News from other sources...

Pharmaceuticals

Climbing cost of decades-old drugs threatens to break Medicaid bank | Kaiser Health News

Many old and common medications cost Medicaid more in 2016 compared to 2015, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis. For example, Naproxen sodium (the generic of brand-name Aleve) went from costing Medicaid $0.72 a pill in 2015 to $1.70 a pill in 2016, an increase that cost an extra $10 million in 2016.

A cancer conundrum: too many drug trials, too few patients | The New York Times

With an influx of new experimental cancer drugs, researchers and companies are running into a new problem: There aren't enough patients for all the clinical trials they want to run. Currently, drug developers are running more than 1000 immunotherapy trials.

Trump lashes out at black CEO who quits council | CNN Money

Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier quit Donald Trump's manufacturing council Monday morning after Trump didn't specifically condemn white supremacists. "America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy," Frazier wrote in a statement.

Safety, quality and clinical practice

The cost of treating opioid overdose victims is skyrocketing | Stat News

Treating opioid overdose patients got a lot more expensive between 2009 and 2015, with costs rising 58%. The average cost of care per admission rose from $58,000 to $92,400 in the hospitals studied by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Information technology

Is healthcare finally boosting cybersecurity efforts? | Medcity News

Four fifths of respondents to a new HIMSS survey said their organizations employ people dedicated to cybersecurity, while 60% of respondents said their organizations have cybersecurity leaders, such as CISOs.

In other news

Sleep biology discovery could lead to new insomnia treatments that don't target the brain | Science Daily

A gene in skeletal muscle may help the body recover from sleep deprivation. The discovery may one day lead to drugs for insomnia and other sleep disorders that target muscles rather than the brain.