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Insurance companies deny coverage based on medications a patient is taking obtained from marketing reports…
One more way for the information to run queries to cherry pick applicants is accomplished. When you apply for insurance, the fine writing will usually state that you are giving permission to check any medical information and records and, yes, this includes prescriptions. Even the $4.00 generic re…
FDA, Military Health System tighten data sharing pact
Recently the FDA announced it was going to use the Medicare data base in the effort to mine and help find adverse drug side effects as well as other pertinent data relative to the approval and warning process in place at the FDA. This is more than likely related to the latest technology updates in…
Gentag and MacroArray Develop Prostate Cancer Wireless Diagnostic Processes and Technology
According to this article, a patch would transmit the results direct to a cell phone, more telemedicine in the works? If the efforts are successful, this would allow more to be tested though the technology as the results could be relayed back to the physician or hospital. Biotech at work once mor…
Biogenerics Would Reduce Health Care Costs For Patients, Says Generic Pharmaceutical Association
A new possible term in the world of Biotech, Biogenerics? We currently have Pharmacogenomics working and now perhaps an interest with the Generic Drug business investing in Biotech as well or perhaps the availability of a generic without a long patent protection period? I am not quite sure how t…
GSK Gets on Board with The YouTube Revolution – Well Sort of…
One more Pharma company joins You Tube Channels, GSK, but this post makes a very good point, no embedding, I agree here, what’s up with Glaxo not allowing one to embed! Also as mentioned, where’s the publicity as Eye on the FDA reports that he’s subscriber number 8! Is big pharma still a little g…
Yahoo offers free Zimbra email Client on your Desktop
The race for the desktop email client continues with the latest offering from Yahoo. Up until now you had to be online to work with email, now with the new Zimbra client, you can work with email offline, just as you have been able to do with Outlook for years. You can also import other email acc…
PEAK Surgical Receives Clearance To Market PEAK(R) Surgery System For Use In General Surgery
This appears to be a replacement to the scalpel as known today. Less bleeding and better control are some of the benefits for surgeons. This gives the best of both worlds to the surgeon it appears. Other devices on the market also control bleeding but potentially cause additional tissue damage w…
Physician Funnies – Real comments between Doctors and Patients
It is time for a bit of humor, which is needed from time to time. I don’t know who the author was that put all of these together, but they are funny misconceptions with conversations between MDs and their patients, and it’s real life. Communication mix ups that are just funny and thanks to the M…
California Wants Dr. Kevin Brown’s Medical License
It sounds like there are some pretty major issues here from alleged sexual misconduct to over prescribing Oxycodone and other fraud issues. “Dr. Brown attracted controversy earlier this year when he organized a charity fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion to which his father, the Premier, donated t…
Microsoft HealthVault and RelayHealth (McKesson) to Connect Doctors and Patients
Many of the Tenet hospitals are McKesson Clients. The Relay Health network will be able to connect to the patient’s file “The RelayHealth network then connects the consumer's portfolio of information with the care provider and unifies the management of the personal health record." Physicians w…
Complaints Undermine Hip Device – Zimmer Hip
The sales have been suspended until an investigation from the company can determine the problems and issues with the hip. A surgeon in Los Angeles was the initial person to voice an opinion about the cup failures. BD Zimmer Holdings, the nation’s biggest producer of orthopedic devices, says i…
State freezes Medi-Cal payments to thousands of healthcare facilities - California
We all know that this means and it stands to put many small businesses at risk if they cannot get a line of credit to carry them through until a budget is passed. Nursing Home facilities stand to be hit the hardest. BD SACRAMENTO -- -- Thousands of medical providers who care for low-income Cal…
A sensible censor for sharing medical records – Anonymize medical records for research…
This could be great news as how many times do medical records need to be anonymized for research, a lot. We all remember the case with the NHS and their mistake made a few months back with the records. This will be nice too if it is open source and I hope they send the software over to Medicare t…
AHLTA (military health records software) takes hits in latest Web hall
The physicians were stating it lacked features. Recently the DOD and Military have been collaborating on the subject of medical records and looking at the system used by the VA, called Vista. The use of both systems though would require interoperability to talk to each other as well, something pri…
Advanced Cancer Therapeutics licenses technology to develop HPV vaccine with plants
Merck may be getting some competition in time with the HPV Vaccine business, but the research here will focus on using plants, which they state will provide a vaccine at a cost less to the consumer. BD Advanced Cancer Therapeutics (ACT) has announced the signing of two new collaborative agreemen…
Booming business helps patients navigate medicine – The Medical Advocacy
Some have annual contracted rates and some have a fixed or hourly fee, as complicated as healthcare has become, sometimes it can pay to get some help. There many levels of the advocacy business and some cost a lot more, those set up to cater to the wealthy or well to do crowd, but there is help at…
MedAvant Bankrupt, Will Sell – Medical Clearinghouse
The clearinghouse business has become very competitive and the company was not able to maintain the stock pricing requested by NASDAQ. BD Claims clearinghouse MedAvant Healthcare Solutions in Atlanta has filed for voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The vendor…
GSK chief elaborates on biotech strategy
One CEO comes out and states how biotech will be the new focus for Glaxo, as in a related story whereby patients will require genetic testing for their AIDS drug, Ziagen. In the future I’m sure there will be more about big pharma and their biotech strategies as personalized medicine continues to g…
California Alcohol Problems Drain $38 Billion Annually
We keep reading the articles about the problem with alcohol in the UK being a problem, well it looks like they are not alone and we give them a run for the money in California, or at least this is the only state with some statistics to report. BD Marin Institute, the alcohol industry watchdo…
I have stem cells in my belly…harvesting fat..
