Medicare's investment in quality improvement may not be paying off
... organizations represents the federal government's largest investment in quality improvement. A different approach may be needed."...Quality of care not necessarily better in hospitals that participate in quality improvement program
...ollar terms, the QIOs are the federal government's largest initiative for improving the quality of care." Claire Snyder, Ph.D., and Gerard Anderson, Ph.D., from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, reviewed data from four QIOs charged with improving the quality of care in five sta...National Service Framework for heart failure urgently needed
... an enormous consumer of healthcare resources. The largest proportion of these costs is on inpatient hospital care, and heart failure patients have an extremely high readmission rate," they write. Structured management programmes, including multidisciplinary teams of nurses, pharmacists, and physiotherapists...Placebos can bring emotional relief
...e pictures. That is, the subjects who reported the largest placebo response also showed the largest decrease in activity in the emotional centers. Also importantly, the placebo increased brain activit...Study shows importance of exposure age for Hanford nuclear workers' cancer risk
...s dropped during World War II. Researchers say the largest cancer risk from older-age exposures is for lung cancer. "Findings of radiation-related cancer risks among nuclear workers have been questioned in the past by other scientists who concluded that most occupational exposures were too low to cause a det...Planned home births in the United States are safe, say researchers
... the safety of such home births is limited. In the largest study of its kind internationally to date, researchers analysed over 5000 home births involving certified professional midwives across the United States and Canada in 2000. Outcomes and medical interventions were compared with those of low risk hospi...Street-level London air pollution warnings coming via mobile phones
...and Croydon in South London. Croydon is one of the largest boroughs by area and the largest by population, with 330 000 residents. YourAir is being developed by Cambridge Environmental Resea...Patients, caregivers to hear research on a potential treatment option for primary immune deficiency
...IDF) National Conference, June 23-25, 2005, is the largest meeting bringing together patients, families and caregivers affected by Primary Immune Deficiency. An important session at the IDF Conference on Friday June 24th is a symposium titled, "Subcutaneous Immune Globulin Therapy: A New Approach to Managi...Value of IVF children to society outweighs their cost to healthcare systems
... child was close to 22 000 in 2002. However, the largest part of the healthcare costs of IVF children are t...re systems." Dr. Granberg's team found that the largest increase in the cost of IVF children was the cost of a normal delivery, which had gone up by 79% bet...Conservative surgery preserves fertility in women with borderline ovarian tumours
The largest study to date on women with borderline ovarian tumours shows that fertility can be preserved if conservative surgery is used, a scientist said at the 21st annual conference of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology. Dr. Christo...HSPH student Kevin Chan awarded Trudeau Foundation Scholarship
...student, Dr. Kevin Chan, has been awarded Canada's largest scholarship for doctoral studies in the social sciences and humanities. The Trudeau Foundation Scholarship, valued at $160,000, is awarded annually to up to 15 exceptional Canadians. Dr. Chan, a Toronto resident, is pursuing a doctorate in public hea...Georgetown cancer researchers develop high throughput method
...rismon, a medical student who assembled the so far largest array of nearly 12,000 individual pieces of liver and kidney tissues for this study. With CEMA, the investigators have also solved the problem of creating arrays of thin-walled or multilayered tissues such as intestine, skin, and blood vessels which ...Conflicts pitting doctors vs. patients / kin is #1 issue in medical ethics, Canadian experts say
... this year, the JCB's Clinical Ethics Group is the largest organised multidisciplinary group of in-hospital clinical ethicists and fellows in Canada (and believed to be the world's largest). The clinical bioethicists work in a range of health care institutions and come from various backgrounds including nur...Vascular disease most common cause of male erectile dysfunction
... to men with cardiac disease and ED, conducted the largest scientific study of its kind, on 425 men with ED and cardiac disease. In the study, appearing in the July issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine , Dr. Jackson wished to see if stable coronary patients with ED could have their oral nitrates disconti...Diuretics effective for people with diabetes and high blood pressure
...ue of Archives of Internal Medicine. ALLHAT is the largest study to compare these three major classes of medications to treat high blood pressure. The study originally reported in 2002 that diuretics were more beneficial as initial treatment for high blood pressure for protecting against adverse cardiovascul...Diabetics with high blood pressure benefit from 'water pills'
... Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT). ALLHAT, the largest hypertension clinical trial ever conducted, was le...l therapy of high blood pressure. "ALLHAT is the largest study to address this question, comparing four different classes of antihypertensive medication: diu...What don't we know? Science presents the great unsolved scientific mysteries of our time
...ence's most profound questions address some of the largest phenomena in the cosmos and some of the smallest. We may never fully answer some of these questions, but we'll advance our knowledge and society in the process of trying," said Donald Kennedy, Science's editor-in-chief. "As Science celebrates it...Health professionals believe gender bias limits women's progression in NHS
...HS yet 80% of NHS staff are women." The NHS is the largest employer in Western Europe, employing 1.2M people. It is also the largest employer of ethnic minority staff in the UK. Of the 1,600 health professionals who took part in the...New drug is effective in reducing rejection in heart transplantation
...m enrolled more than 30 patients in the study, the largest number from one medical center. About 2,100 heart transplants are performed every year in the United States, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. The first year following a heart transplant is the most dangerous period for patients beca...NIMH study finds antipsychotic Risperidone safe, effective as intermediate term treatment for autism
...the withdrawal of the medication. Previously, the largest extended studies of medication for autism with haloperidol, an older antipsychotic, showed the drug to be modestly effective but accompanied by neurological and other side effects. Past research into the effect of risperidone on children with autism ...