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Found 645 results
  1. News Article
    CVS Health confirmed last year it was closing half its Coram home infusion branches and firing about 2,000 nurses, dietitians and pharmacists. Their patients with life-threatening digestive disorders depend on parenteral nutrition, or PN — in which amino acids, sugars, fats, vitamins and electrolytes typically are pumped through a catheter into a large vein near the heart. A day later Optum Rx, another big supplier, announced its own consolidation. Suddenly, thousands were scrambling for their complex essential drugs and nutrients. “With this kind of disruption, patients can’t get through on the phones. They panic,” said Cynthia Reddick, a senior nutritionist laid off last summer in the CVS restructuring. “It was very difficult. Many emails, many phone calls, acting as a liaison between my doctor and the company,” said Elizabeth Fisher Smith, a 32-year-old public health instructor in New York, whose Coram branch closed. A rare medical disorder has forced her to rely on PN for survival since 2017. “It added to my mental burden,” she said Home and outpatient infusions in the USA are a growing business, as new drugs for chronic illness expand treatment options and enable patients, providers and insurers to avoid hospitalisation. But while reimbursement for expensive new drugs has attracted corporations and private equity, the industry is constrained by a lack of nurses and pharmacists. The less profitable parts of the business — and the vulnerable patients they serve — are at risk. This includes the 30,000-plus Americans who rely on parenteral nutrition — including premature infants, post-surgery patients and those with damaged bowels because of genetic defects. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Washington Post, 6 February 2023
  2. News Article
    Plans to prevent one of the deadliest cancers for women in Jamaica have been significantly set back by the Covid pandemic, new figures reveal. The scheme to vaccinate schoolgirls against cervical cancer in Jamaica – which is the cancer with the second highest death rate in the Americas – began in 2018, but the Pan American Health Organization says inoculation rates fell to just 2.71% in 2021. This represents a drastic drop from the 2019 rate of 32%, and far from the WHO target of 90% by 2030. The cancer, which is curable if caught early, kills 22 in every 100,000 women in Jamaica. By comparison, in the UK the rate is 2.4 in every 100,000, and in Canada it is 2. Prevention of cervical cancer in Jamaica is also hindered by low rates of cervical screenings. “Women are afraid of the screening process and potential pain, but there is also a fear of a cancer diagnosis itself,” said Nicola Skyers of Jamaica’s Ministry of Health. “Some people just prefer not to know. But I also think that healthcare providers don’t offer screenings often enough. If a healthcare provider is really ‘selling’ the pap smear, more often than not the woman will choose to have it.” Health workers are forced to focus on cures rather than preventions amid staffing shortages and an overburdened healthcare system, said Skyers. “As a doctor, you won’t be encouraging every women you see to do a pap smear if you have 40 patients waiting outside.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 February 2023
  3. News Article
    President Joe Biden has announced to the US Congress that he will end the country’s Covid-19 public health emergency on 11 May, although about 500 Americans are currently dying every day from Covid-19. He also plans to end the related national Covid-19 emergency. In contrast, the World Health Organization said on 27 January that the Covid-19 pandemic was still a public health emergency. The US administration’s statement said that extending the emergencies until May would provide time for an orderly transition. Ending the emergencies will mean that many Americans will lose the health insurance provided through the Medicaid programme, which helps people on low incomes and was extended during the pandemic. Many others will find that they no longer get free tests, treatments, or vaccines. Read full story Source: BMJ, 1 February 2023
  4. News Article
    Community health workers are stepping in to provide critical services and information in rural areas in Texas, USA, with few hospitals or doctors. When Claudia Salazar and her family migrated to San Elizario, Texas, a small city in El Paso county, they settled into a colonia – informal, low-income housing often found in rural parts along the US-Mexico border. But the remoteness of their new home soon presented problems – Salazar suddenly found herself in a medical desert. The nearest hospital is a 35-minute drive away. Even that is challenging to get to – the community’s mostly farm worker population works 10- to 12-hour days, and often lacks adequate time to travel for medical attention between workdays. The lack of consistent medical access is just one of the many public health issues that colonias face, and a group of women familiar with the dynamics in this region thought of a relatively simple solution: bringing medical care to the people who need it most in these borderland communities. “Familias Triunfadoras has been really helpful since they provide a mobile unit clinic,” Salazar said. “That’s when we get a chance to visit a doctor or get a doctor’s appointment.” Familias Triunfadoras is a San Elizario-based non-profit that is composed of women who step in as community organizers to connect residents like Salazar to resources they may not know exist. Their efforts to make healthcare more accessible in medical deserts like San Elizario has proven invaluable to residents. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 2 February 2023
