-
A woman seeking help conceiving through assisted reproduction inquires about the possibility of using her sister as an egg donor because previous attempts using her own have failed. Would your program allow it?
-
Stung by criticism that it is not doing enough to enforce its own regulations governing direct-to-consumer advertising by pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the publication of three new guidance documents designed to improve communications the public sees about new drugs and devices.
-
In recent years, efforts to address substance abuse among pregnant women have moved from being barely visible public health initiatives to controversial political battlegrounds.
-
Paramedics in the Denver area will be administering an experimental blood substitute to patients who meet certain criteria under an unusual research protocol that allows patients to be recruited without giving informed consent.
-
An experimental blood oxygenation device has the potential to help thousands of patients with severe emphysema or other lung conditions. The device has been thoroughly tested in laboratory animals, but human trials would involve major invasive procedures for research participants and place them at very high risk of death or serious complications.
-
A new study from researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston indicates that a long-held belief among oncologists that patients who participate in clinical trials have better outcomes overall than those who do not may not be supported by empirical evidence.
-
Removing financial incentives to providers and employers that are designed to influence coverage decisions and recruiting patient representatives to participate in designing health care benefit packages are two measures that can help ensure that health care coverage decisions are fair and equitable, says a new report from an independent research arm of the American Medical Association (AMA) in Chicago.
-
As researchers discover more genetic links to diseases, newer and more accurate diagnostic and screening tests are making their way to the market. But with an increasing array of tests out there, it is becoming more difficult for providers to determine which screening and diagnostic tests will offer tangible benefits to patients and which will most likely cost them and their insurers vast amounts of money and raise more questions than answers.
-
The Georgia Hospital Association, with support from a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, has developed a film to instruct health care professionals on the art of disclosing medical errors and unanticipated outcomes to patients and family members.
-
An average of 195,000 people in the United States died from potentially preventable medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001, and 2002, a new study from the health care quality company HealthGrades Inc. estimates. This puts the annual death toll at nearly twice the rate indicated by previous studies.
