Few states are monitoring, much less acting to protect, patient-consumers from one of the hot trends in today’s health care: the mergers, acquisitions, consolidations─and yes, closings─that are creating super-sized hospital organizations, chain-institutions that for business reasons seek greater efficiencies but also may be lessening access to care, sometimes as a result of religious reasons. That’s….
Continue ReadingArchives for June 2016
Are physicians biased against heavy patients? Does it harm their care?
Human failings vex doctors, too, and their biases against the overweight, especially women, may be detrimental to quality of care. White practitioners also may benefit from racial bias, earning significantly more than their colleagues of color. Stat, the online health news site, delves into the less discussed issue of physicians’ prejudice against patients who are….
Continue ReadingPublic shaming works, a little, to rein in collectors of unpaid medical bills
A despicable element of Big Medicine’s big business has been getting some badly needed scrutiny, with the public glare highlighting how debt incurred due to medical treatment crushes far too many Americans and how reforms are desperately needed. Is public shaming becoming one of the key ways to deal with a horrible problem for Americans?….
Continue ReadingNew advice for protecting our vision and hearing in the digital age
Experts have new cautions about protecting your vision while using computer screens, while others have some new thoughts on how to improve the access and affordability of hearing care. Millions around the world may suffer headache, eye strain, double vision, dry eyes, eye fatigue and other symptoms of eye strain due to long periods spent in….
Continue ReadingSugar pushers turn to tart tactics as health agencies work to make processed food healthier
Even as Uncle Sam stepped up efforts to get Americans to consume less salt, sugar interests are finding ways to try to stay one step ahead of health officials’ work to make processed foods both less salty and less sugary. The federal Food and Drug Administration surprised no one with its announcement, after years of controversy,….
Continue ReadingIn LA area, 11 more deaths blamed on dirty exam scopes
The damage from dirty examination scopes won’t stop, with a public health agency in Pasadena, Calif., blasting a respected hospital for failing to report 16 infections that resulted in 11 deaths. Huntington Hospital may have violated California laws by not informing officials of the outbreak of infections of drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The problems may have….
Continue ReadingOfficials alarmed over first detection in U.S. of antibiotic-resistant superbug
Public health officials have sounded alarm bells after military researchers cared for the first patient in the United States to be diagnosed with germs that resist an antibiotic that is considered a therapy of last resort. The 49-year-old woman in Pennsylvania, who has not been identified, has recovered from a urinary tract infection, which was….
Continue ReadingNFL tries to pull a fast one on funding for head-trauma research
What’s $30 million among friends? When the National Football League offered in 2012 to provide that sum to support concussion research by the National Institutes of Health, the conventional wisdom held that the sports powerhouse was finally coming around. The league basked in public praise for taking a more progressive approach to its challenges with….
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