  5. News Article
    Erik, a 26-year-old Seattle grocery clerk, who also has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), has been unable to get his medications filled for months now – and he’s worried he’ll lose the first full-time job he’s ever had. For people like Erik, ADHD medication is a prerequisite for basic functioning – and over the last year it’s become dramatically harder for patients like them to access care. Last October, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a shortage of Adderall, one of the most common stimulant medications for ADHD. In recent months, patients have reported problems filling nearly every type of ADHD medication. What’s stranger is that no one seems to know why. Is it some kind of supply chain issue? A pandemic-era surge in demand? A government crackdown? Official explanations have offered little clarity. The FDA’s announcement mentioned “intermittent manufacturing delays” at Teva, the producer of the branded version of Adderall, but few other details. The American Society of Health Pharmacists reports shortages of multiple ADHD drugs but says manufacturers have given no explanation. The situation has left patients in turmoil. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 30 January 2023
  6. News Article
    Physicians' happiness fell amid the pandemic and is not rebounding easily, according to Medscape's 2023 Physician Lifestyle and Happiness Report. The report is based on survey responses from 9,175 U.S.-based physicians in 29 specialties polled last year between 28 June and 3 October. The report found: 1. 59% of physicians said they were "somewhat" or "very happy," down from 84% before the pandemic. These figures mirror percentages seen in Medscape's same report conducted last year. 2. The percentage of physicians who are happy at work, specifically, fell from 75% before the pandemic to 48% today. 3. Four in 10 physicians said they regularly look after their own health and wellness, up from 33% who said the same in Medscape's 2022 report. 4. 53% said they would take a pay decrease in return for better work-life balance. Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 20 January 2023
  7. News Article
    The percentage of Americans reporting they or a family member postponed medical treatment in 2022 due to cost rose 12 points in one year, to 38%, the highest in Gallup’s 22-year trend. The latest double-digit increase in delaying medical treatment came on the heels of two consecutive 26% readings during the COVID-19 pandemic that were the lowest since 2004. The previous high point in the trend was 33% in 2014 and 2019. An average 29% of U.S. adults reported putting off medical treatment because of cost between 2001 and 2021. Americans were more than twice as likely to report the delayed treatment in their family was for a serious rather than a nonserious condition in 2022. In all, 27% said the treatment was for a “very” or “somewhat” serious condition or illness, while 11% said it was “not very” or “not at all” serious. Lower-income adults, younger adults and women in the U.S. have consistently been more likely than their counterparts to say they or a family member have delayed care for a serious medical condition. In 2022, Americans with an annual household income under $40,000 were nearly twice as likely as those with an income of $100,000 or more to say someone in their family delayed medical care for a serious condition (34% vs. 18%, respectively). Those with an income between $40,000 and less than $100,000 were similar to those in the lowest income group when it comes to postponing care, with 29% doing so. Read full story Source: Gallup News, 17 January 2023
  8. News Article
    Death rates from cancer in the US have fallen by 32% over the three decades from 1991 to 2019, according to the American Cancer Society. The decline is thanks to prevention, screening, early diagnosis and treatment of common cancers, including lung and breast cancer. The drop has meant 3.5m fewer deaths. However, cancers are still the second leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease. In 1991, the cancer death rate was 215 per 100,000 people and in 2019 it dropped to 146 per 100,000 people. Lung cancer, of which there are 230,000more cases each year, kills the most patients, 350 per day. But people are being diagnosed sooner, and technological advancements have increased the survival rate by three years. The report also examined racial and economic disparities in cancer outcomes. The Covid-19 pandemic added to already existing difficulties for marginalised groups to get cancer screenings and treatment. For nearly every type of cancer, white people have a higher survival rate than black people. Black women with breast cancer face a 41% higher death rate than white women. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 January 2023
  9. News Article
