Congress Urges President to Nix Cuts to Teaching Hospitals
from Dot Med News
The American Hospital Association (AHA) reports that a majority of U.S. Representatives have requested in a letter to President Obama that he withdraw a suggested payment cut to teaching hospitals. The cut is to take effect Oct. 1, 2009, under the proposed inpatient prospective payment system rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). That rule ends the indirect medical education (IME) adjustment paid to teaching hospitals for capital expenditures. More

Urgent Care Centers Making Comeback
from the Los Angeles Times
As emergency room visits in the United States have ticked steadily upward, reaching 119.2 million annually, waiting for treatment has become a central feature of emergency care. Patients spend an average of 3.3 hours to be seen, treated and discharged, according to a 2006 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, they are turning to alternatives for treatment facilities. More

Patients Willing to Forgo Some Health IT Privacy for Availability
from HealthImaging.com
A qualitative study conducted by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston revealed that patients want full access to all of their medical records; are willing to make some privacy concessions in the interest of making their medical records completely transparent; and expect that computers may one day substitute for face-to-face doctor visits. More

Senators Say Medicare, Medicaid Changes could Help Pay for Health Care Reform
from McKnight’s Long Term Care News & Assisted Living
To pay for health care reform, lawmakers must consider a number of different options. Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) recently released a 41-page outline of financing options, which include possible changes to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement policy. More

Gender Disparities Seen in EMS Care for Chest Pain
from Reuters
Women with chest pain are less likely than their male counterparts to receive aspirin and other recommended therapies by emergency medical service (EMS) personnel, according to study findings presented last week at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine's annual conference in New Orleans. More

66 Million Could be Uninsured in a Decade without Health Care Reform
from HCPro
If current federal health care reform efforts fall flat in Congress, businesses in 2019 could find their health costs doubled and 65.7 million people could end up uninsured under a worst-case scenario, according to projections from researchers at the Urban Institute in Washington. The researchers, using their Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model, estimated how coverage and cost trends could change between now and 2019. More

Ensuring Safety of Medical Devices
from The Clinical Services Journal
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department of Health responsible for protecting and promoting public health and patient safety by ensuring that medicines and medical equipment meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, performance and effectiveness, and that they are used safely. One way it aims to achieve this is by investigating reports of adverse incidents involving medical devices and instigating corrective actions to reduce the risk of recurrence. More