http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Due to its ageing population, the Netherlands is seeing an explosive growth in the number of dementia patients. This is expected to increase from 250,000 in 2013 to 500,000 in 2050. Cost cutting in the healthcare sector, together with a worsening shortage of care workers, means that solutions are needed if dementia sufferers are to be provided with good quality care. The University of Twente's eHealth Research Center is exploring the use of technological aids, like sensors, touch screens or games, to help such patients. PhD student Nienke Nijhof analysed the use of various tools in dementia sufferers. Ms Nijhof asserts that "Technology can offer patients safety and support. I attempted to determine whether the use of these tools might enable patients to live independently for longer. This could save the health service as much as 800 to 2800 euros per patient per month. I advocate the inclusion of technological aids in the health insurance package, to facilitate their large scale use." http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-technology-dementia.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:46:24 EST news285929178 The use of electronic discharge orders aimed at providing evidence-based decision support and clear instructions to heart failure patients helped increase compliance with quality care measures and lowered hospital readmission rates, according to research being presented at the American College of Cardiology's 62nd Annual Scientific Session. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-electronic-discharge-tool-hospital-readmissions.html Cardiology Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:28:39 EST news281881713 Medicare patients who enrolled in hospice received better care at a significantly lower cost to the government than those who did not use the Medicare hospice benefit. The data indicate that annual savings to Medicare could amount to $2.4 million to $6.4 million, if 1,000 additional Medicare beneficiaries chose to enroll in hospice 53-105 days before death, or 15-30 days prior to death. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-medicare-patients-hospice.html Health Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:00:07 EST news281616163 Quality is a central component of any discussion around health care and one of the key dimensions and measurements of quality care is the patient experience. However, many healthcare organizations struggle to become 'patient focused' and fail to score well on patient satisfaction surveys. New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital, published in the March edition of British Medical Journal Quality and Safety, offers a potential explanation—insufficient support from hospital management to improve the patient experience by engaging physicians and nurses in the process. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-patient-satisfaction-chasm.html Health Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:30:05 EST news281356161 The first study to examine in detail the experience of patients in Victoria's trauma system has found that post-discharge care and poor communication were low points in an otherwise high-quality experience. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-post-hospital-weak-link-trauma.html Other Mon, 18 Feb 2013 08:01:58 EST news280396894 (AP)—The head of the House panel that oversees veterans' issues says patients who have trouble getting timely mental health care from Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics should have another option: access to the thousands of health care providers who care for military personnel and their families. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-lawmaker-va-mental-gap.html Health Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:27:13 EST news278656019 A new study that looked at more than 75,000 children in day care in Norway found little evidence that the amount of time a child spends in child care leads to an increase in behavioral problems, according to researchers from the United States and Norway. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-links-day-behavioral-issues.html Pediatrics Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:26:43 EST news277658797 For some people with diabetes, there may be such a thing as too much care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-patients-diabetes-treatment-heart-disease.html Diabetes Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:17:55 EST news275051867 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 Given the right equipment, training and skill, an individual surgeon can expect to provide the best possible care on a consistent basis. But how do you get an entire system of surgeons—each with his or her own ideas, backgrounds, and routines—to provide that same level of care? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-intermountain-healthcare-cancer-road.html Health Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:40:22 EST news273494411 now assured by the re-election of President Obama – is expected to result in up to 50 million currently uninsured Americans acquiring some type of health insurance coverage. But a study by researchers at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds that a significant percentage of the primary care physicians most likely to care for newly insured patients may be not be accepting new patients. The investigators note that strategies designed to increase and support these "safety-net" physicians could help ensure that newly covered patients have access to primary care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-newly-patients-primary-physicians.html Health Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:02:57 EST news273168170 Physicians with the least experience spend significantly more money treating patients than physicians who have the most experience, according to a new RAND Corporation study. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-less-experienced-physicians-costly-more-experienced.html Health Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:00:05 EST news271337346 His views follow media criticism of the pathway that is designed to help doctors and nurses provide quality care for dying patients. Newspaper reports say doctors are establishing "death lists" of patients to put on the pathway and have accused hospitals of using it to kill terminally ill patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-liverpool-pathway-life-doctor.html Health Wed, 31 Oct 2012 03:06:24 EST news270871564 The quality of care of patients hospitalized with venous thromboembolism (VTE) significantly improved between 2005 and 2009, and researchers suggest these improvements may be due to the implementation of VTE treatment guidelines. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-guideline-impact-vte-quality.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 22 Oct 2012 04:01:49 EST news270097301 (Medical Xpress)—Certificate of Need, a form of state government regulation designed to keep mortality rates and health care costs down, appears to do neither for heart bypass surgery, according to a health economics researcher at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). Her findings are reported in an article appearing in today's online edition of the journal Medical Care Research and Review. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-state-deregulation-open-heart-surgery-beneficial.html Cardiology Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:07:09 EST news268499221 Results from the world's first registry of pregnancy and heart disease have shown that most women with heart disease can go through pregnancy and delivery safely, so long as they are adequately evaluated, counselled and receive high quality care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-results-world-registry-pregnancy-heart.html Cardiology Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:20:01 EST news266598263 America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. Inefficiencies, an overwhelming amount of data, and other economic and quality barriers hinder progress in improving health and threaten the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness, the report says. However, the knowledge and tools exist to put the health system on the right course to achieve continuous improvement and better quality care at lower cost, added the committee that wrote the report. