Category Archives: healthcare

Why healthcare is so expensive? Look here for starters! Press release: CMS makes first wave of drug & device company payments to teaching hospitals and physicians public

consulting fees, research grants, travel reimbursements, and other gifts the health care industry – such as medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies – provided to physicians and teaching hospitals during the last five months of 2013. The data contains 4.4 million payments valued at nearly $3.5 billion attributable to 546,000 individual physicians and almost 1,360 teaching hospitals. Future reports will be published annually and will include a full 12 months of payment data, beginning in June 2015.

via Press release: CMS makes first wave of drug & device company payments to teaching hospitals and physicians public.

Human resistance to malaria varies depending on location, study finds – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Humans have evolved different defences against malaria depending on where they live, scientists have found.

About half the world’s population is exposed to the disease, which kills more than 500,000 people each year.

A study, conducted over 10 years across 11 countries, looked for specific mutations known as markers in genes that result in resistance against malaria in almost 12,000 people.

Laboratory head at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Dr Ivo Mueller, said the study found there is a close evolutionary interplay between malaria and human populations.

“It is a complex interaction between the parasite and the human genome,” he said.

“Part of this study was done in Papua New Guinea, but most of these mutations that we found are actually not found in Papua New Guinea because people there never acquired these mutations.

via Human resistance to malaria varies depending on location, study finds – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Liberia’s Chief Medical Officer Goes Under Ebola Quarantine

“Of course we made the rule, so I am home for 21 days,” Dahn said Saturday. “I did it on my own. I told my office staff to stay at home for the 21 days. That’s what we need to do.”

Health officials, especially front-line doctors and nurses, are particularly vulnerable to Ebola, which is spread via the bodily fluids of infected patients. Earlier this month, WHO said more than 300 health workers had contracted Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three most-affected countries. Nearly half of them had died

via Liberia’s Chief Medical Officer Goes Under Ebola Quarantine.

I support union but this is totally irresponsible! LAS VEGAS: Nurses stage Ebola ‘die-in’ on Las Vegas Strip | Health & Science | NewsObserver.com

U.S. hospitals aren’t ready for an Ebola outbreak, according to nurses who staged a “die-in” Wednesday outside a Las Vegas Strip resort where they were holding a union convention.

Many protesters in the crowd of about 1,000 who attended the Planet Nurse convention wore bright red T-shirts and suits resembling hazardous-materials gear as they streamed through the Planet Hollywood casino floor before crossing Las Vegas Boulevard to the Bellagio resort.

via LAS VEGAS: Nurses stage Ebola ‘die-in’ on Las Vegas Strip | Health & Science | NewsObserver.com.

No Time To See The Doctor? Try A Virtual Visit – Capsules – The KHN Blog

Ingrid Antall, a family practice doctor in Thousand Oaks, Calif., who is already part of LiveHealth’s network, said she can often assess what is wrong with patients with colds and minor infections by talking to them and seeing them over the phone or computer.

Antall said she relies heavily on patients’ explanation of their symptoms and guides them through a self-exam, sometimes using flashlights or cell phone lights. “It causes me to be a little more creative,” she said.

She acknowledged that the visits have limitations. “If they really need to be seen in person, I have no hesitation in sending them,” she said.

via No Time To See The Doctor? Try A Virtual Visit – Capsules – The KHN Blog.

The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It | WIRED

We need someone to take over the position of “command and control.” The United Nations is the only international organization that can direct the immense amount of medical, public health and humanitarian aid that must come from many different countries and nongovernmental groups to smother this epidemic. Thus far it has played at best a collaborating role, and with everyone in charge, no one is in charge.

A Security Council resolution could give the United Nations total responsibility for controlling the outbreak, while respecting West African nations’ sovereignty as much as possible. The United Nations could, for instance, secure aircraft and landing rights…

The United Nations should provide whatever number of beds are needed; the World Health Organization has recommended 1,500, but we may need thousands more. It should also coordinate the recruitment and training around the world of medical and nursing staff, in particular by bringing in local residents who have survived Ebola, and are no longer at risk of infection. Many countries are pledging medical resources, but donations will not result in an effective treatment system if no single group is responsible for coordinating them.

I’ve spent enough time around public health people, in the US and in the field, to understand that they prefer to express themselves conservatively. So when they indulge in apocalyptic language, it is unusual, and notable.

via The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It | WIRED.

French minister ‘first from Europe’ to visit Africa’s Ebola-hit region – France 24

“I’m the first European minister to set foot” in the region since the start of the epidemic, Girardin told FRANCE 24’s sister station RFI in an interview ahead of the trip. “France can be proud,” she exclaimed.

Girardin’s visit follows a call from the World Health Organization (WHO), urging the international community to respond more quickly to stop the epidemic from spiraling out of control.

“I’m going to Guinea first to say that France is with them. And that’s not an insignificant message,” she told a news conference in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, on Friday.

“It’s also an important message to say that there are behaviours to adopt, that there are health systems that are resilient and that can take on this Ebola virus,” Girardin said.

“This is the case here in Senegal, it is the case in Ivory Coast and, unfortunately, not the case in Guinea, where health systems have proved less resilient to this virus, this epidemic,” she said, adding that Guinea desperately needs an overhaul of its health infrastructure, but noted “for that we need resources”.

via Africa – French minister ‘first from Europe’ to visit Africa’s Ebola-hit region – France 24.

PAHO warns of heightened chikungunya, dengue threats | CIDRAP

Since the start of the year countries in the PAHO region have reported almost 850,000 dengue infections, including 470 deaths, PAHO said in a press release. As of Sep 5, the area has reported more than 650,000 chikungunya cases, 37 of them fatal.

Both diseases are spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, present in most countries in the Americas.

The group said dengue prevention strategies can be applied to chikungunya, and it recommends beefing up efforts in six ways: patient care, social communication, surveillance, lab capacity, mosquito control, and environmental control.

via PAHO warns of heightened chikungunya, dengue threats | CIDRAP.

Girl, 4, dies of E. coli infection after Labor Day weekend near Oregon Coast | OregonLive.com

Loved ones clung to her, tucked stuffed toys into her bed and burst into her favorite song at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital during an hours-long goodbye to an outdoors-loving 4-year-old girl who died from complications associated with a virulent strain of E. coli.

via Girl, 4, dies of E. coli infection after Labor Day weekend near Oregon Coast | OregonLive.com.

China poultry back on sale as HK grapples with latest food scare – Channel NewsAsia

{Hard to fight centuries of custom and way of doing things. Hong Kong jumped to head of the line in preventing new bird, porcine, and human influenzas by closing live (wet) markets last January. Now with much pressure, the live markets are back and bird flu and new influenzas will not be far behind. Let’s hope that by time Lunar New Year celebrations come, they recover sense and shut the breeding grounds for a new worldwide pandemic.

Like climate change deniers who just don’t want to believe the world has changed – those who have always bought/sold live pigs and poultry at market don’t want to believe that worldwide surge in these markets over last 20 years makes development of a world killer flu even more likely than is the past}

Live poultry from China is back in the wet markets of Hong Kong just in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations after having been banned over a bird flu scare in January.

via China poultry back on sale as HK grapples with latest food scare – Channel NewsAsia.