Those in charge want to take "Durham" out of Durham Regional Hospital's name and put "Duke" in its place. "They felt like taking advantage of the Duke brand would bring more business," said Durham County Commissioners Chairman Fred Foster. "To get the recognition of Durham Regional being part of the Duke system." Durham Regional Hospital administrators and trustees made their case for a name change in one-on-one meetings with all five county commissioners and at a commissioners work session this week. A decision is due at Monday's regular commissioners' meeting.
Several years ago, a highly respected medical expert I had just met shared a little-known detail of his illustrious career: as a young doctor, he had stopped practicing medicine for a few years to homeschool his son. His revelation took me completely by surprise. Doctors rarely talked about taking time off for fear that colleagues would assume them incompetent or in possession of some serious personal flaw.
New York City is seeking to curb abuse of potentially addictive and deadly painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin with new limits on how widely the drugs should be prescribed. Emergency departments at New York's public hospitals will only prescribe a three-day supply of opioid painkillers, won't refill lost or stolen prescriptions and shouldn't prescribe long-acting versions of the drugs, according to voluntary guidelines the city issued today.
Virginia hospital visitors were urged by health care advocates Wednesday to wear masks in an effort to protect against a widespread and severe outbreak of flu rapidly spreading across the country. More than two dozen hospitals, medical facilities and urgent-care centers in the Hampton Roads area announced changes to their visitation policies that also include restrictions on visitors younger than 18 years old, since youth are more susceptible to the severe H1N1 flu strain. "Our goal as health care providers is to use every available means to protect our patients from exposure to outside infections," officials said.
A report by UnitedHealth Group said the U.S. could reduce spending on Medicare and Medicaid by doing a better job of coordinating patient care, particularly for those with chronic illnesses such as diabetes. The report's author, Simon Stevens, said the U.S. could save more than half a trillion dollars over a decade by changing how it cares for patients on those government health plans, which provide coverage for the elderly, disabled, and low income.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will stay in her post, a White House official said Wednesday. Several of President Obama's top Cabinet officials have either stepped down or announced their plans to do so relatively soon, as is common at the beginning of a president's second term. But the White House official said Sebelius—along with Attorney General Eric Holder and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki—will be sticking around.