Researchers used artificial intelligence to predict the activity of thousands of genes in tumors based on routinely collected images of tumor biopsies. It could guide treatment without costly genomic tests.
The AI algorithms increasingly used to treat and diagnose patients can have biases and blind spots that could impede healthcare for Black and Latinx patients, according to research co-authored by a Rutgers-Newark data scientist.
Those ever-present TV drug ads showing patients hiking, biking or enjoying a day at the beach could soon have a different look: New rules require drugmakers to be clearer and more direct when explaining their medications' risks and side effects. The FDA spent more than 15 years crafting the guidelines, which are designed to do away with industry practices that downplay or distract viewers from risk information. Many companies have already adopted the rules, which become binding Nov. 20. But while regulators were drafting them, a new trend emerged: thousands of pharma influencers pushing drugs online with little oversight. A new bill in Congress would compel the FDA to more aggressively police such promotions on social media platforms.
Since Leapfrog reported Hospital Safety Grades in fall 2022, when HAI rates were at their highest peak since 2016, average HAI scores have declined dramatically: Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) decreased by 38% . Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) decreased by 36% , and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) decreased by 34% .
In a sign that a criminal probe into Steward Health Care has picked up steam, a prominent member of the company's board of directors, former U.S. House speaker John Boehner, appeared at the federal courthouse in Boston Thursday where a grand jury is investigating allegations of fraud, bribery, and corruption within the national health care chain. Boehner ignored several questions from the Globe Spotlight Team at the John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse. Boehner, who recently received a federal subpoena, was inside the courthouse for two hours. As a member of Steward's board, Boehner was privy to key financial details about the company as its financial situation cratered and patients' lives were imperiled by staff and medical equipment shortages.
Ahead of a Beacon Hill hearing, a pair of Massachusetts lawmakers have called on a state oversight panel to ask some tough questions of the company that's taken over the physicians' network formerly owned by bankrupt Steward Health Care. Benson Sloan, the CEO of the private-equity-owned Rural Healthcare Group, is slated to testify before the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. In a three-page letter obtained exclusively by MassLive, Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked the regulatory panel to press Sloan, who is expected to testify under oath, to "uphold the [company's] public commitments" to continue participating in MassHealth, and to preserve continuity of care for former Steward patients.