Healthcare News

This month’s podcast features a review of last month’s blog posts, a preview of what is begin published in the April issue of the journal and an interview with Dr. Daniel Harris, whose recent paper discusses the use of antipsychotics in nursing homes. Listen here or via your favorite podcast platform. Author information Jess Williams Associate Professor at The Pennsylvania State University Jessica A. Williams, PhD, MA is an Associate Professor of Health Policy and Administration at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Williams has been a member of the editorial board since 2013. Her research examines how workplace psychosocial factors affect the health and well-being of employees. Specifically, she investigates the role of pain in work disability and well-being. In addition, she researches the utilization of preventive medical services. She holds a Doctorate in Health Policy and Management from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, a Master's in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a BA in economics from Stanford University. | Twitter | LinkedIn | The post Healthy Intersections Podcast: March 2023 appeared first on The Medical Care Blog.

Eli Lilly & Co.’s announcement that it is slashing prices for its major insulin products could make life easier for some diabetes patients while easing pressure on Big Pharma. It also casts light on the profiteering methods of the drug industry’s price mediators — the pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs — at a time when… Read More » The post Why Does Insulin Cost So Much? Big Pharma Isn’t the Only Player Driving Prices appeared first on The Medical Care Blog.

Medicare Advantage should be making news. It’s not because the Medicare trust fund continues to run on fumes, which it does. Nor is it because Medicare was taken “off the table” in recent debates about cutting the federal budget, which it was. Rather, it should be getting a lot of attention for new data about its… Read More » Author information Gregory Stevens Professor at California State University, Los Angeles Gregory D. Stevens, PhD, MHS is a health policy researcher, writer, teacher and advocate. He is a professor of public health at California State University, Los Angeles. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Medical Care, and is co-editor of The Medical Care Blog. He is also a co-author of the book Vulnerable Populations in the United States. | Twitter | The post Medicare Advantage Should Be Making News appeared first on The Medical Care Blog.

Public health has preached a lot of things in the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has promoted social distancing, masks, vaccines, and quarantine to help prevent the spread. And it has helped spread awareness about antivirals for people infected with COVID-19. But what about “social fitnessing”?   This is the premise that the… Read More » Author information Anthony Fleg Anthony Fleg is a family medicine physician at the University of New Mexico in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the College of Population Health. He served as a Partnership Director of the Native Health Initiative (NHI) from 2005-2022 and has dedicated much of his career to improving health in Indigenous communities. He is a proud father of 4 children, an avid runner, and a blogger. His first book, Writing to Heal: A Pandemic Journey to Healing came out in Spring 2022. | The post Social Fitnessing as a Pandemic Health Strategy appeared first on The Medical Care Blog.

This month’s podcast features a round-up of this month’s blog posts and a summary of three articles recently published in the journal Medical Care. Listen here or via your favorite podcast platform! Transcript Hello friends. Welcome to the Healthy Intersections Podcast for February 2023. This podcast is sponsored by the American Public Health Association’s Medical… Read More » Author information Gregory Stevens Professor at California State University, Los Angeles Gregory D. Stevens, PhD, MHS is a health policy researcher, writer, teacher and advocate. He is a professor of public health at California State University, Los Angeles. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Medical Care, and is co-editor of The Medical Care Blog. He is also a co-author of the book Vulnerable Populations in the United States. | Twitter | The post Healthy Intersections Podcast: February 2023 appeared first on The Medical Care Blog.

There is a saying that the last impression you make is the lasting one. Put another way, it means that your wonderful meal can be ruined by having to wait 20 minutes for your check to arrive. Since that is the case, healthcare providers should spend more time and energy improving their discharge experiences. Over

Blog post by Joe Babaian Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. ~ Shakespeare The best is the enemy of the good. ~ Voltaire Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without. ~ Confucius Now more than ever, the people of healthcare shine with their hard work AND successes. We still see

Human factors has been largely ignored by healthcare information technology over the past few decades. In our rush to automate, vendors and software designers did the minimum to make their products usable. However, as staff challenges rock the healthcare industry, greater attention is being paid to the impact that technology has on staff. Human factors

The last day in February is Rare Disease Day and in honor of that day, the next HCLDR tweetchat will be about rare disease. Join us at 8:30pm ET.

