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Beginning next year, tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money will flow to doctors and hospitals to help them buy computerized medical record systems as part of the economic stimulus package. In a marketing pitch, one company is offering a calculator that shows how much money is on the line for a given facility.
Like many nursing homes, the Parker Jewish Institute in New Hyde Park, N.Y., was having problems with some of its patients with dementia wandering at night. The staff worried about falls, but they didn't want to hand out more psychotropic medicines. But one night in 2007, a nursing assistant accidentally stumbled on a solution.
Finding the right balance between too much and too little care is excruciating and highly personal for physicians, patients and families - one reason it's not discussed at a national level. This reluctance is mirrored by an unwillingness by lawmakers to confront hard choices on medical spending.
Palliative services are designed to help patients and their families sort through their options - ome of which may help restore the patient, while others may increase suffering for a minimal health benefit.
Living wills and advance directives were the hope for end-of-life decision-making decades ago. But a 2004 survey by FindLaw found that 36 percent of Americans have a living will, and even when people have filled out living wills, doctors often ignore them.
In the era of modern medicine, there is often no easy way to navigate between an acceptable quality of life and a death with dignity. But palliative care specialists, relatively new players on the health care scene, offer comfort, support, pain control and, if requested, spiritual counsel, helping people sort through often confusing and ambiguous medical options.
A directive passed last November in Tulsa, Okla., raises fresh questions about the ability of patients to have their end-of-life treatment wishes honored - and whether and how a health care provider should comply with lawful requests not consistent with the provider's religious views.
Nurse practitioners - like Irene Cavall in North Carolina - are gaining support in their drive to play a larger primary care role. But the powerful AMA is waving a yellow caution flag before state regulators and legislators.
It is not clear why it's happening, but some hospice officials blame both a bad economy and Medicare rules that unintentionally discourage doctors from referring all but those who are about to die.
The federal stimulus package that sent nearly $2 billion to community health centers appears to have paid off in economic returns.
The U.S. leads the world in creating state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic treatments with the potential to work miracles for patients. But is the overuse of pricey technologies in preventive medicine driving up health care costs unnecessarily?
Kansas is going to need more doctors to meet the growing needs of an aging population, officials here say.
A group of Broward County doctors looking to switch to electronic medical records say the result has been a massive headache: surprise charges, inadequate training and even blocked access to patient files.
It is entirely reasonable for women to decide to get mammograms beginning in their forties. It is also reasonable for them to decide against it, and neither guidelines nor their physician's personal opinion
Ten years ago this month, IOM's 'To Err Is Human' cast a spotlight on the role of the nurse in keeping patients safe, a role that will become even more important under the ongoing effort to reform the health care system.
A new study says almost one out of three adults in the U.S. currently serves as a caregiver. The time and energy they put into caregiving becomes like an unpaid job.
Consumer advocates and others say it will only become harder for low-income Kansans to get medical services now that the state is cutting Medicaid payments by 10 percent.
Perhaps the political and media elite shouldn't wait for an impending presidential election to pay attention to what Iowa has to say.
When it comes to making medical care not only cheaper but also better, reducing hospital infections is among the easiest changes to make--something reform really should be able to do, even in this political universe of such limited possibility.
About 11 percent of people ages 60 and older suffer from some kind of abuse every year. But as a part of health care overhaul legislation, lawmakers are taking steps that would for the first time establish a federal beachhead in fighting such abuse.
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