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Washington D.C. Council Creates Nonprofit Corporation To Seize Control of United Medical Center At Foreclosure Auction
More hospital news, this time right under the nose of Washington and Congress, so if this doesn’t generate some attention here, I don’t know what will, again as most are non participants in consumer healthcare IT so it’s kind of of hard to see this I guess. The city will have to subsidize as the h…
VA Awards 3 Year Contract to the City of Hope For End-of-Life Nursing Education And Hospice Care
This is a 3 year contract and everyone knows the City of Hope is the foremost institution for cancer and cancer research. Recently in the news the debate and lawsuits with the City of Hope and their doctors over contracts and physicians groups. The award of this contract may bring some revenue int…
Hospital CIOs Are Unsure if They Can Demonstrate “Meaningful Use of Electronic Medical Records” – CMS is Outsourcing Compliance and Repository to Northrop Grumman at a Cost of $34 Million
I recently commented on the same issue myself with clarity being at the top of the heap. It is a moving target though that never stops moving and new technologies as well as mobile devices are creating changes almost daily, is this new device meaningful? Meaningful Use Stipulations Are Creating N…
First Generic Version of Effexor Approved by the FDA
A little history from the past, there were some fabricated studies written about Effexor and the link below will catch you up as the one doctor stated that the anti-depressant was also good as a pain killer, not so, so no off label for pain. Top Pain Scientist Fabricated Data in Pain Killer Studies…
Bayer Claim That Vitamins Prevent Prostate Cancer Is Now A Class Action Lawsuit – False Advertising
The FDA does not have jurisdiction over the advertisements relative to vitamin supplements, thus this fell under the area of the FTC and it sat around for a while, even with cancer researchers writing to the FTC. The attorneys are on it now and according to this article the advertising worked as sa…
VA Hospital in Missouri Warning Members of Potential Exposure to HIV And Hepatitis
One more story about cleanliness or lack of in this case. This particular exposure was in the area of not keeping dental instruments clean and/or failure to clean. BD (CNN) -- A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to dangerous viruses like he…
St. Louis Startup Cofactor Will Sequence Ozzy Osbourne For Free And 3 Companies Will Interpret
This almost has the sounds of a new reality TV show or maybe I am out to lunch on this one. I say this because PBS has done a few documentaries on individuals that have been sequenced so with all the talk and publicity, perhaps this is moving in that direction. Ozzy Osbourne Is Having His Genom…
Medicare Changes Will Stand to Put More Hospitals Out of Business – Bad Projections and Horrible Implementations From Generally Non IT Participating Leaders
First of all the data being used is from “old” reports and that has value but not for the future, a lot of which is unknown and changes almost daily. Technology will help costs in many ways if it were allowed to be implemented in a “human” way instead of all the algorithms for care that keep surfac…
35,000 Humana Patients Could Soon Be Dropped From Humana in San Antonio – New Contracts and Hospital Reimbursement Was Too Low For Part of the Insured
What is also interesting here is that Humana used to own 3 of the 5 hospitals in the Methodist Healthcare System and sold them to HCA and now they are 50% owned by HCA and 50% by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries, interesting combination over the yeas of acquisitions and mergers. Not all patie…
US Surgeon General Speaks About Microsoft Healthvault Collaboration with My Family Health Portrait
The original press release goes back to February of 2010 and now it appears things are up and moving. I always seen to forget myself that there is a tool provided by the government to store health records online. Surgeon General and Microsoft HealthVault Expand Consumer Benefits for the My Famil…
Performance Reviews at the Hospital Means Pay for Performance for the Facility – Are the Quotas Being Met
This is probably not the first time you have heard this but these conversations are going on all the time at hospitals and other health care facilities due to economic times. Hospitalists are graded on their return admissions and each case is scrutinized by what actions they took and in many cases …
Consumer Watchdog Warns Sebelius on Health Insurers – Good Reason for This as Insurer Subsidiaries Are in The Game to Play Just As Private Equity Groups Diversify and Collaborate Holdings
Perhaps I have had some readers over here at the Medical Quack as this is one of my areas of focus. Companies don’t just buy subsidiaries as an investment any longer, they become working cores to collaborate and supply services, data , etc. to the other subsidiaries or the parent company or holding…
The Intimia™ Breast And Chest Pillow Invented by an RN – Helps Keep Wrinkles From Developing on Your Chest
This was just too good to pass up and not post:) We have all kinds of devices, creams, etc. for wrinkles and now a RN has invented the breast pillow and you can see how it is worn at night from the picture. There’s also a line of skin care that comes along with the pillow for purchase. If one w…
Tenet Signs National Agreement with Cigna – Hospitals To Receive Higher Compensation When Pay for Performance Quality Metrics Are Met
Why are we seeing more diverse contracts with hospitals, well the link below might give a hint as to why and the agreement will allow Tenet facilities to cash in on some pay for performance money if the costs are kept inline. Tenet Healthcare 1st Quarter Income Drops by 51% Compared to Same Quar…
White House Pauses $3 Billion In IT Spending – Office of Management and Budget Conducting Review – One of the First Projects on the Agenda is the Veterans Administration
This is probably not a bad thing at all as with doing this blog I see some very strange items getting funded and perhaps now with an additional review the right areas will be funded. The focus as stated in the article is to specifically look at what is called “high risk” projects, and it also outli…
North General Hospital in New York Closing – To Re-Open as a Government Subsidized Walk In Clinic & Nursing Home
This is the second hospital closure in the New York City area; however at least the facility has plans to continue on as a walk in clinic and a nursing home will move into the 200 bed facility. Other hospitals will have to pick up the slack for inpatients but at least the facility is getting used a…
L.A. County-USC Medical Center Was Perhaps Built Too Small – Severely Overcrowded
Back in October 2008 the new facility opened, state of the art and now we are less than 2 years later and the hospital is over crowded with patients in the hallways. There were many studies made before building and with all the projections made it was anticipated with healthcare technology that les…
Nurses Striking for Safe Patient Care While Wall Street Worries Over the Hospital Bond Issues – Why We Can’t Successfully Reform Healthcare
Do the folks on Wall Street give a darn over what goes on at the hospital and anything about safe patient care? It doesn’t appear that way does it. In the meantime the nurses that we depend upon, who really know everything and every detail when it comes to your care are potentially striking to dri…
Porn Stars on Medical Record Privacy – Legal Suit Filed Claiming Unauthorized Employees Viewed Charts
The stars do not agree with the release forms and to work in the industry they must be tested for disease and in essence I guess there could be exposure of other medical information at risk too. Long and short of it, they want privacy too as patients. BD LOS ANGELES — Two former porn actress…
IUDs Not Approved by the FDA implanted in over 400 patients by OB-GYN Associates in Rhode Island and Massachusetts
This will be interesting to follow up and see what arises when they are done as the IUDs were purchased at half the cost of what ones here in the US cost; however they are approved for use outside the US, so this is not a product that has not been reviewed and there appears to be no real danger. Wh…
