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$300M grant from RWJF intended to reduce health disparities
Today the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is expected to announce a $300 million initiative designed to reduce significant regional and ethnic care disparities across the U.S.--and ultimately, if... Read more...
Feds to display hospital satisfaction ratings in newspaper ads
In an effort to put some money behind its philosophy, the federal government has budgeted about $1.9 million to put full-page ads in newspapers around the U.S. disclosing individual hospital... Read more...
Study: Med schools could dramatically boost rural MD supply
Right now, only 9 percent of doctors live in rural areas, while 20 percent of the U.S. population is based there, according to current research. But medical schools could help close this gap. In... Read more...
Study: Care at safety net hospitals lagging
Care at safety net hospitals is of significantly lower quality than hospitals that don't serve the poor and underserved, according to a new study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical... Read more...
Bill would ease visa shortage for foreign nurses
For some time, a visa shortage has limited the ability of provider organizations to hire foreign healthcare professionals. Now, however, a new federal bill proposes to provide visas for qualified... Read more...
CMS wants to cut skilled-nursing spending
CMS says it is proposing to cut about $770 million in overall payments to skilled-nursing facilities in fiscal 2009, though it also plans to help the industry with an inflationary update to absorb... Read more...
Bill would foster growth of nurse educator corps
A federal legislator has a filed a bill designed to encourage active-duty military nurses and those retiring from military service to become nurse educators. The legislation, modeled after a Defense... Read more...
Study: MDs who treat minorities face quality challenges
Doctors who treat minorities tend to face a unique set of quality and financial challenges, according to a new study appearing in Health Affairs. The researchers, who used data from the 2004-05... Read more...
Study: Ethnic bias not seen in care for same condition
As we've detailed here in the past, disparities in care between whites and ethnic minorities continue to exist... Read more...
SPOTLIGHT: Public health workforce dropping
According to a new report by the Association of Schools of Public Health, the number of public health workers could fall rapidly in coming years. For one thing, they estimate that 23 percent of the... Read more...
