Spine Surgery Largely Unfazed by Recent Market Challenges
Few medical device markets have demonstrated the kind of staying power — prices, procedure growth, market growth — shown by spine surgical technologies. The swelling caseload of new patients, the…
CMS Depression Screening
A new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposal would screen more Medicare beneficiaries for depression, according to a recent memo. A new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)…
Strange Coincidence: When Cancer Strikes Hospital CEO
I am just back from the Phoenix-metro area. It’s now the 5th largest in the United States and despite home foreclosures, there is still a feeling of growth in many…
A High Price for Rare Cancer Drugs
Pfizer last week won Food and Drug Administration “accelerated approval” for Xalkori (crizotinib) for a rare form of metastatic lung cancer that strikes about 3 percent of people — almost…
Childhood Obesity: It’s Everyone’s Business
The National Business Group on Heatlh has released a new toolkit, Childhood Obesity: It's Everyone's Business. It was prepared in response to employer interest in today's realities: The National Business Group on…
UnitedHealth, YMCA Expand Diabetes Prevention Program with P4P for Walgreens
The process uses UnitedHealth claims data and other demographic information to flag people at risk of developing diabetes and invite them to a free, 16-session exercise and nutrition class at…
Windows Phone + Windows7 + Kinect + Surface + Speech Recognition – Wicked Technology and Integration
Wicked is about the best word I could come up with here. When you watch the demonstration of all of these technologies together this is amazing. I have used all…
NHS Nurses Wear “Do Not Disturb” Uniforms
This report on the British National Health Service is from the Daily Mail: A row has broken out over a hospital trust’s decision to give nurses ‘Do Not Disturb’ uniforms…
How You’re Going to Pay for Hurricane Irene
Don Taylor (The Incidental Economist) on the origins of the subsidy: Don Taylor (The Incidental Economist) on the origins of the subsidy: Flood insurance is provided in the United States…
How We’re Rationing Life-Saving Drugs
Half of all hospitals are buying drugs on the gray market: Fifty-two percent of hospital purchasing agents and pharmacists reported they’d bought drugs from so-called “gray market” vendors during the…
