Detailed record-keeping is essential to surviving an EHR incentive payment audit and it's doubly important with Stage 2 meaningful use and ICD-10, IT leaders like Pam McNutt say.
FULL STORY »

Only one ultrasound in nine months and no need to see the doctor or obstetrician: at first glance, Sweden's pregnancy care appears rather simplistic. But while it may be far from the medical approach seen in most Western countries, where mothers-to-be have loads of doctor's appointments and tests, the Swedish system, where midwives reign supreme, has proven its merits.
FULL STORY »

A year ago, few people outside of the pharmacy sector knew much about drug compounding. Now the industry is at the center of legal and regulatory action.
FULL STORY »

An experiment that showed the felicitous effects of listening to Italian opera for mice after a heart transplant was among the winners at this year's Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.This is the 23rd year for the award, sponsored by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research and given out to honor weird and humorous scientific discoveries. The winners come from all over the world to attend the ceremony. The event also had a live webcast, with watching parties catching the action in Paris, Atlanta, Raleigh, N.C., and beyond.
FULL STORY »

Novartis says it is investigating claims that its eye-care unit, Alcon, bribed doctors in over 200 hospitals in China to promote its lens implants.
FULL STORY »

A group of surgeons in the U.S., through the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations and the Syrian American Medical Society, is assisting with Syria's increasing medical needs without ever entering a Syrian operating room.
FULL STORY »

Chinese authorities visited a local office of German drugmaker Bayer in late August to investigate a potential case of unfair competition, the company said on Friday.
FULL STORY »

The head of the Commonwealth Fund announced that the 95-year-old foundation will adopt a new direction, including tracking the progress of the federal healthcare reform law and the performance of the nation's healthcare system.
FULL STORY »

The AFL-CIO on Wednesday approved a resolution critical of parts of President Barack Obama's healthcare law in spite of efforts by White House officials to discourage the labor federation from making its concerns so prominent.
FULL STORY »

Being short on cash may make you a bit slower in the brain, a new study suggests.People worrying about having enough money to pay their bills tend to lose temporarily the equivalent of 13 IQ points, scientists found when they gave intelligence tests to shoppers at a New Jersey mall and farmers in India. The idea is that financial stress monopolizes thinking, making other calculations slower and more difficult, sort of like the effects of going without sleep for a night.
FULL STORY »

No other country in the world can beat the U.S. in medical technology. No other country spends as much for it either.The mantra "Americans have the best medical care in the world" is frequently recited by U.S. policymakers and clinicians, according to a study published in the May/June issue of the journal Health Affairs that compares the quality of care in five English-speaking countries. But international data--limited though it is--places the U.S. in the bottom quartile of industrialized countries in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality, according to the report.The best...
FULL STORY »