Police believe an air conditioner released carbon monoxide into a Hauppauge business Wednesday afternoon, sending 17 employees to the hospital. According to the Suffolk County Police Department, a female employee at Liqui-Mark on Davids Drive had complained of a headache and nausea.
Category: HEALTHCARE/MEDICAL
Box jellyfish antivenom a step closer after breakthrough by scientists
Scientists say they are a step closer to developing an antivenom to counteract toxins from the box jellyfish, which delivers the world’s deadliest jellyfish sting.
Patients Resist ‘Less Is More,’ a MedPage Today Survey
(MedPage Today) — Physicians limiting “low-value” tests find patients need extra explanation
Headwinds for Health Insurers as Obamacare Stumbles
(A version of this Health Alert was published by Forbes). You might think this headline is a gag, given how deeply health insurers are dug into Obamacare. Only a month ago, I wrote that health plans’ mastery of Obamacare poses challenge to repeal. Losses in Obamacare’s controversial exchanges are not yet apparent in the publicly listed insurers’ financial statements. However, exchanges comprise of a small (but not trivial) market of about 11 million people. Through 2016, health plans losing money in Obamacare can rely on taxpayers to help them out. After that, they are on their own. Already, many plans are finding participation painful and increasing Obamacare premiums significantly for 2016. According to Louise Radnofsky of the Wall Street Journal, In New Mexico, market leader Health Care Service Corp. is
What’s Going on With Spending on Health Insurance Overhead?
Even as federal regulators take steps to constrain administrative spending by private health insurers, government overhead on health coverage has soared. In a Health Affairs blogpost published Wednesday, David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler use actuarial estimates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to project that between 2014 and 2022, national spending on private insurance overhead and government administration will rise by $273.6 billion related to the health-care overhaul.
HIV Co-Infection: Hepatitis C
(MedPage Today) — 10 days, 10 questions: Day 8 — “How should patients with HIV be treated, especially in the new era of direct-acting agents?”
Scripting Scripps
Gary Schwitzer and his buddies at Health News Review are the experts in critiquing medical stories, noting:The mission of HealthNewsReview.org is to improve the public dialogue about health care by helping consumers critically analyze claims about health care interventions and by promoting the principles of shared decision-making reinforced by accurate, balanced and complete information about the tradeoffs involved in health care decisions. HealthNewsReview.org evaluates health care journalism, advertising, marketing, public relations and other messages that may influence consumers and provides criteria that consumers can use to evaluate these messages themselves. Improving the quality and flow of health care news and information to consumers can be a significant step towards meaningful health care reform.In this respect, they are performing an excellent public service.
Proactive Psychiatric Consultation For Hospitalized Patients, A Plan for the Future
The Yale Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) is a proactive, multi-disciplinary psychiatric consultation service for all internal medicine inpatients at Yale-New Haven Hospital. The goal of the team, which includes nurses, social workers, and psychiatrists, is to shift from a “reactive” to a “proactive” paradigm of psychiatric consultations on hospital inpatient medical floors. The team screens for, identifies, and removes/mitigates behavioral barriers to the effective receipt of health care among hospitalized medical patients, especially among those with co-occurring mental illness and/or substance abuse. To facilitate delivery of timely, effective inpatient medical care, the BIT collaborates closely with the medical team through formal and informal advice, co-management of behavioral issues, education of medical, nursing, and social work staff, and direct care of complex
How sleep helps us learn and memorize
Sleep is important for long lasting memories, particularly during this exam season. Research publishing in PLOS Computational Biology suggests that sleeping triggers the synapses in our brain to both strengthen and weaken, which prompts the forgetting, strengthening or modification of our memories in a process known as long-term potentiation (LTP).
The Latest Health Wonk Review
Last week, Julie Ferguson put up the latest Health Wonk Review at Workers’ Comp Insider. Julie offers a smorgasbord of great posts, including Preeti Malani’s Health Affairs Blog post on the intersection of politics and HIV in Indiana. If you haven’t done so already, check out Steve Anderson’s Grumpy Cat Wonk Review edition, at the medicareresources.org blog, which preceded Julie’s pre-Memorial Day edition. And watch for next week’s Review, which will be hosted on June 4 by Louise Norris at Colorado Health Insurance Insider.
Michael King Dead: TV Exec Who Helped Launch ‘Oprah’ Show Was 66
Michael King , who with his brother Roger, was behind the syndication of the mega-successful Oprah, Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray shows, died Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 66. King had been in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and was taken off life support after being admitted with pneumonia nearly three weeks ago, according to media reports.