After a yearlong battle with preservationists, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan has won approval from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission for a slightly smaller version of a planned $830-million medical tower. The tower is a key component of the hospital's $1.63-billion, two-tower plan to modernize its facilities. The commissioners voted to issue a certificate of appropriateness that would permit the hospital to build a 19-story, 286-foot-tall medical building in the Greenwich Village Historic District.
There are five areas the U.S. has to concentrate on in order to improve healthcare: coverage for all, payment incentive reform and realignment, wellness initiatives, quality improvement, and health IT. +
From crafting recruitment campaigns to ensuring service excellence, a collaborative relationship with the human resources department can go a long way. +
India's Central government has granted the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Jhajjar permission to upgrade a health facility in Haryana. The government had previously provided 300 acres of land at Badsa Village for this purpose, and state government officials have already agreed to invest in the project.
New European Union laws allow member states to refuse public access to the disciplinary history of incompetent clinicians, subjecting patients to potentially "dangerous" doctors. The General Medical Council is now lobbying to persuade MEPs to make disclosure of such records automatic in health tourism.
Romania was ranked the second most corrupt country in the European Union last year by Transparency International, a Berlin-based anticorruption watchdog. Officials say this corruption is most prevalent in the country's socialized healthcare system, where graft and bribery have long been commonplace.
Socket Mobile, Inc. has launched new antimicrobial versions of its popular Socket Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner Series 7 for use by mobile workers in healthcare environments. The new Socket Bluetooth CHS 7NRx and 7XRx plastics are made with similar antimicrobial materials as the Socket SoMo® 650Rx handheld computer. The antimicrobial coating provides an extra layer of protection to the device against the multiplication and spread of potentially harmful bacteria and microbes, according to a release.
There are a variety of electronic systems that are now available to make the conduct of clinical trials more efficient. These systems include interactive voice response systems, clinical trial management systems, and electronic data capture systems. But several questions surround these systems, and the "Electronic Data in Clinical Trials" conference has being organized to address these issues.
Not all medical errors are being reported to the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), established in 2001 to collect information on errors made by medical and other staff in the NHS. NHS officials are concerned about this trend—at least 10% of patients admitted to hospitals in England and Wales in recent years have sustained additional injuries or infections as a result of medical staff errors.
An academic says he found thousands of sensitive medical records leaked over peer-to-peer networks from computers at hospitals, clinics, and elsewhere. Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies at Dartmouth College, says he used simple search terms on several filesharing networks and uncovered files listing patient names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, insurance carrier names and insurance diagnosis codes that revealed which patients were being treated for specific diseases.
The global economic crisis has so far left Jordan's medical tourism industry untouched. In fact, according to the Private Hospitals Association, the country is currerntly ranked number one in the Arab world and among the top 10 in the world as a medical tourism destination. Officials say Jordan's high quality medical care, coupled with that care's competitive costs, make it an attractive destination for foreign patients.