    The FDA is greenlighting the drug Leqembi after it appeared to slow cognitive decline in some early stage Alzheimer’s patients in spite of some potential risks. In this video, Kristen Dahlgren has more details about findings from the clinical trial. Watch full story Source: NBC News, 7 January 2023
  10. News Article
    More than 7,000 nurses at two major New York City hospitals walked off the job Monday, arguing immense staffing shortages are causing widespread burnout and hindering their ability to properly care for their patients. The nurses say they are working long hours in unsafe conditions without enough pay – a refrain echoed by several other nurses strikes across the country over the past year. The union representing the nurses said an offer of 19% pay hikes isn’t enough to solve staffing shortages. This is the latest in a series of strikes in the health care industry in recent years. Those union members who were on the front lines during the three-year battle with the Covid pandemic say the system is no longer able to function with the widespread shortages that arose during those years. “We’ve been fighting for working under safer conditions,” Warren Urquhart, a transplant nurse at Mount Sinai, told CNN Monday while on the picket line. “We do the best we can every day. There’s something wrong inside the hospital. That’s why we’re outside the hospital.” Read full story Source: CNN, 9 January 2023
  11. News Article
    The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval for the Alzheimer’s disease drug lecanemab, one of the first experimental dementia drugs to appear to slow the progression of cognitive decline. Lecanemab will be marketed as Leqembi, the FDA statement said. It has shown “potential” as an Alzheimer’s disease treatment by appearing to slow progression, according to Phase 3 trial results, but it has raised safety concerns due to its association with certain serious adverse events, including brain swelling and bleeding. In July, the FDA accepted Eisai’s Biologics License Application for lecanemab under the accelerated approval pathway and granted the drug priority review, according to the company. The accelerated approval programme allows for earlier approval of medications that treat serious conditions and “fill an unmet medical need” while the drugs continue to be studied in larger and longer trials. If those trials confirm that the drug provides a clinical benefit, the FDA could grant traditional approval. But if the confirmatory trial does not show benefit, the FDA has the regulatory procedures that could lead to taking the drug off the market. Read full story Source: CNN Health, 7 January 2023
  12. News Article
    The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) has announced that Congress in the final FY 2023 Omnibus spending bill has doubled dedicated federal funding for research to reduce patient harm from diagnostic error. Statistically, each of us is likely to experience a meaningful diagnostic error in our lifetime. The significant human and financial toll of diagnostic errors, which occur in all settings of care, was first highlighted in a landmark 2015 National Academy of Medicine (NAM) report, Improving Diagnosis in Health Care. The report found that missed, delayed, or un-communicated diagnoses result in more patient harm than all other healthcare-associated harms combined. The NAM report called diagnostic error "a blind spot" in health care quality and safety, and improving medical diagnosis a "moral, professional, and public health imperative." Since the release of the NAM report, SIDM has been working hard to educate policymakers about these issues and advocating for more research funding. SIDM has assembled a coalition of dozens of groups representing health systems, patients, clinicians, and others to raise awareness and spark action. "This funding is an important signal that Congress is becoming aware of the magnitude of the public health burden, both human and financial, associated with diagnostic error and intends to tackle it," says Jennie Ward-Robinson, CEO of SIDM. Citing diagnosis as "the next frontier of patient safety," the NAM report summarised what is known about factors that affect diagnostic safety and accuracy at the clinician, system, and policy levels, and made recommendations at each of those levels. A few promising interventions are already emerging for specific and commonly misdiagnosed conditions, as well as for specific systems-level problems, such as failure to "close the loop" on abnormal test results. But these initiatives are tiny compared the scope and scale of the issue. Read full story Source: CISION PR Newswire, 3 January 2023
  13. News Article
    The US Joint Commission will hold a safety briefing with healthcare organisations at the start of every accreditation survey starting in 2023, the organisation has said. Site surveyors and staff members preselected by the healthcare organisation will conduct an informal, five-minute briefing to discuss any potential safety concerns — such as fires, an active shooter scenario or other emergencies — and how surveyors should react if safety plans are implemented while they are on site. The change takes effect 1 January 2023 and applies to all accreditation surveys performed by the organisation. Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 13 December 2022
  14. News Article
