Information technology
Physicians: Make health IT user-friendly to improve care delivery | Medical EconomicsElectronic heath records (EHRs) and other forms of health information technology have the potential to significantly improve care delivery and patient outcomes. But that can't happen until the technology becomes more user-friendly and patient-focused than it is today.
Pharmaceuticals
Most drug makers promise access for poor patients. There's no evidence their plans work | STATA decade ago, United Nations officials implored the pharmaceutical industry to expand access to medicines to low- and middle-income countries, and many companies have heeded the call. But a new analysis finds that evidence to evaluate and report the effectiveness of these initiatives is lacking.
If not the U.S., who will pay for drug development? | STAT
American taxpayers pour money into basic biomedical research, supporting the development of drugs that pharmaceutical companies sell back to those same taxpayers at exorbitant price tags — and in other countries for much less.
Speed up drug approval at FDA? It's already faster than Europe's drug agency | The Los Angeles Times
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, President's Trump's nominee to head the Food & Drug Administration, has said the FDA displays an “unreasonable hunger for statistical certainty” and a “profound lack of confidence in the ability of doctors to make careful judgments.”
FDA will allow 23andMe to sell genetic tests for disease risk to consumers | The New York Times
For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration said it would allow a company to sell genetic tests for disease risk directly to consumers, providing people with information about the likelihood that they could develop various conditions, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Safety, quality and clinical practice
To help ward off Alzheimer's, think before you eat | Kaiser Health NewsDiets designed to boost brain health, targeted largely at older adults, are a new, noteworthy development in the field of nutrition.
Close to half of American adults infected with HPV, survey finds | The New York Times
More than 42 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 are infected with genital human papillomavirus, according to the first survey to look at the prevalence of the virus in the adult population.
