According to BarackObama.com, Obama’s health insurance proposal features many ambitious and grand features such as coverage for pre-existing conditions, tax credits to small businesses that offer employer based health insurance coverage, preventive screenings, and much more. Obama’s health insurance plan may also include “medical home” where a primary doctor coordinates healthcare. “In a sense, his proposal is similar to an HMO with the primary doctor as a sort of healthcare czar for each individual and the emphasis on preventive medicine,” says CEO Eric Oster of InsuranceBureau.com.

With all the talk about federal bailouts and funding, one sector that is left out of most primetime conversations is the health care industry. However the economic downturn will reach out to every market, and the medical space is not ‘immune’.

The DNA Repair Company (DNAR) announced today that it has identified a promising set of protein biomarkers that may aid in the treatment of a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer. These findings were presented at the CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

EMRs have garnered a tremendous amount of attention in the health care community. Numerous studies have illustrated the potential for increased profitability if EMRs are utilized consistently, however they have not gained significant traction in the US, and it does not appear that the industry will be adopting this solution anytime soon.

There has been much discussion in recent weeks of the 14-year-old patient from Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami living without a heart for more than 100 days. What has not been reported are the facts behind the struggle as to how initially and immediately treat the young patient in post-transplant failure. This patient was fairing so poorly that she could not be weaned from cardio pulmonary bypass. She faced great odds of expiring and was not in any condition to immediately endure a complicated surgical BiVAD insertion or another transplant, even if another organ was immediately available.

Being diagnosed with a brain tumor can be devastating news. But thanks to a decade of advances in minimally invasive surgical procedures and improvements in instrumentation, patients today have a far better chance of recovery—without the risks of traditional “open-skull” surgery or other techniques.

Adena Health System has put LifeSize high definition video communications solutions to work linking neonatal patients in rural Ohio with pediatric specialists in Columbus. In its first year of use, the number of newborns transferred from Adena’s hospital in Chillicothe to the neonatal specialists at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus was cut in half – from 140 to 70 – improving patient care, cutting costs and sparing mothers, infants and their families of the burden of traveling to a specialist.