http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Medical interns spend just 12 percent of their time examining and talking with patients, and more than 40 percent of their time behind a computer, according to a new Johns Hopkins study that closely followed first-year residents at Baltimore's two large academic medical centers. Indeed, the study found, interns spent nearly as much time walking (7 percent) as they did caring for patients at the bedside. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-doctors-in-training-patient-bedside.html Health Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:47:15 EST news285940028 In a study, presented today at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), researchers obtained and compared the hospital purchasing records from 45 academic medical centers on the unit costs and volume of spinal products – pedicle screws (PS), anterior cervical plates (ACP) and posterior interbody cages – purchased from a total of seven vendors. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-highlights-variations-spinal-component.html Surgery Fri, 22 Mar 2013 01:00:02 EST news283106856 A national survey of health professionals showed that drug shortages are taking a heavy toll on cancer patients, forcing treatment changes and delays that for some patients meant worse outcomes, more therapy-related complications and higher costs. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators played an important role in the study. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-cancer-drug-shortages-higher-greater.html Cancer Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:40:03 EST news283084795 According to researchers, clinical and translational science has emerged as a national priority and investigators are increasingly becoming reliant on the use of computer science (CS), information science (IS), biomedical informatics (BMI) and information technology (IT) tools and methods to support and enable high impact research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-informatics-clinical.html Other Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:44:56 EST news282548643 (AP)—Maryland's health secretary is expressing support for a measure to allow medical marijuana in the state. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-md-health-medical-marijuana-bill.html Medications Sat, 09 Mar 2013 04:24:46 EST news282025481 A first-of-its kind national survey of medical students and residents finds that despite recent efforts by medical schools and academic medical centers to restrict access of pharmaceutical sales representatives to medical trainees, medical students and residents still commonly receive meals, gifts, and industry-sponsored educational materials. The study was completed by a team of researchers led by fourth-year Harvard Medical School student Kirsten Austad and Aaron Kesselheim, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., an internist and health policy researcher in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital and is scheduled to publish online this week in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-survey-medical-students-frequent-interactions.html Other Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:52:56 EST news281094765 (HealthDay)—Four U.S. government-funded clinical trials will search for new therapies for Alzheimer's disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-extensive-alzheimer.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:40:42 EST news277404035 Previous research has shown that patients without a consistent primary care physician (PCP) have worse outcomes than those who do, but little is known about why this is true. New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) has brought to light the importance of the role of a primary care physician in a population of diabetes patients. Their findings are published in the December 10, 2012 issue of Diabetes Care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-primary-physicians-vital-role-diabetes.html Diabetes Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:07:20 EST news274450030 While thoracic surgeons are traditionally known as the experts who perform heart surgeries, a UC Davis study has found that general thoracic surgeons, especially those at academic health centers, perform the vast majority of complex noncardiac operations, including surgeries of the esophagus and lungs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-thoracic-surgeons-emerge-complex-noncardiac.html Surgery Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:30:14 EST news274030153 The sheer number of efforts aimed at improving the quality and efficiency of the U.S. health care system – ranging from portions of the national Affordable Care Act to local programs at individual hospitals and practices – reflects the urgency and importance of the task. One aspect that has received inadequate attention, according to three physicians writing in the January 2013 issue of Academic Medicine, is training the next generation of experts needed to help lead these efforts. In their Perspective article, which has been released online, the authors propose a framework for career development in what they call "health systems improvement," a term that encompasses a broad range of activities – including management, research and public policy – to improve the quality and efficiency of our systems of care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-career-paths-health.html Health Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:22:36 EST news273428537 Hospital administrative databases, designed to provide general information on hospital stays and associated costs, are frequently used to find information that can lead to quality assessments of care or clinical research. