The flu vaccine last season was almost completely ineffective at preventing the disease, but it might have helped some people stay out of hospital, researchers reported here.
On September 25, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a proposed rule altering the regulatory regime governing the handling and disposal of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals generated at healthcare facilities and managed at pharmaceutical reverse distributors. The proposal is intended to simplify the regulatory burden of complying with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act's (RCRA) cradle-to-grave management of hazardous wastes at healthcare facilities by providing an industry-specific approach to hazardous waste regulations that takes into account the realities of waste management within the industry. Currently, facilities that generate, ship, store, or dispose of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals must comply with all of the requirement of RCRA Subtitle C.
As Baptist Health prepares to open an MD Anderson-branded cancer care center on its Jacksonville campus later this month, competing local provider St. Vincent's HealthCare has announced it will partner with Mayo Clinic to expand its cancer care services by the summer of 2016. Though the move could easily be seen as a direct response to the introduction of big name MD Anderson into the Northeast Florida market, Michael Schatzlein, the new CEO of St. Vincent's, said that wasn't the case. St. Vincent's and Mayo's combined cancer care services will be housed in a 11,500-square-foot medical suite on St. Vincent's Riverside campus, which is slated for completion by next summer.
A recent article in BMJ questioned the oft-held notion that most people prefer to die at home. Although public surveys commonly report that two-thirds of those asked say they prefer to die at home, "there is considerable variation between studies," wrote Kristian Pollock, of Nottingham University, in England. In addition, "A substantial number of people do not specify a preference, and there is rarely an option for 'it depends' or 'does not matter.'"
In a small study of hospitalized patients, those who felt ready to go home when they were discharged were more satisfied with the hospital and their caregivers than those who didn't feel ready to go. It may be useful to use patient readiness for discharge as one measure of quality of care, the authors write in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Readiness for discharge was not, however, tied to how often patients were later readmitted to the hospital, they found.
A new, highly sensitive blood test may help doctors quickly rule out heart attack for almost two-thirds of people who seek emergency room treatment for chest pain, a new study suggests. Researchers said their findings could potentially reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and substantially lower health-care costs. "Until now, there were no quick ways to rule out a heart attack within the emergency department," said the study's lead author, Dr. Anoop Shah, from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. "Over the last two decades, the number of hospital admissions due to chest pain has tripled. The overwhelming majority of these patients do not have a heart attack," Shah said.