Jackie Syrop

Despite a federal law enacted to respond to rising national drug shortages, a new study finds that although the numbers of national drug shortages appearing each year has decreased, the overall number of national shortages remains high.

Efficiencies that could be gained in healthcare information exchange present emerging opportunities to close discrepancies between evidence-based recommendations or best practices and the care that is actually delivered.

As the population ages, the role of caregivers for seniors becomes more important, and the idea of patient engagement is expanding to include caregiver engagement.

The percentage of Democrats with an unfavorable opinion of the Affordable Care Act has increased, because more of them want to expand what the law does.

There may be an inexpensive way to reduce the risky use of pain medications by people at high risk of overdosing: using trained therapists in the emergency department to provide motivational interviews.

A new study finds that more than one-third of heart failure (HF) patients do not receive recommended HF-specific medications within 30 days of diagnosis.

A transparent system is needed that allows consumers to easily check prices at different pharmacies in order to identify potential savings and become empowered to choose stores and payment options most beneficial to them.

There has been an increased focus on making healthcare price information more transparent, but with only price information, patients and payers have no way to determine if paying a higher price is warranted.

The departure of UnitedHealth from most Affordable Care Act exchanges will have a relatively small effect on premiums across the country, but the effect could be more pronounced in rural areas and southern states.

Overall use of a web-based tool providing real-time, personalized episode-level price estimates for healthcare was low, but for some procedures the number of people searching for prices of services was high relative to the number of people who received the service.

Patients whose hospital care providers used mobile secure text messaging to communicate had shorter hospital stays compared with patients whose health providers used standard paging systems to communicate.

It is not surprising that a new study on the relationship between income and longevity in the United States concludes that life expectancy increased with income. However, the study did shed light on the variabilities in the income-longevity relationship.

Fewer than 3% of Americans are active enough, eat a healthy diet, are nonsmokers, and have a healthy weight and percentage of body fat-the 4 important elements of a heart-healthy lifestyle that are promoted by the American Heart Association.

Narrative often shapes a person’s approach to healthcare decisions, yet narrative is usually excluded from the medical evidence base, and it rarely plays a role in original research reports.

Data on drug prescriptions, diagnoses, and events are increasingly being used for epidemiologic and pharmacologic studies and for the evaluation of quality of care, but questions arise about how complete and accurate the diagnoses and events in these databases are.

Many physicians are interested in using genomic profiling in patient care, but many believe they are unprepared to do so.

Public investment in affordable and stable housing, through rental assistance for food-insecure families, improves the health of infants and children and is associated with better health outcomes and lower spending.

Sitting time was responsible for 3.8% of all-cause mortality in 54 countries studied, and eliminating sitting time could increase life expectancy by 0.20 years in those nations.

American workers’ compensation payers experienced a 2.2% increase in pharmacy spending in 2015, but effective management programs helped lower injured workers’ drug utilization by 2.6%.

Adverse drug reaction profiles for 12 marketed antidepressant and anticonvulsant medications are inconsistently reported in Europe versus the United States.

Potential modifications to the risk-adjustment model used for the Affordable Care Act commercial plans could improve the model and appropriately compensate plans that enroll sicker enrollees.

Nearly half of US adults said they have personally experienced unfair treatment or discrimination. These acts of discrimination were associated with higher reported stress and poorer reported health.

States can greatly improve access to behavioral health services for residents by expanding Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act, HHS reported.

Intracoronary gene transfer among heart failure patients increased left ventricular function beyond standard heart failure therapy.

People who enrolled in a Blue Cross Blue Shield health plan after enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have higher rates of disease and received significantly more medical care compared with those enrolled before the ACA was enacted.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who engage in greater amounts of physical activity in the 12 months prior to hospitalization for COPD have a lower risk of death in the year following discharge.

Heart failure patients who have early follow-up with general medicine or cardiology providers within 7 days of discharge from the hospital had 19% had lower odds of readmission within 30 days.

Nearly half of patients at an urban primary care clinic affiliated with a large academic medical center had a diagnosed mental health problem.

The percentage of doctors who are disciplined or pay a malpractice claim is 4 times less in some states than in others, according to a new study.

The mains why Americans are less satisfied with their health system compared with people in other countries is their concern and uncertainty about being able to access “most preferred care.”