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) extracted data on hospital readmissions following spine surgery at their institution from an administrative database to assess the clinical relevance of the information and to define clinically relevant predictors of readmission. What they found were readmission numbers substantially larger than expected or appropriate. The researchers' findings are reported in the article "Pitfalls of calculating hospital readmission rates based on nonvalidated administrative data sets. Clinical article," by Beejal Y. Amin, M.D., and colleagues, published online today, ahead of print, in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-administrative-source-surgical-complications.html Surgery Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:42:39 EST news273238921 Seven major academic medical centers and teaching hospitals in the Chicago area have joined together to form the Chicago Adult Congenital Heart Network (CATCH), which is the first patient-centered, inter-institutional network in Chicago established to ensure all adults with congenital heart disease in the area receive appropriate follow-up care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-chicago-area-hospitals-collaborate-network-adults.html Cardiology Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:17:04 EST news269536617 The University of Colorado Cancer Center, together with other participating academic medical centers, recently opened a phase I human clinical trial of the drug OMP-54F28 in patients with advanced solid tumor cancers. OMP-54F28, a candidate investigational drug discovered by OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, targets cancer stem cells (CSCs), also known as tumor-initiating cells, which many researchers believe are at the root of tumor occurrence and growth. These CSCs are notoriously resistant to existing chemotherapies and so may survive current treatments to repopulate a tumor, leading to relapse and metastasis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-cu-cancer-center-phase-clinical.html Cancer Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:24:26 EST news268489437 (Medical Xpress)—Despite the national consensus on the need to improve the value of health care while reducing unnecessary spending, teaching hospitals often struggle to design curricula to train future physicians to deliver such care to their patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-penn-medicine-physician-future-physicians.html Other Wed, 29 Aug 2012 09:00:04 EST news265448126 Infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) doubled at academic medical centers in the U.S. between 2003 and 2008, according to a report published in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-mrsa-cases-academic-hospitals-years.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 26 Jul 2012 16:33:41 EST news262538908 (Medical Xpress) -- Strategies introduced to assess -- and reward -- the productivity of faculty at academic medical centers in the U.S. do improve faculty research productivity, according to a systematic review recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-incentives-medical-faculty-productivity.html Other Wed, 20 Jun 2012 09:40:23 EST news259404016 A study by researchers at Stanford University Medical Center has found that a popular weight-loss operation is safer and reduces hospital bills when done with minimally invasive techniques rather than open surgery, which requires a large abdominal incision. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-minimally-invasive-approach-weight-loss-surgery.html Surgery Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:00:06 EST news259249184 Despite advances in the diagnosis and treatment of unruptured brain aneurysms, outcomes have remained stagnant over the last 10 years. This can be explained by the dramatic proliferation of minimally invasive endoscopic coiling procedures at lower-volume community hospitals, where outcomes are inferior. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-large-medical-centers-edge.html Cardiology Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:40:04 EST news247324505 In the past decade, a growing number of academic medical centers have begun offering research ethics consultation services, in which bioethics experts help scientists address the ethical and societal implications of their laboratory and clinical experiments. For instance, an investigator may want advice on the social and cultural ramifications of conducting genetic research among an indigenous population. But the role of these consults isn’t always well-understood. Many researchers believe that Institutional Review Boards, which must approve any research involving human subjects, will address these kinds of ethical questions. However, there are some areas of research — such as those involving animal subjects or broad social risk — that fall outside of the regulatory purview of IRBs. The consultation services can help fill this gap, in addition to giving scientists a sounding board for exploring ethical questions early in their research-design process. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-magnus-role-ethics.html Other Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:20:01 EST news246786899 According to the results of a new study published in the January 2012 issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, many early-stage breast cancer survivors lacked knowledge about their disease and were not meaningfully involved in treatment discussions or asked their preferences regarding the approach to treatment. As a result, the study's investigators determined that there is a need for improvements in the quality of the surgical decision-making process for these patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-early-stage-breast-cancer-patients-lack.html Cancer Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:23:45 EST news245420619 Patient satisfaction is increasingly recognized as an important component of quality of care. To achieve a high level of patient satisfaction, providers need to identify and address patients' expectations. However, a new international survey conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School reveals that while clinicians think it is important to ask patients about their expectations, they often fail to do so and consequently may not respond adequately. This research is published in the November issue of the British Medical Journal: Quality and Safety and was selected as the Editor's choice, making it available online in full text at no cost. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-uncovering-patient-satisfaction-international-survey.html Other Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:26:38 EST news238753579 While overall emergency department use in Massachusetts continues to rise, the number of low-severity visits dropped slightly since the implementation of the state's health care reform law, according to an Annals of Emergency Medicine study published online. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-impact-massachusetts-health-law-emergency.html Health Mon, 06 Jun 2011 15:39:41 EST news226593566 NYU Langone Medical Center, one of the nation's premier academic medical centers, announced today the magazine of NYU School of Medicine, NYU Physician, is now available as a free iPad app in the iTunes App Store. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-nyu-physician-magazine-free-ipad.html Other Wed, 18 May 2011 11:07:04 EST news224935609