There could be a dual purpose now to having liposuction, save those stem cells during the procedure as they could be used to generate new tissue or bone to be used in many reconstructive ways. Clinical trials are ongoing in other countries with fat cells, in in the US, pre-clinical research is ta…
UK Doctors to Face Regular Tests of Competence
In the UK a new competence regulation goes into effect in 2009, a competence test to include a review of their peers. That’s right, every 5 years a re-check for the physicians, but at least it is a review of peers and not the government doing the audit. This constitutes one big change for the MDs …
Schwarzenegger signs ban on health insurers' rescission reward practice - California
Hopefully this will help give some “teeth” the Department of Managed Care here in California, which recently reviewed carriers and resulted in a fine of over 13 million for Blue Cross and Blue Shield. No more pay for performance in this area of healthcare hopefully. BD Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger …
FDA's June 2008 Clearances of 510(k)s
How fast is the FDA clearing medical devices? This page will show you a list of what was approved for the month of June. The list is quite long and lists medical devices from all areas of health care. BD Includes clearances for Abbott Vascular, Biomet Spint, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Medtronic V…
Bristol-Myers Could Cut More Jobs
There is more potential downsizing going on with big Pharma. Just yesterday an article related to the number of plants set to the be closed in the US. I might guess this could be the sign of more outsourcing overseas. BD Last year, Bristol-Myers Squibb said it was cutting some 4,000 jobs as pa…
Statin Side Effect Test: Worth the Price?
Statin side effects, weakening and sore muscles, this topic has been commented on here as well. My question would be are they one in the same, weakening muscles or just muscular pain and are they the same? It looks now like there is some research in the personalized medicine area to create a te…
Saint Mary's warns of possible data leak - Nevada
Data breach story of the week, this was not the main health care records files, but data bases used for community programs. Not too long ago I remember having this conversation with an organization too about not taking any of this information out of the area on USB sticks to work on at home. Ther…
Senator Dr. Tom Coburn – Talks about Bloggers, Healthcare and Technology from the US Senate…
Nice interview with Senator Tom Coburn, one of two doctors in Congress, but he is the only medical doctor that continues to practice. Imagine going to see you doctor the Congressman! Robert Scoble in his Washington series discussed blogging, Healthcare and how Congress operates, good topics. T…
Slydial – Go Direct to Voicemail on the Cell phone you are calling without disturbing the other person by ringing the phone
This is nice from any wireless carrier and no sign up required. Just dial the number and it will bypass the voice capabilities of the person you are calling on the cell and go directly to voice mail. I can see this being very helpful in healthcare for physicians so as not to disturb them with…
Roche snaps up Arius platform for $189M
Mark up one more purchase for Roche this week. Pharmaceutical companies are looking for for biotech purchases and Roche is not wasting one moment this week. Arius fits right in with current ongoing cancer research. Who will be on the list tomorrow? BD Roche announced this morning that it is…
Kaiser Permanente -The Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group partners with West Coast group
All locations have the the same medical records at all facilities and now they can consult with each other coast to coast. The patients and records were already connected and now the physicians are connected. BD The Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group and The Permanente Medical Group, a natio…
Press Release E-MDs Health Care Records - Maryland
As an added benefit, for the participants in the program, special pricing incentives have been included for the group. BD e-MDs, an industry leader in the development and implementation of electronic health records (EHRs), announces it has been selected as a qualified participant to assist t…
3rd Annual World Congress Leadership Summit on The Road to Interoperability – Key Note Speakers, Goals and PHRs
This week the Congress meeting is in Boston. I referenced in a earlier post that PHR's, (personal health records) are being viewed by Healthcare leadership as the favorite vehicle for interoperability. There is a podcast at the link below. There was a full line up of guest speakers, including Dr.…
