Brazil will send 671 health workers to Rio de Janeiro to help overwhelmed emergency rooms that are reporting 80 new cases of dengue fever every hour. Officials have also opened a crisis center for representatives from the state and federal governments and the armed forces to coordinate prevention efforts.
Because chemotherapy costs are rising so dramatically, the American Society of Clinical Oncology is developing guidelines on how to have a straight talk with patients about the affordability of treatment choices. The idea is to treat cost essentially as another side effect to weigh in choosing a therapy.
Nashville, TN-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center is transforming 440,000 square feet of store space in a mall into a healthcare facility that will house 16 clinics. The hospital opened a pediatric rehabilitation clinic in the mall in February 2008, and plans to open other clinical programs, offices and a wellness center. The project is expected to cost about $48.9 million.
Michigan-based St. Joseph Mercy Health System is moving forward with plans to buy Chelsea (MI) Community Hospital. The two organizations have signed a letter of intent to explore the proposed affiliation. They have collaborated for decades and already share doctors with admitting privileges at both facilities.
Immigrants now make up more than a quarter of the workforce in several key healthcare jobs in Massachusetts, such as pharmacists, medical scientists, and surgeons, according to an executive summary for a study by professors from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, Tufts University, and the University of California, Berkeley. But the study's authors say the state should find more ways to move immigrants into the healthcare field to meet a growing demand for care, fueled partly by Massachusetts' campaign to make sure almost every resident has health insurance.
The nonprofit iHealth Alliance is launching an online network that will e-mail alerts to doctors about safety concerns surrounding prescription drugs, notices from pharmaceutical companies about warnings and label changes. The alerts will be focused by specialty, and will be limited almost exclusively to alerts that drug makers send out in what are often known as "Dear Doctor" letters: significant drug-label changes, warnings and recalls.