"Health & Medical News"

Physicians say a Missouri Supreme Court ruling, though narrow, recognizes the significance of medical staff bylaws and offers doctors some recourse in the face of unfair discipline.

Breaking with a 43-year-old precedent, a unanimous high court opened the door for medical staff members to sue hospitals over privileging disputes if the facilities fail to follow staff bylaws. Justices departed from a long-held principle that hospital privileging decisions were not subject to judicial review, noting that was the “nationwide majority rule” at the time of the high court’s 1965 decision.

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An integral part of some state and local health system reform efforts has hit a major stumbling block. The business community has taken employer mandates to court.

These state and local laws require businesses to spend a certain amount on workers’ health care coverage or put that money into a fund to provide access for the uninsured. U.S. courts in Maryland, New York and California have sided with the business community and ruled that the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act trumps these efforts.

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From:
Treatment Research Institute
600 Public Ledger Building, 150 S. Independence Mall West
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: (215) 399-0980
http://www.tresearch.org

Paying substance abuse treatment providers for results, not services, may lead to improved quality of care, according to the first published study of a novel performance-based contracting system implemented by the State of Delaware in 2002.

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From:
Treatment Research Institute
600 Public Ledger Building, 150 S. Independence Mall West
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: (215) 399-0980
http://www.tresearch.org

Paying substance abuse treatment providers for results, not services, may lead to improved quality of care, according to the first published study of a novel performance-based contracting system implemented by the State of Delaware in 2002.

Popularity: unranked [?]

From:
Treatment Research Institute
600 Public Ledger Building, 150 S. Independence Mall West
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Tel: (215) 399-0980
http://www.tresearch.org

Paying substance abuse treatment providers for results, not services, may lead to improved quality of care, according to the first published study of a novel performance-based contracting system implemented by the State of Delaware in 2002.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Washington — Down syndrome is a familiar condition, affecting about one in every 800 children born in the United States. Although it is the most frequent genetic cause of mild to moderate mental retardation and it is associated with numerous other medical problems, much about it remains unknown.

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Buried in clinical guidelines and buffeted by the latest published research findings, what’s a physician to do when faced with a patient and a 15-minute treatment window? Begin to sort through the conflicting guidelines or analyze the latest research studies?

A Jan. 24 Institute of Medicine report suggests a way to bring order from the chaos that surrounds conflicting clinical guidelines and questions about how to choose the best available diagnostic, treatment or preventive service — but Congress would have to create a federal program to make it happen.

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Barack Obama stated support for marijuana decriminalization in 2004 but has backed off that position during the 2008 presidential campaign, the Washington Times reported Feb. 1.

While running for Senate in 2004, Obama told a group of Northwestern University students, “I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws. But I’m not somebody who believes in legalization of marijuana.”

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Here’s your opportunity to influence the global health research agenda: the WHO is asking for global input on their agenda for the 2008 Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health via meetings with stakeholders, an on-line consultative questionnaire, and will be holding a structured e-forum in Spring 2008 to discuss the agenda. The call for conference papers will be sent out in February 2008, and the Lancet will publish an issue on global health to complement the conference - article submissions for inclusion are due in June 2008. The conference will be held in Bamako, Mali from 17-19 November 2008.

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Researchers in Texas are binding cocaine to deactivated cholera proteins to create a vaccine that fools the body into attacking cocaine molecules, thus making the drug ineffective, the Associated Press reported Jan. 1.

Researchers Tom and Therese Kosten of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston recently requested Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to begin a multi-institutional trial of the vaccine, as early as this spring.

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