Health Care Delivery

A study in Annals of Internal Medicine shows severe obesity presents a greater risk of death from COVID-19 than related factors such as diabetes or hypertension.

Given the constraints prevalent post-COVID-19, Dr Mark Fendrick, director of the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, stresses that it is now more important than ever for the health care industry to prioritize payment reform, value-based benefit design, and novel policy initiatives.

Among patients with Parkinson disease aged 60 years and younger with early motor complications, deep brain stimulation was found to provide significant improvements in social, occupational, and psychosocial function.

From 1968 to 2016, differences among Black and White older adults’ mortality rates have narrowed in urban areas of America. However, data show a considerable widening in the mortality rate among Black and White men living in rural counties.

Despite triage systems in place to exclude patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), viral material was found on ophthalmology examination room surfaces at one center, though the infectivity of the samples was unknown.

A new study in PLOS ONE has highlighted the broad impact fatigue can have on patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis, and axial spondyloarthritis.

Yale New Haven Hospital’s reorganization of its sickle cell disease program led patients to report feeling better off and needing fewer hospitalizations. However, the change left some with the disease still feeling unsatisfied.

In the primary analysis of a phase 3 study, ruxolitinib reduced spleen length and symptoms in patients with myelofibrosis, according to results published in British Journal of Haemotology.

Researchers found that patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) are at increased risk of developing several forms of cancer compared with the general population.

Prevention and early screening efforts need to be stepped up for patients with acute heart failure who contract pneumonia while hospitalized.

Krisda H. Chaiyachati, MD, MPH, MSHP, discusses the study he co-wrote entitled “Economic Outcomes of Insurer-Led Care Management for High-Cost Medicaid Patients.”

Patricia Salber, MD, MBA, of The Doctor Weighs In, and Sandeep “Bobby” Reddy, MD, an oncologist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and chief medical officer of NantHealth, discuss the clinical care of patients with cancer in the age of COVID-19.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines that are leading the pack are utilizing a new vaccine technology that has never been approved for human use by the FDA. As a result, there are a lot of unknowns.

The attorneys general who spoke about the suit—California’s Xavier Becerra, Massachusetts’ Maura Healey, and New York’s Leticia James—said they found it difficult to believe that the administration would adopt the rule in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019, which is disproportionately affecting communities of color.

Karen Kobelski is the vice president and general manager of clinical surveillance, compliance & data solutions at Wolters Kluwer. She brings more than 25 years of experience to her position, which expands her previous leadership role over the Safety & Surveillance group to also include the Health Language portfolio of data normalization solutions.

States currently facing a surge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases also report the greatest increases in residents who lost health insurance due to the pandemic, according to an analysis published by Families USA.

Oral anticancer therapies have become popular alternatives to more traditional care, such as chemotherapy. However, research shows that adherence to oral anti-cancer therapies can range from 20% to 100%. Several factors contribute to medication nonadherence and access barriers. To learn more, we spoke with Ami Vyas, PhD, an assistant professor of pharmacy practice, specializing in health outcomes research, at The University of Rhode Island.

Following implementation of several major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, health insurance coverage for HIV-positive individuals increased, leading to sustained viral suppression in some instances and improving their ability to increase access to often life-saving services.

Voters in Oklahoma will decide whether or not to amend the state's constitution to expand Medicaid; new studies find that nearly 300 children in the United States have contracted a rare inflammatory disorder related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); the House of Representatives passed a bill aimed to bolster the Affordable Care Act.

The Trump administration and Republican state attorneys general called on the Supreme Court to overturn the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare). President Trump has endorsed repealing the ACA since his 2016 campaign, while Republican lawmakers have largely opposed the law since its inception in 2010.

Inadequate access to health care can truly be a life or death matter, so health care policy designed to improve access to care, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is, can have a fundamental effect on making progress against cancer-related mortality and improving the quality of the care delivered, noted Fumiko Chino, MD, assistant attending radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Medicaid expansion was associated with a decrease in nonprofit hospitals’ burden of providing uncompensated care, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. However, hospitals did not redirect this financial relief toward spending on additional community benefits.

The Association of Accessible Medicines (AAM), which supports biosimilar development, argues that even if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is overturned by the Supreme Court later this year, the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) is severable and should survive.

Being uninsured carries with it a host of adverse health consequences, including more advanced stages of disease when seeing a physician, avoidable deaths, and not receiving lifesaving treatments for conditions such as heart failure.