    A new survey of more than 1,000 surgeons across the USA reiterates concerns that impending cuts to surgical care, set to take effect on 1 January 1 2023, will lead to a decrease in Medicare patient intake, increased delays to care, and longer wait times for patients in surgical practices. These survey results support the efforts of the over one million physician and non-physician healthcare providers joining together in urging congressional leadership to stop the full cut to Medicare payments through a Week of Action. "Our survey results confirm that the impending cuts to Medicare payments will be disastrous for patients and their access to life-saving and life-altering care," said Patricia L. Turner, American College of Surgeons Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. "As our population continues to age, more and more seniors depend on Medicare to receive the care they need. Congressional leadership must protect patients by stopping the full cut to Medicare payments so healthcare providers can focus on delivering high-quality care to patients." The survey, conducted for the American College of Surgeons, a founding member of the Surgical Care Coalition, found: Around two-thirds of members expect patients will be faced with delays to care (68%) or longer wait times (65%). These are up from 56% and 57%, respectively, in 2021. One-in-three (33%) members say there will be a change in their Medicare patient intake if the cuts were to go into effect, up from 25% in 2021. 20% say they expect to take on fewer new Medicare patients, but that they will keep all existing Medicare patients. While members report feeling the impact from supply chain issues and inflation, surgeons are also sounding the siren around healthcare worker shortages. Over nine-in-ten (93%) report healthcare worker shortages impacting their ability to provide high quality care over the last year. Over three-quarters (77%) report "a great deal of impact" from these shortages. Read full story Source: CISION PR Newswire, 9 December 2022
  15. News Article
    Despite the drawbacks of turning to artificial intelligence in medicine, some US physicians find that ChatGPT improves their ability to communicate with patients. Last year, Microsoft and OpenAI released the first free version of ChatGPT. Within 72 hours, doctors were using the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot. Experts expected that ChatGPT and other A.I.-driven large language models could take over mundane tasks that eat up hours of doctors’ time and contribute to burnout, like writing appeals to health insurers or summarising patient notes. However, they found that doctors were asking ChatGPT to help them communicate with patients in a more compassionate way. Dr Michael Pignone, the chairman of the department of internal medicine at the University of Texas at Austin, has no qualms about the help he and other doctors on his staff got from ChatGPT to communicate regularly with patients. However, skeptics like Dr Dev Dash, who is part of the data science team at Stanford Health Care, are so far underwhelmed about the prospect of large language models like ChatGPT helping doctors. In tests performed by Dr Dash and his colleagues, they received replies that occasionally were wrong but, he said, more often were not useful or were inconsistent. If a doctor is using a chatbot to help communicate with a patient, errors could make a difficult situation worse. Read full story (paywalled) Source: New York Times, 12 June 2023
  16. News Article
    Grail, a company that developed blood tests to detect cancer, mistakenly sent approximately 400 customers letters saying they might be positive for the disease, The New York Times has reported. Grail's Galleri test uses blood to detect cancer signals shared by 50 types of cancers and is available only by prescription, according to the report. Grail said in a statement that one of its vendors sent hundreds of letters with incorrect test results due to a "software configuration issue." "No patient health information has been disclosed or breached due to this issue, and no patient harm or adverse events have been reported," Grail's statement said. The issue was not caused by incorrect test results, according to the company. More than half of people who received the erroneous letter had not yet had their blood drawn for the test. PWNHealth said in a statement that the system it uses to send template messages to people had a "misconfiguration." Read full story Source: Becker's Hospital Review, 4 June 2023
  17. News Article
    Two new healthcare workforce surveys outline widespread reports of discrimination, racism and workplace violence in the USA perpetuated by patients and coworkers alike. Among the findings were acknowledgments from respondents that incidents of discrimination are rarely reported to management or law enforcement. Additionally, more than half of the respondents to one survey said that they believed that incidents of workplace violence have increased over the course of their tenure, while nearly half of the nurses who responded to the other survey said they believe “a culture of racism/discrimination” was present as early as in nursing school. “If we are to truly provide just and equitable care to our patients, we as nurses must hold ourselves accountable for our own behavior and work to change the systems that perpetuate racism and other forms of discrimination,” said Beth Toner, RN, director of program communications at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Read full story Source: Fierce Healthcare, 2 June 2023
