Japanese researchers have demonstrated part of an envisaged molecular level system that might one day enable cell phones to keep watch on their owners' health. NTT DoCoMo hopes some future cell phones will contain devices capable of analyzing molecules from the user's body to provide a warning about a possible virus, high levels of stress or other factors that might affect health.
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons has ended efforts to oust three doctors from the state's Board of Medical Examiners because of their ties to the owner of a Las Vegas clinic where flawed procedures set off a regional health scare. Gibbons now plans to appoint three temporary board members able to step in as the panel deals with matters involving the clinic linked to a hepatitis C outbreak.
Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, CA, has emerged as the leading candidate to take on the challenge of reopening Martin Luther King-Harbor hospital in Los Angeles. Pacific Hospital, which offers only basic emergency services and relatively few specialized programs, is in negotiations with the county to provide in- patient services for residents of South Los Angeles and surrounding communities.
Beginning in summer 2008, Medicare beneficiaries in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will see prices slashed by an average of 25 percent on oxygen equipment, power wheelchairs, walkers and many other medical devices and supplies. Medicare officials estimate that seniors and others with disabilities will save hundreds of dollars a year because of a competitive bidding program the federal agency is launching.
Trauma hospitals across the country are closing or at least eliminating expensive services. Georgia's dearth of such hospitals is now dramatically impacting patient safety. In Georgia alone, the state death rate for trauma victims is 20 percent higher than the national average. If Georgia met the average, 700 lives would be saved yearly, according to data.
Some doctors, medical information companies, and health insurers are betting that patients are willing to pay for the convenience of describing their symptoms from work or home. Insurers Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. have announced that they will pay for doctors' visits on the Web, for example. Aetna expanded a pilot program in California, Florida and Washington to the rest of the country on Jan 1, 2008. Cigna will start paying for the "virtual visits" in January 2009.
Construction on a patient care tower at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, CT, has been temporarily halted after the work threatened the structural integrity of an adjacent building. Hospital officials doubted that the additional site work would add significantly to the projected $102 million cost of the 10-story building, which is to house a larger emergency room, more operating suites and additional in-patient rooms. No patients at the hospital have been impacted by the problem.
Caritas Carney Hospital in Boston has cut 55 jobs, including managers, nurses, and secretaries. Despite the cuts, the hospital has seen increasing patient volumes that have put its performance ahead of its financial projections for the current fiscal year. The hospital now awaits a consultant's report that could lead to other major changes at the community teaching hospital.
Medical-device makers, venture capitalists and surgeons are racing to turn gastric banding--a once-controversial weight-loss procedure--into the next big thing in elective surgery. In gastric banding, a silicone band is wrapped around the upper stomach to restrict food intake. A number of recent studies suggest that gastric banding is safer than gastric bypass. Improvements in surgical techniques and follow-up care have helped the surgery become the dominant weight-loss operation in Europe and Australia.
Many hospital patients are dissatisfied with some aspects of their care and might not recommend their hospitals to friends and relatives, according to the government Web site www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov. The ratings for most of the nation's hospitals are based on a uniform national survey of patients, and many patients reported that they had not been treated with courtesy and respect by doctors and nurses; that they had not received adequate pain medication after surgery; and that they did not understand the instructions they received when discharged from the hospital.
