Information technology
Bon Secours data breach involves 650K patient files | ABC TV WSPA.comThousands of North and South Carolina patients will be checking their credit report for the next year free of charge after learning their personal information appeared online. A spokeswoman for Bon Secours Health System says a vendor hired by the hospital mistakenly caused those patients' personal information to easily become accessible. The information contained names of more than 650,000 patients, Social Security numbers, the names of their healthcare providers and banking information.
Medical devices and equipment
Whistleblower case contends surgical-device maker misled FDA — and patients paid the price | StatMedtronic faces a whistleblower lawsuit that claims it sought Food and Drug Administration approval for its devices under false pretenses — and that the devices have been regularly used for a purpose that was never intended by regulators.
Pharmaceuticals
Will your prescription meds be covered next year? Better check! | National Public RadioCVS Caremark and Express Scripts, the biggest prescription insurers, released their 2017 lists of approved drugs this month, and each also has long lists of excluded medications. Some of the drugs newly excluded are prescribed to treat diabetes and hepatitis. The CVS list also excludes some cancer drugs, along with Proventil and Ventolin, commonly prescribed brands of asthma inhalers, while Express Scripts has dropped Orencia, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis.
Physicians
As states OK medical marijuana laws, doctors struggle with knowledge gap | Kaiser Health NewsMedical marijuana has been legal in Maine for almost 20 years. But Farmington physician Jean Antonucci says she continues to feel unprepared when counseling sick patients about whether the drug could benefit them. As the number of states allowing medical marijuana grows, some are working to address this knowledge gap with physician training programs.
How are states meeting healthcare shortages for pregnant women? | PBS NewsHour
Faced with a shortage of obstetricians and gynecologists and nurse midwives, several states are considering proposals that advocates say would improve health care for women. But with the female population of the United States and number of babies born here projected to increase sharply over the next decade and beyond, scholars and medical organizations say more dramatic changes are needed to ensure that the medical needs of American women are met.
