Healthcare Trends

County officials in Arizona have taken the highly unusual and extreme step of jailing a 27-year-old tuberculosis patient who refuses to wear a mask in public to prevent the spread of the disease. The patient, Robert Daniels, suffers from an aggressively drug-resistant strain of the disease, XDR-TB, which is considered more or less untreatable. County health officials got a court order to lock Daniels up when he refused to take precautions that include wearing the mask. He is being …

A new study has added to the growing concern over lack of geriatricians needed to care for a growing senior population. The study, done by researchers at the University of Cincinnati, projects that by the year 2030 roughly 70 million Americans will be older than 65. However, over the past 10 years the number of geriatricians has actually declined, from 8,800 to 7,100, with little to suggest that the trend will turn around. In fact, the percentage of students entering family …

Like their peers in other cities, Boston, MA-area hospitals are planning a wave of new construction. This time around, the hospitals are going "green," creating environments that conserve energy, avoid the use of irritating materials and soothe anxious patients. For example, Brigham and Women's Hospital is building a $352 million, 136-bed cardiac care center featuring such environment- and patient-friendly features as large windows which admit more natural light and a white roof to …

A new study has concluded that pediatricians largely use family members, rather than professional translators, to convey health information to non-English-speaking patients. The Johns Hopkins study, which surveyed 1,829 pediatricians, found that 70 percent of pediatricians use bilingual family members as translators. Fifty-eight percent also call on bilingual staff members. Meanwhile, 40 percent used professional interpreters, and 35 percent provided translated written materials. Not …

If you're convinced that people won't settle for cut-rate retail clinic care, think again. Though some quality concerns remain, most U.S. residents who have visited a retail clinic are satisfied with the service they received, according to a new survey by The Wall Street Journal Online and Harris Interactive. The research, which surveyed 2,441 U.S. adults, found that five percent had visited a retail clinic. Nearly half (44 percent) visited for a vaccination, 33 percent …

A new report has found that African-Americans in Connecticut are dying prematurely of diabetes far more often than their non-minority counterparts. According to the study, which was published by the Connecticut Health Foundation, African-Americans in the state are dying before age 75 three times more often than whites. Experts noted that the reasons for this difference may include poor access to care and questionable food choices, but that obesity rates were the biggest contributor. The …

A new survey suggests that while consumers are sometimes involved, physicians still have a substantial influence when it's time to choose a hospital. The study, which appears this month in the Archives of Surgery, looked at 500 randomly selected Medicare patients, averaging 78 years old, who had had repair of an abdominal aneurysm, heart valve replacement or cancers of lung, stomach and bladder. Upon analyzing the data, researchers found that doctors were the picked the hospital …

A recent poll among northeastern Illinois emergency physicians suggests that the region, like many others across the U.S., faces a serious overcrowding problem. The study, conducted by the American College of Emergency Physicians, found that 99 percent of the region's doctors consider their ED to be overcrowded "frequently" or "almost always." What's more, almost nine out of 10 said that conditions had gotten worst over the last year. 

With emergency physicians around the …

A new analysis of medical malpractice claims in seven states has concluded that only a small percentage of claimants ended up with cash--though nearly a fifth of cash-generating claims led to payments of $1 million or more. It also found that the costs tended to be much lower if the case never went to trial.

The study, which was done by the U.S. Department of Justice, looked at medical malpractice suits in Illinois, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada and Texas from …

Despite widespread beliefs to the contrary, drugs may be just as effective as angioplasties when it comes to treating non-emergency heart conditions, according to a new study. The study, which was presented at the American Cardiology Conference, concluded that while angioplasties are still indicated for heart patients in crisis, this procedure neither saved lives nor prevented heart attacks in non-emergency heart patients. What's more, the study suggests that angioplasty only provides a …