Hospital News and Research

RSS

$25 million made available for health care partnership emergency care competitive grants

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced that $25 million is available to hospitals and other health care facilities via a competitive emergency care grant program focused on hospital surge capacity, emergency care system capability, and community and hospital preparedness for public health emergencies.

13 Aug 2007

Improving the quality of primary care could prevent 4 million hospitalizations each year

More than 4 million hospitalizations potentially could be prevented each year by improving the quality of primary care, enhancing patients' access to effective treatments, and getting more Americans to adopt healthy behaviors, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

13 Aug 2007

Special nasal cream will bust deadly superbugs

A special cream enriched with bacteria-busting viruses has been developed by scientists in Britain and it could eradicate deadly superbugs such as MRSA from hospitals.

13 Aug 2007

Beryl Institute reveals high number of calls to hospitals mishandled or misdirected

A recent analysis of more than 2,000 calls to hospital switchboards revealed that nearly 60 percent of attempts to obtain a physician referral were not initially successful.

13 Aug 2007

Sanofi pasteur ships doses of Fluzone influenza vaccine for the 2007-2008 season

Sanofi pasteur, the vaccines division of the sanofi-aventis Group, has begun shipment of influenza vaccine (Fluzone, Influenza Virus Vaccine) in the United States for the 2007-2008 season.

13 Aug 2007

New, non-surgical technique shown to cure aggressive form of scoliosis

Spine surgeon Paul Rubery, M.D., never imagined he would trade in his scalpel for Plaster of Paris, but that's exactly what he's planning to do in mid-August, when he learns a new, early treatment casting technique aimed at curing infants stricken with a devastating and aggressive form of scoliosis.

13 Aug 2007

New cancer stem cells could aid breast cancer research

In some ways, certain tumors resemble bee colonies, says pathologist Tan Ince. Each cancer cell in the tumor plays a specific role, and just a fraction of the cells serve as "queens," possessing the unique ability to maintain themselves in an unspecialized state and seed new tumors. These cells can also divide and produce the "worker" cells that form the bulk of the tumor.

13 Aug 2007

Cashew nut allergy more severe in children than peanut allergy

Researchers in Britain say peanut allergies may be more infamous but cashews seem to trigger more severe allergic reactions in children.

13 Aug 2007

Hospital kitchens - a pretty dirty affair

With reports on a regular basis telling us that controlling superbugs such as MRSA in many hospitals is akin to fighting a losing battle, the last thing the public want to hear is that hospital kitchens are filthy.

13 Aug 2007

DIY hole-in-the-heart repair kit

Specialists in the UK have found a way to treat a common heart defect using the body's natural healing power.

12 Aug 2007

Alarm over death in clinical trial for arthritis therapy

The death of a woman taking part in a clinical trial for an arthritis therapy has set alarm bells ringing in the United States.

12 Aug 2007

Cause of major subtype of glaucoma discovered

In a paper published in the journal Science, scientists from deCODE genetics and academic colleagues from the National University Hospital in Reykjavik and Uppsala University in Sweden report the discovery of two common single letter variations (SNPs) in the sequence of the human genome that appear to account for virtually all cases of a major subtype of glaucoma.

12 Aug 2007

Impaired energy production in heart muscle may underlie heart failure in some hypertensive patients

Many people with long-standing high blood pressure develop heart failure.

12 Aug 2007

High-tech diagnosis pinpoints causes of behavioral and psychiatric problems in patients

Is there a definitive test for mental illness? Not yet, but using advanced neuropsychiatric diagnostic tools including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), mental health professionals at The Menninger Clinic in Houston are pinpointing the causes of behavioral and psychiatric problems in patients.

12 Aug 2007

Seat belt injuries in children

Ill-fitting seatbelts raise the risk of serious injury to children involved in car accidents. And seat belt injuries should alert physicians to look for signs of more serious consequences, particularly spinal cord injury, which is not always immediately apparent.

11 Aug 2007

New pathway for inflammation-induced cancer

A well-known inflammatory protein spawns an enzyme that inactivates two tumor-suppressing genes, ultimately triggering production of new blood vessels to nourish breast cancer cells, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in the August edition of the journal Cell .

11 Aug 2007