  18. News Article
    A US organisation that supports people with eating disorders has suspended use of a chatbot after reports it shared harmful advice. The National Eating Disorder Association (Neda) recently closed its live helpline and directed people seeking help to other resources, including the chatbot. The AI bot, named "Tessa," has been taken down, the association said. It will be investigating reports about the bot's behaviour. In recent weeks, some social media users posted screenshots of their experience with the chatbot online. They said the bot continued to recommend behaviours like calorie restriction and dieting, even after it was told the user had an eating disorder. For patients already struggling with stigma around their weight, further encouragement to shed pounds can lead to disordered eating behaviours like bingeing, restricting or purging, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 June 2023
  19. News Article
    A controversial new Florida bill will allow physicians to opt out of performing certain services because of "sincerely held" religious, moral, or ethical beliefs. The bill, part of a "medical freedom" legislative package signed last week, permits healthcare providers to make conscience-based objections to providing medical care and protects them from getting sued or losing their licenses. Critics say the new law could exacerbate health disparities and lead to discrimination against certain groups of patients, including LGBTQ+ individuals and women seeking reproductive healthcare. Psychologists could refuse to treat someone for gender dysphoria, for example. Doctors could refuse to prescribe birth control, administer childhood vaccines, or accept patients with state insurance. Kenneth W. Goodman, professor and director of the University of Miami's Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, told Medscape Medical News the legislation could upset a longstanding precedent. "To deny care based on unspecified and unarticulated 'moral, ethical, or religious reasons' opens the door to neglect, abandonment, and suspicion," Goodman said. "It undermines two millennia of a cornerstone of medical ethics: take care of your patients — no matter who they are." Read full story Source: Medscape, 18 May 2023
  20. News Article
    The US Food and Drug Administration has proposed to add to what you get with your prescription drugs. The proposed rule would require the prescriptions you get to come with a new kind of single-page medication guide with an easy-to-use set of directions and easy-to-understand safety information, a goal the FDA has been working toward for years. One study found that nearly 75% of Americans have had trouble taking their medicine as directed. A lot of that is due to cost – people might not be able to afford their medicine, so they don’t take it – but some is due to confusion. They might get more than one kind of written information with their prescription, or the information they receive can be conflicting, incomplete or repetitive, the FDA said. When people are confused or misinformed about their prescription, there is a good chance they will not take it or will stop taking it, and that can directly hurt their health. “Research suggests that medication nonadherence can contribute to nearly 25% of hospital admissions, 50% of treatment failures, and approximately 125,000 deaths in our country each year,” the FDA says. The agency said the new proposal is also meant to help fight the “nation’s crisis with health care misinformation and disinformation.” Read full story Source: CNN, 30 May 2023
  21. News Article
    People concerned about the safety of patients often compare health care to aviation. Why, they ask, can’t hospitals learn from medical errors the way airlines learn from plane crashes? That’s the rationale behind calls to create a 'National Patient Safety Board,' an independent federal agency that would be loosely modelled after the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is credited with increasing the safety of skies, railways, and highways by investigating why accidents occur and recommending steps to avoid future mishaps. But as worker shortages strain the US healthcare system, heightening concerns about unsafe care, one proposal to create such a board has some patient safety advocates fearing that it wouldn’t provide the transparency and accountability they believe is necessary to drive improvement. One major reason: the power of the hospital industry. The board would need permission from health care organisations to probe safety events and could not identify any healthcare provider or setting in its reports. That differs from the NTSB, which can subpoena both witnesses and evidence, and publish detailed accident reports that list locations and companies. A related measure under review by a presidential advisory council would create such a board by executive order. Its details have not been made public. Learning about safety concerns at specific facilities remains difficult. While transportation crashes are public spectacles that make news, creating demand for public accountability, medical errors often remain confidential, sometimes even ordered into silence by court settlements. Meaningful and timely information for consumers can be challenging to find. However, patient advocates said, unsafe providers should not be shielded from reputational consequences. Read full story Source: CNN, 30 May 2023 Related reading on the hub: Blog - It is time for a National Patient Safety Board: Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative