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-health.html Health Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:45:18 EST news266154310 University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers have found that medical group practices can reduce costs for patients with diabetes by investing in improved quality of care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-investing-quality-diabetic-patients.html Health Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:20:01 EST news263487713 "Repeal of Medicare's Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) is essential, but repeal by itself will not move Medicare to better ways to deliver care," David L. Bronson, MD, FACP, president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), today told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. "We need to transition from a fundamentally broken physician payment system to one that is based on the value of services to patients, building on physician-led initiatives to improve outcomes and lower costs." http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-internists-physician-led-quality-solution-medicare.html Health Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:32:32 EST news262351914 The use of an electronic medical record (EMR) for reviewing portal images dramatically improves compliance with timeliness and record keeping, according to a study in the July issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Portal images are used to verify the positioning of patients during daily radiation treatments to improve the accuracy of the radiation field placement, to reduce exposure to normal tissue and to deliver accurate dose to tumor volumes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-electronic-medical-physician-compliance-portal.html Other Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:09:10 EST news260446145 Medical residents are an essential part of the hospital workforce. Although still in training the take on much of the day to day care of patients. A systematic review published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine shows that patient by properly supervised residents care is safe and of equal quality to that of fully trained doctors. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-patient-residents-good-fully-doctors.html Health Thu, 28 Jun 2012 03:25:02 EST news260072694 Soaring numbers of older, sicker prisoners are causing an unprecedented health care challenge for the nation's criminal justice system, according to a new UCSF report. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-elderly-prisoners-medical.html Health Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:00:03 EST news258900657 The federally funded child care subsidy program is among the government's biggest investments in the early care and education of low-income children. A new study has found that subsidies have the potential to enhance the quality of child care low-income children receive, but parents who use the subsidies aren't necessarily accessing the highest quality of care available to them. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-child-subsidies-boost-quality.html Pediatrics Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:00:03 EST news258816236 Five leading health systems are changing aspects of how they perform total knee replacements, as a result of data they collected that showed variations in length of stay, length of operating room time, and in-hospital complications. The voluntary testing of clinical measures and processes they identified as potential "best practices" is a step toward their goal of higher quality care, at lower cost. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-quality-variations-health.html Health Thu, 10 May 2012 11:25:34 EST news255867901 (HealthDay) -- Women with ovarian cancer who are black, either uninsured or Medicare recipients, or who have annual incomes of less than $35,000 are more likely to receive poorer-quality care, a new study shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-black-women-uninsured-worse-ovarian.html Cancer Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:31:48 EST news252081099 The difference between abundant information and useful knowledge is a problem in many fields including health care, where life and death can depend on the decision to prescribe a drug or perform a surgery. A new center at Brown University, led by a team of five experts in evidence-based medicine, will advance the study of turning heaps of data in research papers into a powerful understanding that doctors and scientists can apply. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-brown-center-evidence-based-medicine.html Other Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:55:36 EST news249926114 Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC, have successfully created and implemented an emergency general surgery registry (EGSR) that will advance the science of acute surgical care by allowing surgeons to track and improve surgical patient outcomes, create performance metrics, conduct valid research and ensure quality care for all emergency general surgery (EGS) patients. The registry, featured in a study published in the February 2012 issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, was modeled after the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) and components of the ACS National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP). It is the first registry of its kind to establish ICD-9 codes (International Classification of Diseases) that help to define and evaluate EGS patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-database-aims-emergency-surgery-outcomes.html Other Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:40:01 EST news247749992 Raising a child with a mental or a physical disability is tough work for any parent. But just imagine the added stresses for a parent on active duty in the U.S. armed forces: Possible deployments to war zones, base reassignments and recurrent training pose even more challenges to securing quality care and therapy for a special-needs child. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-aim-military-families-special.html Health Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:03:40 EST news239547790 Small group homes for people with dementia provide good quality care and a domestic environment where people can live as individuals and families can get involved. But tension can arise when it comes to deciding who takes responsibilities for certain practical and caring tasks. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-small-group-homes-dementia-patients.html Health Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:38:10 EST news235305457 In the first national study to examine care at critical access hospitals (CAHs) in rural areas of the U.S., Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that CAHs have fewer clinical capabilities, lower quality of care, and worse patient outcomes compared with other hospitals. The researchers found that patients admitted to a CAH for heart attack, congestive heart failure, or pneumonia were at greater risk of dying within 30 days than those at other hospitals. The study shows that despite more than a decade of policy efforts to improve rural health care, substantial challenges remain. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-patients-small-isolated-rural-hospitals.html Health Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:03:04 EST news229104158