And The Next Pharma Plant To Close Will Be
This article is an eye opener when we think about reality and where pharmaceuticals are being manufactured, and there are 26 more still scheduled to close. Some may just be old and out of date, but this might suggest to ponder how much manufacturing is done here anymore and how much is done overse…
North Hawaii hospital CEO quits after 2 months – Grady gets new CEO
Hospitals under stress with re-organization – North Hawaii also just lost their big financial supporter, Earl Bakken, founder of Medtronic. Meanwhile, Grady in Atlanta gets a new CEO to hopefully guide them in the direction they need to go as well. BD Jeff Comer, chief executive of the embattled…
The Medical Travel RoadShow Debuts in Six U.S. Cities
If you haven’t heard enough about Medical Tourism, they are taking it on the road now. Health screenings, including blood pressure and cholesterol testing, disease management counseling will be offered to attendees with giveaways and prizes drawn. It is not free and requires a $5.00 registratio…
Medpedia, new Wikipedia of medical information – Medical Professionals can sign up now…
We have another encyclopedia type site in addition to the new Knol from Google, except this new Wikipedia is healthcare only and membership is for Medical Professionals; however, everyone can contribute and give ideas and feedback. The official launch is not slated until the end of 2008 but contri…
Healthcare leaders favor personal networks (Personal Health Records) to RHIOs for data exchange
If you are not familiar with the term RHIO (regional health information organization) this is the efforts of communities working together to make medical records talk to each other and exchange information in simple terms. Personal Health Records are looking to emerge as the more proficient way t…
Healthcare professionals leading source of information On company's prescription savings programs
If you forget to ask, there’s a reference on this site called “Needy Meds” that will link to a page that will offer additional assistance with getting access to many drugs, always listed in the right hand side of the site, under the $4.00 Prescription section. BD More than a third of the people…
Google Opens Doors to Knol – Online Encyclopedia - Open for Contributions...
If you are familiar with Wikipedia, Knol will be no problem to understand and work with. There are a few changes though with authors not being anonymous with their entries as is the case with Wikipedia. They would like real names, but that is an option. Readers can also request changes to arti…
Struggling generations: Bankruptcies among seniors soaring
Senior bankruptcy rates go up, while middle ages filing go down, this clearly reflects a need to get Medicare reconnected, as this is not what the “Golden Age” should be about, and the number one cause is healthcare costs. Where is that “Golden Age” anyway? BD The average age for filing bankruptc…
Roche Helps Catch Tour de France Cheater
Roche has been all over the news this week and one more claim to fame to their technology was the ability to catch an athlete cheating. Athletes still keep trying but hopefully efforts like this will keep the competition honest and fair, nobody wants a cheater to win. BD Ricardo Ricco, who upse…
Dennis Quaid tours Dallas hospital
Dennis Quaid is continuing his efforts for better safety in taking a tour of a hospital in Dallas that is using a bar coding system. Hat’s off for his continued efforts and taking the time to find out what’s available out there. As everyone remembers his 2 children had staff infections and were ta…
Viagra helpful to women on antidepressants, study finds
Well it sounds like the female gender could soon be enjoying the benefits of Viagra according to the study, especially when taking anti-depressants. Viagra blocks an enzyme that inhibits blood flow and thus additional blood flow can travel to other parts of the body. Back in March there was an ar…
The cancer patient gives his verdict on Drug Trial - Abiraterone
At 50 diagnosed with prostate cancer, tried radiotherapy and hormone suppressants, but a few months later the cancer had spread to his bones. He was told he had around 2 years left to live and was in a big amount of pain. He signed up for the trial of the drug abiraterone and there were substanti…
Generics Are Cheap, but They Could Be Cheaper
Good article from the Wall Street Journal blog here about generics, however in the example quoted below, the patient’s benefit payment of 146.53 just doesn’t come close to taking advantage of a cash prescription of the same drug for $10.00 for a 90 supply at Wal-Mart or Target. In this case with th…
