A potential decision made by the US Supreme Court on a current case regarding patenting human genes could affect the health and lives of every American. Myriad Genetics currently controls the patents on variations of two human genes - BRCA1 and BRCA2 - whose mutations...
Hospitals may have little incentive to improve upon preventable surgical complications and mistakes because of the revenue they receive for longer stays and extra care from insurers, according to a new study published in The Journal of the American Medical...
While health officials advise abstinence, an occasional, small amount of alcohol during pregnancy may have zero effect on a child's development, according to a recent study published in BJOG, an international obstetrics and gynecology journal. One in five pregnant...
With hospital re-admissions costing the health care system more than $15 billion a year, a health coaching experiment in southern Ohio is aiming to lower the rate of returns by visiting patients at home. The Care Transitions program, managed by the Council on Aging of...
Antibiotic-resistant superbugs dubbed "nightmare bacteria" by federal health officials have been found present in about 40 patients since July at a transitional-care hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE for short, are...
Medical mistakes that affect hundreds of thousands of patients in the U.S. every year are typically kept quiet by hospitals, but Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston is instead airing its mistakes in a monthly newsletter for its 16,000 employees. Many...
In order to make the most of your annual physical exam, you should be spending more time having a conversation with your doctor in order to build a relationship rather than just having your body examined. Dr. Richard Besser, M.D., who spent 18 years at the Centers for...
Two Atlanta-based trucking companies have been shut down by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for failing to cooperate with safety investigators in the past month. General Transportation, Inc. was deemed an imminent safety hazard while Southern...
Tort reform measures to reduce "defensive medicine" that will, in turn, increase the risk of birth injuries nationwide persist even after a recent report by the non-partisan Commonwealth Fund ranks the costly U.S. health system dead last on patient safety. Instead of...
Emergency rooms have largely been blamed for excessive health care costs, but popular cost-cutting measures may be doing more harm than good for patient care, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Reducing ER visits for...
