Where does “health care transformation” exist? Google finds us 70,600,000 hits on the subject. Good luck with that. Is it out there in parts? On the horizon: in accountable care organizations; patient-centered medical homes? In gene therapy and epigenetics? In HIPPA-compliant health information networks? In our National Prevention Strategy? In diet therapies approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for cardiovascular disease?
Mini-Sentinel is the Food & Drug Administration’s new tool to assist in monitoring the safety of drugs and medical products after FDA approval. It is a pilot program for FDA’s larger sentinel system, a multifaceted effort by the FDA to develop a national electronic system that will complement existing methods of safety surveillance, which is currently under development.(1) (2)
“I’m thinking of getting a full-body CT scan,” Jane said. “What do you think?” Here was a healthy, active 72-year-old with no specific symptoms considering an expensive screening test. When asked for a reason, she shared that strokes run in her family and a doctor told her that she might be able to see if there was a possible bulge in a blood vessel in her brain. Plus, while they were looking, the scan could see if there was some other problem.
After a decade of conflict in Iraq, our troops have come home, producing the largest increase in the number of American veterans since the 1970s. After Vietnam, an America tired of war and consumed with political angst neglected its veterans. Fortunately, the veterans of today are receiving the homecoming they deserve. To make that homecoming complete, America needs to ensure that our returning warriors have access to one of the most important benefits they have earned: health care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For small business, the 2010 health reform law means higher costs, more red-tape and fewer choices. Some provisions are already in effect (e.g., coverage expansions, drug tax, FSA limits). Others start in 2013 (e.g., medical device tax, increased “Medicare” taxes on business owners’ wages, a new “Medicare” tax on owners’ investments).
By Stuart Taylor, Jr. for Kaiser Health News
How big is the constitutional challenge to the Obama health care law, which the Supreme Court will hear on March 26-28?
For starters, it's big enough for the justices to schedule six hours of arguments—more time than given to any case since 1966. After all, the Affordable Care Act is arguably the most consequential domestic legislation since the creation of Medicare in 1965.
The International AIDS Conference is coming to the United States this July 22-27 for the first time in over 20 years. This is the 19th time the global HIV/AIDS community will be convened for this event. It is the world’s largest—and most important—conference for bringing together service providers, advocates, policymakers and scientific and social science researchers to learn about and share advances in prevention, treatment, care and policy for an epidemic that counts 34 million living with HIV/AIDS worldwide.
The Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides federal grants to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals and nutrition education for low-income, pregnant and postpartum women, infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional-risk. Based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, the foods available to participants in the WIC program underwent a significant overhaul in 2009 to better align nutrient intake among WIC participants with the latest dietary guidelines.
It is often difficult to discern what is happening on the fringe of things and then decide whether any of it matters. In the last year, the center of health care has bulged with inevitably growing and demoralizing statistics of illness and costs, predictably warmed by the heat of presidential campaign rhetoric. But at its edge, centrifugal forces have been at work, tilting some usually obscure elements into the light.
Innovation in health care products, services, delivery models and processes has emerged as a popular solution to spiraling U.S. health care costs as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launches its $1 billion challenge to the public and private sectors to demonstrate and scale value-driven innovations that reduce health care costs while maintaining or improving quality. Innovations proven in pilot and demonstration projects offer the potential for improvements in health care efficiency, effectiveness and affordability.