  22. News Article
    Thousands of patients are facing delays in getting treatments for cancer and other life-threatening diseases, with drug shortages in the United States approaching record levels. Hundreds of drugs are on the list of medications in short supply in the United States, as officials grapple with an opaque and sometimes interrupted supply chain, quality and financial issues that are leading to manufacturing shutdowns. The shortages are so acute that they are commanding the attention of the White House and Congress. The Biden administration has assembled a team to find long-term solutions for shoring up the pharmaceutical supply chain, at a time when the United States remains heavily reliant on medicines and drug ingredients from India and China. And in recent weeks, generic drug makers, supply-chain experts and patient advocates have appeared before lawmakers to discuss the problems. The scarcity of generic forms of chemotherapy to treat lung, breast, bladder and ovarian cancers has only heightened concerns. “This is, in my opinion, a public health emergency,” said Dr. Amanda Fader, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a president-elect of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology, “because of the breadth of the individuals it affects and the number of chemotherapy agents that are in shortage right now.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: New York Times, 17 May 2023
  23. News Article
    Healthcare providers caring for pregnant patients in the months after the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v Wade have been unable to provide standard medical care in states where abortion is effectively outlawed, leading to delays and worsening and dangerous health outcomes for patients, according to an expansive new report. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year, individual reports from patients and providers have shed some light on the wide range of harm facing pregnant women in states where access to abortion care is restricted or outright banned. But a first-of-its-kind report from the University of California San Francisco captures examples from across the country, documenting 50 cases in more than a dozen states that enacted abortion bans within the last 10 months, painting a “stark picture of how the fall of Roe is impacting healthcare in states that restrict abortion,” according to the report’s author Dr Daniel Grossman. “Banning abortion and tying providers’ hands impacts every aspect of care and will do so for years to come,” he said in a statement accompanying the report. “Pregnant people deserve better than regressive policies that put their health and lives at risk.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 May 2023
  24. News Article
    A leading health panel in the USA has recommended the age at which women are regularly screened for breast cancer should be cut from 50 to 40. The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said an extra 20 million women in their forties would benefit from a mammogram every two years. The change would save 20% more lives, according to the USPSTF, which has drafted the proposal in response to rising rates among middle-aged women. Currently, all women in the USA aged 50 to 74 are advised to get checked via a mammogram every two years. The number of new breast cancer cases is rising roughly two percent every year, John Wong, an internist and professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, who is on the task force, told the Washington Post. Dr Wong said: "It is now clear that screening every other year starting at age 40 has the potential to save about 20 percent more lives among all women, and there is even greater potential benefit for black women, who are much more likely to die from breast cancer." Read full story Source: Mail Online, 9 May 2023
  25. News Article
    The first non-prescription birth control pill in the US is on the way to approval, after a thumbs-up from an advisory committee of drug regulators. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel's unanimous vote is not binding, but means the agency is likely to formally approve the drug this summer. Opill has been available, but only by prescription, for the past 50 years. The push for over-the-counter access in the US comes amid Republican-led efforts to restrict access to abortion and contraception at the national and state level. Advisors on the panel said they were mostly confident women of all ages would use the drug as appropriate without first consulting a healthcare provider. "In the balance between benefit and risk, we'd have a hard time justifying not taking this action," said chairwoman Maria Coyle, an Ohio State University pharmacist. "The drug is incredibly effective, and I think it will be effective in the over-the-counter realm just as it is in the prescription realm." Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 May 2023
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