A few hours after Marjorie Paulsen learned that a tumor was growing in her brain, she told her husband she didn’t want to go to sleep that night. “I’m afraid I won’t wake up,” she said. Paulsen knew nothing about how that tumor might be treated. She was reacting with that special fear that emerges [...]

The results of a survey released today by the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and UnitedHealthcare reveal that a large percentage of baby boomers and seniors ages 65 and over do not understand Medicare and are unaware of important recent or impending changes to the program. The study results reinforce the need for more education [...]

Feelings of burnout persist among internal medicine residents despite significant cutbacks in duty hours for doctors-in-training in recent years, a national study by Mayo Clinic found. A poor quality of life took a toll on performance: Stressors affecting well-being such as lack of a work-life balance contributed to lower test scores on a standardized exam. [...]

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced awards totaling $10 million to aid 129 organizations across the country that would like to become community health centers. These funds, made available by the Affordable Care Act, support organizations’ development as a future health center. Health centers improve the health of the nation [...]

Mayo Clinic researchers will receive more than $3 million in a four-year grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute to translate recent genomic discoveries into tools for individualized medicine. Recent advances in the genetics of heart and blood vessel diseases will be integrated into electronic medical records so doctors can more accurately determine patients’ [...]

It’s not hard to find critics of the medical malpractice system in the United States. There is widespread agreement that it simply does not do what it should. “It both fails to compensate patients who have suffered from bad medical care, and compensates those who haven’t,” writes Daniel P. Kessler, a professor at the Stanford [...]

New research out of the University of Utah (the U) David Eccles School of Business shows social marketing tools are crucial to the success of health care providers in their efforts to help consumers navigate the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA.) The research paper led and co-authored by Marketing Professor Debra Scammon [...]

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $71.3 million in grants to expand nursing education, training and diversity.  Nursing workforce development programs, reauthorized by the Affordable Care Act and administered by HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration, are the primary source of federal funding for nursing education and workforce development. These programs bolster nursing education at all [...]

More needs to be done to assure patients that their personal medical information will be safe and secure following the nationwide switch to Electronic Health Records (EHRs), according to results of a recent online survey conducted among 2,720 U.S. adults for Xerox and Harris. Nearly 80 percent of respondents who have concerns about digital medical [...]

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced new draft standards for collecting and reporting data on race, ethnicity, sex, primary language and disability status, and announced the administration’s plans to begin collecting health data on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) populations. Both efforts aim to help researchers, policy makers, health providers and advocates to identify and [...]