Discover the Science of Health
Last Thursday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the highly anticipated final regulations for accountable care organizations (ACOs) under Section 3022 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [1]. The PPACA requires accountable-care agreements to be offered under Medicare, starting in 2012.
Users of Primatene Mist, the only over-the-counter treatment for acute symptoms of asthma, will need to find an alternative as of December 31, 2011. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that the medication will no longer be available because it uses chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as a propellant agent [1], and CFCs have long been known to deplete Earth’s ozone layer.
MinuteClinic, the retail healthcare division of CVS Caremark and Indiana University Health (IU Health), the largest and most comprehensive health system in Indiana, announced yesterday that they have entered into a clinical affiliation to enhance access to the high quality, affordable healthcare services they provide in communities throughout the state of Indiana [1]. The affiliation allows the organizations to work together in a more coordinated and integrated fashion to provide better care of patients with chronic diseases.
Welcome to Grand Rounds: the Impact of Healthcare Reform.
For this edition of Grand Rounds, Vol. 7 No. 11, we’re focusing on the impact of healthcare reform: what are the changes to healthcare delivery, utilization, quality, costs (either as a provider or a patient) and outcomes. After all, these changes affect everyone, whether you’re a patient, a healthcare provider or a biomedical researcher.
The County Health Rankings — the first set of reports to rank the overall health of every county in all 50 states — were released recently by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The 50 state reports, available on www.countyhealthrankings.org, enables consumers, public health and community leaders, policy-makers and others to see how healthy their county is, compare it with others within their state and find ways to improve the health of their community.
The County Health Rankings identify the healthiest and least healthy counties within every state in the nation. Health outcomes in the County Health Rankings represent how healthy a county is. Two types of health outcomes are measured: how long people live (mortality) and how healthy people feel while alive (morbidity).