Blog post by Joe Babaian It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has. ~ William Osler We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it

Countries of the World Health Organization have begun negotiations on a global accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, using the “zero draft” as a basis for negotiating an agreement to protect nations and communities from future pandemic emergencies.Ending Friday, discussions on the draft pandemic accord took place during the weeklong fourth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), which includes WHO’s 194 countries. Negotiations on the draft will continue over the next year according to a timetable laid out by the World Health Assembly.Mr Roland Driece, Co-Chair of the INB Bureau, from the Netherlands, said: “The start of discussions of concrete language for the WHO pandemic accord sends a clear signal that countries of the world want to work together for a safer, healthier future where we are better prepared for, and able to prevent future pandemic threats, and respond to them effectively and equitably.”Fellow INB Bureau Co-Chair, Ms Precious Matsoso of South Africa, said: “The efforts this week, by countries from around the world, was a critical step in ensuring we do not repeat the mistakes of the COVID-19 pandemic response, including in sharing life-saving vaccines, provision of information and development of local capacities.” Ms Matsoso added: “That we have been able to move forward so decisively is testimony to the global consensus that exists on the need to work together and to strengthen WHO’s and the international community’s ability to protect the world from pandemic threats.”WHO Member States will continue negotiations of the zero draft of the pandemic accord at the INB’s next meeting, to be held over 3-6 April, with a view to collecting all inputs necessary to develop the first draft.According to the process agreed by governments at a special session of the World Health Assembly in late 2021, negotiations on the draft pandemic accord will aim to produce a final draft for consideration by the 77th World Health Assembly in 2024.During the week, the senior diplomats from Israel and Morocco, who are serving as co-facilitators of the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response, briefed the INB on their preparations for the 20 September meeting, in order to ensure collaboration between the processes. In parallel with the pandemic accord negotiations, governments are also discussing more than 300 amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) in an effort to make the world safer from communicable diseases and ensuring greater equity in the global response to public health emergencies. Governments have been working to ensure consistency and alignment across the INB and IHR processes. The proposed IHR amendments will also be presented to the World Health Assembly in 2024, and would together, with a future pandemic accord, provide a comprehensive, complementary, and synergistic set of global health agreements.

WHO today launched its Policy on preventing and addressing sexual misconduct which places the victims and survivors at its core, sets strict standards of zero tolerance and stresses that there can be “no excuse” for sexual misconduct.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today visited north-west Syria following the devastating earthquakes that hit northern Syria and southern Türkiye on 6 February 2023. Dr Tedros is the first UN principal to enter north-west Syria since the beginning of the conflict, 12 years ago.Dr Tedros met with the partners WHO works with in north-west Syria to deliver essential health care, including specialised orthopaedic care and paediatric care.Also today, WHO distributed additional life-saving medicines, supplies and equipment to three hospitals in north-west Syria.  These are sufficient for over 280,000 treatments, including for the management of trauma, diabetes, and pneumonia, as well as vitally needed anaesthesia drugs and surgical supplies. WHO has sent over 140 tonnes of supplies to north-west Syria, from across the border in Türkiye and across lines within Syria. In the first hours after the earthquakes, WHO distributed 183 metric tonnes of supplies prepositioned inside north-west Syria from warehouses in Azaz and Idlib to more than 200 health facilities. Dr Tedros spoke at a media briefing following the visits, saying:"WHO is playing our role in supporting the Syrian people, who have responded incredibly with the little that they have. WHO has been delivering essential medicines, supplies, and equipment for years, as well as on the day the earthquakes struck. And we will do more. But the people of northwest Syria need the assistance of the international community to recover and rebuild. Even before the earthquake, more than 90% of the Syrian people were living below the poverty line...I call on the international community – governments, philanthropies and individuals – to dig deep to lift up those who are enduring unimaginable loss, poverty and deprivation. At the same time, I call on the leaders of both sides of the Syrian conflict to use the shared suffering of this crisis as a platform for peace."On 28 February, Dr Tedros met with Turkiye's Minister of Health, health workers and others affected by the earthquake. Earlier in the month, he visited Aleppo, Syria to meet with affected people and officials.

