take over leadership of the Food and Drug Administration during a period of immense overhaul, former New York City Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg is eliciting early support from the drug and medical-device industries and watchdog groups. ... FULL STORY
Vince Galloro May 25, 2009 Herb Kuhn hopes that he can be the detective who solves the mystery of healthcare reform for the Missouri Hospital Association. Kuhn, 52, was named last week to be the association’s fifth president and CEO, effective Sept. 1. ... FULL STORY
Vince Galloro May 25, 2009 The last time healthcare construction spending stagnated, providers were struggling with the Medicare cuts from the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. That led to three years of flat construction spending, according to one industry analyst. ... FULL STORY
Gregg Blesch May 25, 2009 An alliance of nurses unions rallied in Washington this month for new workplace regulations in hospitals—an agenda the unions and other nurse advocacy groups have had mixed results in pushing piecemeal state by state. ... FULL STORY
David May May 25, 2009 As the healthcare reform debate has sharpened in recent months, few issues have become more pointed than the “public option”—mandating some form of government health plan as part of a revamped system. ... FULL STORY
Ruben Toral May 25, 2009 For the past eight years, I have been an evangelist for medical travel and the medical travel industry, preaching the benefits of off-shoring healthcare to anyone who would listen. It’s a compelling argument—high-quality care, immediate access and prices that are 50% to 70% less than comparable... ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 Kudos to Tri-State Health Partners for obtaining a favorable clinical integration advisory opinion letter from the Federal Trade Commission (“Seal of approval,” May 4, p. 26, and “A clearer guide,” April 20, p. 14). There is much to be learned from what Tri-State is doing. ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 A list of health systems with the highest number of full-time-equivalent employees, ranked by total number of FTEs from 2007. Source: American Hospital Directory. Published May 25, 2009. ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 Lawmakers have argued for it, negotiated for it and in some cases held closed-door sessions with key stakeholders to fight for it. ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 In an example of the omnipresence of healthcare, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that the strength and conditioning coach for the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers, Andy O’Brien, helped lessen the radioactive content in one player’s body. ... FULL STORY
May 25, 2009 Outliers has learned of another reason to be impressed by those intricate little birds of prey and other animals that origami masters are so fond of creating: It seems the art of folding could hold the key to cutting-edge cancer treatment. ... FULL STORY
