The White House, seeking to engender political support for a healthcare overhaul later this year, brought its traveling health policy forum to Vermont on Tuesday. Governor Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican, and Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, a Democrat, co-hosted a forum with about 400 people on the frontlines of healthcare about how to make sweeping changes to the existing system. The doctors, patients, business people, and government officials repeatedly emphasized similar themes: the need to prevent and manage chronic disease better, attract more primary care doctors, simplify bureaucracy, and find a way to get everyone access to treatment at an affordable price.
Terminally ill cancer patients who drew comfort from religion were far more likely to seek aggressive, life-prolonging care in the week before they died than were less religious patients and far more likely to want doctors to do everything possible to keep them alive, a study has found. The devout patients were three times as likely as less religious ones to be put on a mechanical ventilator to maintain breathing during the last week of life, and they were less likely to do any advance care planning, the analysis found.
The International Conference on Information Technology—New Generations is an annual event focusing on state of the art technologies pertaining to digital information and communications. The conference features keynote speakers, the best student award, poster award, service award and a technical open panel, and workshops/exhibits from industry, government and academia.
Healthcare EDI provider Gateway EDI has released a new Web site. "The new site is user-friendly, intuitive, and customizable. These features help prioritize tasks, organize processes and increase efficiency, which save Gateway EDI's clients time and resources," according to a release.
The House is again set to consider legislation that would expand the National Archives and Records Administration's power to dictate how agencies and the White House preserve electronic records. A similar measure cleared the House in the last session, but was not acted on by the Senate. The bill would amend the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act. Under the proposed legislation, NARA would require agencies to capture, manage, and preserve records in an electronic format and that agency would develop regulations for how agencies maintain electronic records.
An NHS watchdog has found that Stafford Hospital's "appalling" emergency care prompted the deaths of hundreds of patients between 2005 and 2008. According to the Healthcare Commission, deficiencies were discovered in nearly every stage of emergency care at the facility, as managers pursued targets at the detriment of patient care. Among mistakes found to be made at the hospital was the regular use of receptionists to conduct initial checks on patients.