Wender
Dr. Richard Wender has been hired by the American Cancer Society to work in the newly created position of chief cancer control officer.
Wender, the first primary-care physician to serve as ACS president, will focus on the organization's consumer and clinical guidance on cancer prevention and early detection as well as the implementation of its evidence-based cancer-control interventions, according to a news release.
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Medical journals and healthcare publications may soon notice more readers taking deep research dives into their archives looking for old studies, reports and articles on defensive medicine. That's because California's landmark 1975 Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act—which limits pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice lawsuits to $250,000—is coming under fire from two fronts.
The Consumer Watchdog organization and “medical negligence survivors” are working to get the Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act, a ballot initiative, on the November ballot. Named after the children killed in a 2003 accident, the measure would require hospitals to subject physicians to random drug and alcohol testing, require mandatory testing after an unexpected death or serious injury, and adjust the $250,000 cap for inflation. That would raise the cap to $1.1 million. It needs to get about 750,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
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Fledgling accountable care organizations have faced plenty of challenges. Now a group of economists and lawyers are calling for a close look at issues involving insurance, antitrust and other regulation to avoid “unintended consequences.”
Health policy experts Gary Bacher, Michael Chernew, Daniel Kessler and Stephen Weiner write in the latest issue of the policy journal Health Affairs that ACOs could stifle competition among insurers and providers and potentially drive up prices.
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A patient engagement and reporting program linked to financial incentives yielded multiple improvements in health measures for employees of UnitedHealth Group, according to a study published in the August issue of Health Affairs.
UnitedHealth employees enrolled in the health insurance company's Rewards for Health program were able to earn points good for premium reductions as high as $1,200 for family coverage. The rewards program used health screenings targeting diabetes, cancer and other diseases as well as more general weight control based on the worker's body mass index.
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Most Massachusetts residents are satisfied with their healthcare under the state's Obamacare-like system, and despite occasional long waits to see a physician, cost appears to be their main concern, according to a survey conducted by the Massachusetts Medical Society.
Seven years into the Massachusetts's so-called Romneycare reform model—the inspiration for the federal healthcare law—Massachusetts is often seen as a harbinger of things to come for the national reform experience.
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Stark
The healthcare world is populated by scores of legal experts who strive to keep up with the sprawling compendium of statutes, regulations and legal advisories known collectively as the “Stark law.” But the law's father, Fortney “Pete” Stark, is not one of them.
Stark, in fact, says he would favor repealing the law as it currently exists and getting back to the law's initial intent.
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Wachter
Dr. Robert Wachter, a pioneer in the field of hospitalist medicine, has been elected to board of directors of IPC the Hospitalist Co., a North Hollywood, Calif.-based hospital medicine and physician group practice company operating in 28 states.
Wachter, a professor and associate chair at the University of California at San Francisco who just finished his term as chairman of the American Board of Internal Medicine, will chair the IPC board's quality committee.
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It's hard to get doctors to follow practice guidelines.
Despite the publication of numerous guidelines on the management of routine back pain, physicians surprisingly are not following the advice, and “guideline-discordant care” is on the rise, according to a study posted on the JAMA Internal Medicine website.
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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the University of Pennsylvania bioethicist and oncologist who helped the White House draft the healthcare reform law, aims fire in today's Wall Street Journal at U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals" rankings. Calling the methodology behind the rankings "flawed to the point of being useless," he blasts their overreliance on reputation and a failure to take into account quality criteria such as hospital-acquired infections and incidence of preventable falls and bed sores.
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The latest is not always the greatest in medical treatments, according to a study posted on the Mayo Clinic Proceedings website. It reviewed the findings of more than 1,300 previously published reports on medical practices.
Clinical areas where current practice standards were contradicted by published studies include the drug aprotinin used in cardiac surgery, the use of hormone therapy for postmenopausal women, the use of pulmonary artery catheters, the recommended glycemic targets for diabetics, and the use of arthroscopic surgery of the knee for osteoarthritis.
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The latest is not always the greatest in medical treatments, according to a study posted on the Mayo Clinic Proceedings website. It reviewed the findings of more than 1,300 previously published reports on medical practices.
Clinical areas where current practice standards were contradicted by published studies include the drug aprotinin used in cardiac surgery, the use of hormone therapy for postmenopausal women, the use of pulmonary artery catheters, the recommended glycemic targets for diabetics, and the use of arthroscopic surgery of the knee for osteoarthritis.
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