Access to care may be in jeopardy for some dialysis patients as a Medicare cut is looming on the horizon for ambulance reimbursement. The new Medicare reimbursement rate may fall below a company’s cost of providing ambulance transport services to patients. Medicare administrative contractors have...
Hospitals are quickly shifting away from the traditional inpatient facility that has been established for decades to a new model of delivery of care through investment in outpatient clinics, same-day surgical centers, free-standing emergency departments and micro-hospitals (which have about 8 beds for overnight stays)....
Google researchers presented recent findings in the online medical journal “Nature Biomedical Engineering” that help apply artificial intelligence to predict serious heart problems such as heart attacks or stroke in patients by examining images of the patient’s retina. The researchers say the method they have...
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is trying to stop the widespread use of 911 funds by states to pay for other budgetary priorities. States are using the 911 fees collected from the public to help pay for other government services according to the FCC commissioners. “On...
The flu vaccine is doing a much less effective job in protecting Americans from getting the flu compared to previous years according preliminary figures released by the Centers for Disease Control (cdc.gov). The agency tracked about 4,600 children and adult patients in five states and...
Hospital patients are more likely to die during off-hours, whether due to complications from a heart attack or other serious health issues. New research looks into whether what doctors call the “weekend effect” has changed or improved since first investigated in 2008. The Journal of...
Patients receiving over the counter pain medicine in the emergency room for broken bones and sprains are able to manage pain as well as those receiving powerful opioid painkillers, according to a new study published in the Journal of American Medical Association (jamanetwork.com). The study...
The American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology issued new guidelines for high blood pressure that will include millions more Americans who meet the criteria to be considered at risk of complications from the condition. Most of the people considered newly hypertensive, will include...
Doctors will soon be able to address the longstanding and expensive problem of patient adherence to taking medicine as prescribed. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a digital pill with an embedded ingestible sensor that would tell doctors whether and when a patient has...
To help patients with cardiac arrest receive faster treatment during the critical minutes following the medical incident, researchers at the University of Minnesota are studying how to cram an ambulance with the latest imaging and heart-lung bypass technology. The University is looking to design a...