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The nations spending on prescription drugs for children and young adults has soared 85% over the past five years, with spending in some categories of pediatric prescriptions jumping more than 600%, according to a report released by the pharmaceutical benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc., located in Franklin Lakes, NJ, and a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Merck Inc.
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The list of people awaiting solid organ transplants grows, and more hospitals are turning to interdisciplinary teams of medical professionals, social workers, organ procurement experts, and family support personnel who are trained to work with families of potential organ donors to ensure that opportunities for donations are not missed. Research has shown that such efforts increase consents for organ donation.
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The patient Jan Daugherty was visiting at an Arizona long-term care facility was very near the end of his life. Barely able to move and unable to speak, he communicated only with his eyes, which brightened when she gave him a drink of water. Later during the visit, she was able to feed him three glasses of juice and two cups of ice cream.
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A 50-year-old man with end-stage heart failure is referred to your medical center for evaluation to receive a heart transplant. He is in reasonably good health, considering his condition, but has only entered a smoking cessation program two months ago. His previous attempts to quit smoking all have been unsuccessful. Is this patient an appropriate candidate for organ transplantation?
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As controversies over fetal tissue research, cloning, and stem cells grab the headlines, other applications of genetic research are quietly making their way into clinical practice. But many health care providers arent ready for them.
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Following Congressional scrutiny of their business practices, hospital group purchasing organizations (GPOs) are moving to adopt new standards governing how they collect fees, contract with vendors, and manage potential conflicts of interest.
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The first national survey of women with heart disease has found that more than half of them are dissatisfied with their health care and face significant obstacles to recovery.
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Supreme Court upholds any-willing-provider laws.
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Nearly every hospital has them, and most doctors have seen them, treated them, and agonized over them. They are patients with a slim, if not nonexistent, chance of recovery, who continue to receive intense, invasive, and costly procedures because there is no other clear alternative.
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Patients with severe, irreversible brain injuries present unique ethical challenges to physicians and hospital ethics committees. For patients with no chance of recovering an interactive, conscious state, which treatments are appropriate and which are unjustifiably invasive and pointless?
