Medicine

Support to Focus on Academic Medical Centers, Hospitals, Associations and Medical Societies as Move Eliminates Direct Support for Commercial CME Providers

NEW YORK, July 02, 2008 -- Pfizer today announced changes in the way it supports continuing medical education (CME) initiatives for U.S. healthcare professionals. Pfizer will continue to support CME programs at many of the world’s leading academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, as well as programs sponsored by associations, medical societies and community hospitals, in keeping with the shared goal of improving public health.    » read more »

GE caring for more than 10,500 athletes from over 200 countries at Beijing Games with advanced MRI, ultrasound and ECG technologies

BEIJING, 01 July 2008 -- GE Healthcare, the US$17 billion healthcare business of General Electric Company (GE), is working with medical leaders in the Olympic Movement to advance the use of innovative medical imaging technologies to provide insight into athlete health, as well as benefits for the general public. The company will supply a broad array of medical technologies, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound and electrocardiogram (ECG) to the Olympic Village General Hospital. In addition, three National Olympic Committees, including China, U.S.    » read more »

April 21, 2008 -- Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in formal testimony today, called again for a prohibition against drug company gifts and other benefits provided to doctors that may improperly influence health care decisions.

Pharmaceutical drug companies spend more than $11 billion annually to market prescription drugs - most of it directed at health care providers.

Pills: Photo by e-magic (CC)

Research has repeatedly found that such gifts influence health care provider decisions.    » read more »

"20/20: Medical Mysteries" Reports On Some Of The Strangest Cases Known To Medicine, Friday, March 28 At 9:00 P.M. On ABC

Thursday, March 27, 2008 -- From living life without arms or legs to unstoppable hair-pulling, "20/20" reports on rare medical cases and conditions that even doctors can barely understand, on a special edition of the show, FRIDAY, MARCH 28 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

"20/20: Medical Mysteries" reports include:

* Living without limbs: All parents holds their breath at that moment of birth, and then begin counting... ten fingers, ten toes. But what if there were no arms or legs? Bob Brown reports on a man born that way, and how he uses his voice to make a difference.    » read more »

March 18, 2008 -- Although advances in genomic medicine for common adult chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer hold promise for improved prevention, diagnosis and treatment, health professionals and the public are not prepared to effectively integrate these new tools into practice, according to a study released today by researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the RAND Corporation.    » read more »

February 21, 2008 -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today licensed a treatment for hemophilia A, a rare, hereditary blood-clotting disorder that affects approximately 15,000 individuals, almost exclusively males, in the United States.

The new treatment, called Xyntha Antihemophilic Factor (Recombinant) Plasma/Albumin Free, is a genetically engineered version of factor VIII, a protein essential for the clotting of blood. Factor VIII, known as an anti-hemophilic factor, is missing or decreased in patients with hemophilia A.    » read more »

Updated prophylaxis recommendations are issued for physicians

February 8, 2008 -- The Minnesota and North Dakota Departments of Health today notified physicians that there have been three meningococcal cases over the past year (two cases in Minnesota in January 2008 and one case in North Dakota in January 2007), in which the strain was found to be resistant to quinolone antibiotics. These are the first known quinolone-resistant meningococcal cases in the United States.    » read more »

Patients still at risk because reforms not enacted nationwide

Feb. 5, 2008 -- CHICAGO — New research on medical liability reforms continues to show that caps on non-economic damages are effective, lowering medical liability premiums, resulting in an increased supply of physicians to care for patients. A new analysis of independent research summarized by the American Medical Association (AMA) provides an update on the positive impact of caps on non-economic damages on the broken medical liability system.    » read more »

NEWPORT NEWS, VA, Jan. 28 - A new medical imager for detecting and guiding the biopsy of suspicious breast cancer lesions is capable of spotting tumors that are half the size of the smallest ones detected by standard imaging systems, according to a new study.    » read more »

101,000 Fewer Americans Would Die Annually If the U.S. Improved Its Preventable Death Rate to that of the Three Top Performing Nations

January 8, 2008, Bethesda, MD—The United States places last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, according to new research supported by The Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February issue of Health Affairs. While other nations dramatically improved these rates between 1997–98 and 2002–03, the U.S. improved only slightly.    » read more »

Western New York Health Insurer Adopts Model; Code Developed with National Physician and Consumer Groups

BUFFALO, NY -- December 12, 2007 – New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced an agreement with Buffalo-based Independent Health Association, Inc., in which the company has adopted Cuomo’s Model Code for doctor ranking programs.

With this agreement signed today, a total of seven state, regional and national insurers have adopted Attorney General Cuomo’s Doctor Ranking Model Code.    » read more »

Bi-partisan effort is supported by Senate and House colleagues, patient advocates, medical experts

12/05/2007 -- WASHINGTON D.C. – Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) led a bipartisan group of legislators today to introduce a bill that would expedite the adoption of electronic prescribing technology in every doctor’s office in America. Prescribing electronically instead of by-hand has been proven to save lives and cut costs on a massive scale.    » read more »

11/20/2007 -- Continuing his historic commitment to expand broadband network access across California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced a $22 million grant award to the California Telehealth Network by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).    » read more »

National Doctor and Consumer Groups Support Model

NEW YORK, NY (November 14, 2007) – New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the largest health insurer in New York State, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield (“Empire”), has agreed to adopt the Attorney General’s model for doctor ranking programs.

Empire is owned by WellPoint (NYSE: WLP), the nation’s largest health insurer. Empire is the WellPoint subsidiary in New York and the largest health insurer in the state, with approximately five million members.    » read more »

November 9, 2007 -- "This agreement in principal - the result of an unprecedented investigative partnership between Connecticut and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia - will return millions of dollars to the Medicaid program. If it becomes final, the Cephalon settlement by no means ends Connecticut's intensive ongoing investigation into the company's off-label marketing.    » read more »