Compliance Resources to Help you Stay Current

In an open dialogue at the Collenbrook United Church in Drexel Hill, Congressman Jow Sestak has clarified his views on the newly-signed heathcare reform law. Facts and benefits of the reform law have also been addressed in his dialogue.
 

NHS again came under fire of criticisms when the MPs announced that the local chiefs are ‘too passive’ to keep a track on the hospitals in England.

Adding to that, MPs said that managers working in 152 PCTs lack sufficient knowledge and skill required for the job. The Commonwealth Health committee said continuous reorganizations and high turnover may partly be responsible for the deteriorating performance of the managers and the committee has also requested the government to support the managers for better performance.

After death of three infants, Infantino is finally recalling SlingRider Baby Slings, announced the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Health Canada (HC).

CPSC announced to stop buying or using the SlingRider and Wendy Bellissimo slings for children younger than four months. For free replacement of the slings, consumers can contact the san-Diego based Infantino. Additionally, the CPSC has given a strong advice “Do not attempt to fix these carriers”.

Suspecting the presence of mercury-derived preservative, the Washington state has call back the restriction on H1N1 vaccine again on March 23, 2010.

According to the state Department of Health, the H1N1 vaccine contains thimerosal, a mercury-derived preservative, which can create health complications for pregnant women and infants.

Six months ago, when doses were scarce during the peak of the swine flu season, the state Department of Health lifted the restriction for the H1N1 vaccine to give pregnant women access.

However, now mercury-free H1N1vaccines are readily available, said the Health Department.

Source:

http://www.goskagit.com/home/article/mercury_restriction_reinstated_for_h1n1_vaccine/

 

The historic Health bill which promises reform and revamp of nation’s health care system, got accolades from consumer groups, mixed reactions from the doctors and a negative response from the insurers.

Published in a recent article of CNNMoney (March 22, 2010), responses of all major groups of people are as follows:

Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, HHS announced an award of 372 Million in Prevention and Wellness Grants to 44 Communities around the Nation. The awards are part of the HHS Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) initiative to support [public health efforts in order to reduce obesity and smoking, increase physical activity and improve nutrition.

First Lady Michelle Obama believes "This is an unprecedented level of commitment to prevention… Investing in local communities will build a healthier America, and we aim to reach more than 50 million people who are living in the communities receiving these awards.”

According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “We’re looking to create the healthy community environments that will help prevent heart attacks, strokes, cancer, diabetes, and other serious health problems on a broad scale…And, by preventing and controlling chronic disease, we can start to turn around rising health care costs as well,” she said.

The new health care legislation in USA is promising a brighter and better future for the uninsured and low income people.

The Senate Finance Committee is initiating an investigation to delve into patient safety and quality of care provided by long-term care hospitals.

The National Institute of Health (NIH) has announced its new initiative of creating a Genetic Testing Registry to create a public database available for researchers, consumers, health care providers, and others looking for information. This database will contain information submitted by genetic test providers voluntarily.

At present, although there are more than 1,600 genetic tests are available to patients and consumers, but lack of public resource providing detailed information about them makes the genetic testing unavailable for the patients and consumers. GTR is an initiative of the NIH to fill the gap and it has been developed in order to enhance access of common people to information about the availability, validity, and usefulness of genetic tests.

Recently in a newspaper article, one of the best investigative reporters in china revealed that counterfeit vaccines have taken lives of four children and making another dozens of people sick.

Over the last few years, China has been weighed down with a series of accusations of producing counterfeit medicines thus raising questions against its government’s will to safeguard patients’ safety in the country.

Sterilization validation is a topic of immense relevance as it pulls many audit observations from the FDA and international regulatory bodies. For medical device sterilization, comparing to other modes such as steam sterilization and etc, EO works in relatively low pressure temperature and therefore, has been regarded as one of the most excellent and useful method of medical device sterilization.

Grand River Hospital District (GRHD) has an exciting program to offer to women, the Women's Wellness Connection.

Facilitated health information exchange and advance health information technology can result into improved health care.

Acknowledging the same fact, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has announced awards to help states facilitate health information exchange and advance health information technology (health IT).

Now your issue/complaint with the facility will 100% be taken care of. This assurance is coming Ralph Montano, spokesman for the California Department of Public Health, which regulates hospitals and long-term care facilities in the state.

The Medical Records Database for Patients in England has come under fire of criticisms recently. Although the plan was built for organizing online appointments system and e-prescriptions in a hassle free way and also to maintain record of 50 million patients, its repeated criticism over security has left many concerned about using the plan.

For the patients of Alzheimer’s, Dimebon was perhaps the brightest ray of hope but that hope also got dashed when the drug failed in the last stage of the first clinical trial. Its failure not only demoralized its hopeful patients but also blown Medivation and Pfizer – the two companies which were dealing with the medicine.

Known as ‘metal on metal’ implants, this hip replacement procedure was one of the most admired one and has been opted for by about one-third of the approximately 250,000 hip replacements performed annually in USA, but result of this replacement has now set off an alarming bell amongst the patients and doctors. Recent researches have shown that this popular mode of hip replacement is causing severe pain, inflammation and death of tissues in the hip joint in some patients. Result of which is another surgery in two or three years to remove the implant.

Opined by the keynote presenter of HIMSS 2010, Harry Markopolos, every year at least 20 percent of the current Medicare payments are going to fraudulent claims in US. Harry Markopolos, who is celebrated for exposing the ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff, believes that health information technology is a double-edged sword in terms of finding fraud. He says “The EHR can make fraud easier to find, but also makes it easier to camouflage."

Employers are taking initiatives to enforce their employees in following medical prescriptions so as to prevent future expenses on high cost medical treatment. This forms a part of what is called Medication Compliance or Medication adherence which means to follow a medicine treatment plan provided by an individual's health care provider, filling prescriptions and taking medications as prescribed. Employers are taking key interest in enforcing this based on surveys that have shown that serious non-compliance has resulted in huge productivity loses. The key focus is on diabetes along with heart diseases and blood pressure. Preventive healthcare and lifestyle behaviors have been rated as factors high on importance to manage costs on employee healthcare.

Senior officials from some of the big companies in the insurance sector are testifying in front of the Department of Insurance. This is an ongoing month long probe by state regulators after they observed disproportionately high rates of insurance paid by small businesses. Well most of the questions were skirted around by the officials citing confidentiality contracts signed with the clients. But state regulators are strong on receiving an explaination which they say will not be made public as is but a summary would be released after the completion of the probe.