The Fifth Global Ministerial Summit on Patient Safety was held in Montreux, Switzerland on 23 and 24 February with the slogan “Less Harm, Better Care – from Resolution to Implementation”The Fifth Global Ministerial Summit on Patient Safety closed in Montreux, Switzerland on 24 February, after endorsing the Montreux Charter on Patient Safety with recommended actions to address avoidable harm in health care.  This was the first Global Ministerial Patient Safety Summit to take place after the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exposed the high risk of unsafe care to patients, health workers and the general public, and made visible a range of safety gaps across all core components of health systems.  The Summit was hosted by the Swiss government.Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, participated in the Summit with the host, the Swiss President Alain Berset.  In his address to the ministerial segment, Dr Tedros urged health ministers to invest in patient safety as part of their commitment to universal health coverage and health security; to build a culture of safety and strengthen reporting and learning systems; to support health workforce and strengthen their capacity; to strengthen data systems; and to engage patients and families in their own care.  Dr Tedros announced that the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2023 will be “Engaging patients for patient safety”.  In Montreux, delegations from more than 80 countries discussed the gaps and key challenges for the implementation of the World Health Assembly resolution (WHA72.6) "Global Action on Patient Safety" and the global roadmap for patient safety, the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030: Towards eliminating avoidable harm in health care. Despite progress to address patient safety challenges worldwide, concerted efforts are needed to ensure safety of patients and health and care workers, noted the delegations and stressed that lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis hold huge potential to build safer and more resilient health systems.The Montreux Charter on Patient Safety, endorsed at the Summit, reaffirms that patient harm in health care is an urgent public health issue, pertinent to countries of all income settings and geographies and therefore a shared global challenge.  It identifies actions for countries to narrow implementation gaps in patient safety, including by treating patient safety as a global public health priority, building upon lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, deepening partnerships, collaboration and mutual learning, and engaging patients and their families.  The Charter also urged setting priorities for patient safety, including medication safety, safe surgery, infection prevention and control, and antimicrobial resistance.Unsafe care is among the leading causes of death and disability in the world.  It is particularly acute in resource-constrained settings.  In the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.6 million people died every year due to safety lapses in hospitals in lower-income countries.  Rich countries are not immune: nearly 15 per cent of hospital expenditure and activity in countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development could be attributed to treating safety failures.It is estimated that more than half of cases of patient harm are preventable, by working together to create a safer healthcare system for all and to build a culture of safety that emphasizes continuous improvement, learning, and innovation.The Summit in Montreux builds on the preceding Global Ministerial Summits on Patient Safety which have raised awareness about burden of avoidable patient harm in health care and fostered strategic approaches to strengthening Patient Safety, from London (2016), to Bonn (2017), to Tokyo (2018) and to Jeddah (2019).  The Sixth Summit will be held in Chile in 2024. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced the recommendations for the viral composition of influenza vaccines for the 2023-2024 influenza season in the northern hemisphere. The announcement was made at an information session at the end of a 4-day meeting on the Composition of Influenza Virus Vaccines, a meeting that is held twice annually. WHO organizes these consultations with an advisory group of experts gathered from WHO Collaborating Centres and WHO Essential Regulatory Laboratories to analyse influenza virus surveillance data generated by the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System. The recommendations issued are used by the national vaccine regulatory agencies and pharmaceutical companies to develop, produce, and license influenza vaccines for the following influenza season. The periodic update of viruses contained in influenza vaccines is necessary for the vaccines to be effective due to the constant evolving nature of influenza viruses, including those circulating and infecting humans. The WHO recommends that quadrivalent vaccines for use in the 2023-2024 northern hemisphere influenza season contain the following:Egg-based vaccines an A/Victoria/4897/2022 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus; an A/Darwin/9/2021 (H3N2)-like virus; anda B/Austria/1359417/2021 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus; anda B/Phuket/3073/2013 (B/Yamagata lineage)-like virus.Cell culture- or recombinant-based vaccines an A/Wisconsin/67/2022 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus;an A/Darwin/6/2021 (H3N2)-like virus;a B/Austria/1359417/2021 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus; anda B/Phuket/3073/2013 (B/Yamagata lineage)-like virus.WHO recommends that trivalent vaccines for use in the 2023-2024 influenza season in the northern hemisphere contain the following:  Egg-based vaccines an A/Victoria/4897/2022 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus;an A/Darwin/9/2021 (H3N2)-like virus; anda B/Austria/1359417/2021 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus.Cell culture- or recombinant-based vaccinesan A/Wisconsin/67/2022 (H1N1)pdm09-like vi;an A/Darwin/6/2021 (H3N2)-like virus; anda B/Austria/1359417/2021 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus