Study demonstrates the scale of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing in the US. A new Northwestern Medicine study found only 13% of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions were appropriate, with 36% considered potentially appropriate.
A team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reports in the American Journal of Managed Care that virtual video visits, one form of telehealth visit used at the hospital, can successfully replace office visits for many patients without compromising the quality of care and communication.
Emergency and urgent hospitalizations are associated with an increased rate of cognitive decline in older adults, report researchers at Rush University Medical Center. Results of their study, published in the Jan. 11, 2019, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, shows that hospitalization may be a more of a major risk factor for long-term cognitive decline in older adults than previously recognized.
Canada should invest in a single national electronic health record for primary care to improve the health of Canadians, argues an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
The new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives took its first steps on health care — voting to intervene in the appeal of a Texas-led lawsuit that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional in December. And around the country, Democratic governors and mayors unveiled new initiatives aimed at making health care cheaper and more accessible.
Selective tinkering with the medical center's electronic health records (EHR) system, plus a 20-minute presentation to doctors and nurses on the consequences of in-hospital sleep deprivation, was able to change the behavior of caregivers in ways that allowed more patients to sleep undisturbed through the night.
Advances in artificial intelligence have created new threats to the privacy of people's health data , a new University of California, Berkeley, study shows. Led by UC Berkeley engineer Anil Aswani, the study suggests current laws and regulations are nowhere near enough to keep an individual's health status private in the face of AI development. The research was published Dec. 21 in the JAMA Network Open journal.
Few people are familiar with the term "step therapy," but most Americans have health insurance policies that adopt it. Step therapy programs, also known as "fail first policies," require patients to try less expensive treatments before insurers agree to pay for more costly alternatives.
Medicare's randomized trial of a new bundled payment model for hip and knee replacement surgeries led to $812 in savings per procedure, or a 3.1% reduction in costs, when compared with traditional means of paying for care, according to new research from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School.
The mandate directing individuals to obtain health insurance or face tax penalties ends on Tuesday for most, but not all Americans. In Massachusetts, an individual mandate that has been on the books since 2006 will continue in the absence of the federal fines that had been in effect since 2014 under the Affordable Care Act but were eliminated as part of the Republican-backed tax reform law passed in 2017.
A homeless individual is one who lacks fixed and reliable housing, and approximately 553,000 people fit that description on any given night in the United States. Data suggest a rise in acute hospital use among homeless individuals for mental illness and substance use disorder.
Admissions of infants in England have increased substantially but there is little evidence whether this is across the first year or predominately in neonates, and for all or for specific causes. The aim was to characterize this increase, especially those admissions that may be avoidable in the context of postnatal care provision.