Alaska has launched a new database designed to help healthcare officials track Alaska residents' vaccine history. The data base, called VacTrAK, is the state's first Web-based immunization information system. The Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services' public health division will manage the database.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has accelerated his administration's efforts to control spiraling statewide healthcare costs, warning that rising premiums threaten to crush families and businesses and doom Massachusetts' experiment with universal insurance. Patrick said officials are considering using state insurance regulations to block excessive healthcare premiums, and he is also summoning leaders of insurance and hospital companies for meetings to ask for their "vigorous cooperation."
Philadelphia-based health Insurer Cigna Corp. said it will cut about 1,100 jobs and take a fourth-quarter after-tax charge of $30 million to $40 million for 2008. The company's 4% workforce reduction will be complete by the middle of the year, and some offices will be consolidated. A declining stock market and the recession have eroded the earnings outlook for Cigna.
If Barack Obama makes good on his promise to increase access to healthcare for America's 45 million uninsured, more people will be seeking appointments with busy primary care doctors. But now some say that the increased demand that would follow health reform could lead to an exodus of Canadian doctors to the United States.
This New York Times article examines the question of whether part of the informed-consent process is doctors having an ethical obligation to tell patients if they are more likely to survive, be cured, live longer, or avoid complications by going to Hospital A instead of Hospital B.
American Well, a Web service that puts patients face-to-face with doctors online, will be introduced in Hawaii. Its first customer, the Hawaii Medical Service Association, will make the Internet version of the house call available to everyone in the state, the company said. The service is for people who seek easier access to physicians because they are uninsured or do not want to wait for an appointment or spend time driving to a clinic, said Roy Schoenberg, co-founder and chief executive of American Well Systems.