In recent years, focus has increasingly shifted to offense rather than defense with the rise of “preventive medicine.” Rather than doing our best to treat conditions once they arise, preventive medicine means getting out in front of the problems—promoting healthy behavior, screening for diseases, trying to remove environmental and economic barriers to care. But how exactly can we catch diseases early, or, better yet, keep people from getting sick in the first place?
Three years after Bobby Jindal’s administration began privatizing nearly all the LSU-run charity hospitals, Louisiana leaders are still sorting through the consequences of the deals struck by the Republican former governor. Costs for the hospitals, their clinics and the safety net services have grown despite Jindal’s claims the contracts would save Louisiana money. Hospital operators are threatening to walk away because of state budget cuts.
Vermont doctors and health care providers can now monitor if their patient has entered an emergency room or been admitted to a hospital or nursing home with a new online app. PatientPing is being used around the state in a pilot program supported by a federal grant.Before, health care providers had relied on phone calls or faxes to get that information about their patients. But that didn't always happen.
This is perinatal hospice, a birth plan that revolves around death. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated diagnostics, families today can confront tragedy with advance notice — and a decision: Should they terminate a pregnancy that cannot sustain life? Or deliver a baby who won’t survive long outside the womb?
U.S. annual spending on prescription medicines will increase 22 percent over the next five years, climbing as high as $400 billion in 2020, according to a report released by health care information company IMS Health Holdings Inc on Thursday. Those figures, which take into account anticipated discounts, rebates and other price concessions that have become common, represent an annual growth rate of 4 percent to 7 percent through 2020, according to the report.
Northwestern Memorial HealthCare wants the Federal Trade Commission to block the merger of Advocate Health Care and NorthShore University HealthSystem because it would like NorthShore to join its system, according to NorthShore's CEO. CEO Mark Neaman delivered the bombshell while on the witness stand Thursday in a hearing over whether its deal with Advocate would violate federal antitrust laws. Northwestern's interest in NorthShore had not been a matter of public knowledge.