- OSHA to crack down on hospitals that don’t protect nurses from injury (fiercehealthcare.com)
Noncompliant hospitals will face fines up to $70K. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has announced a new initiative to drastically increase scrutiny of injuries among hospital nursing staff….. step up regulation of occupational risks in healthcare settings in the wake of an April report…
- A condom that changes colour when it comes into contact with STIs invented by a group of school pupils (independent.co.uk)
The 'S.T.EYE', brainchild of three 13 and 14-year-olds, has a built-in indicator to detect infections such as chlamydia and syphilis….condom that changes colour when it comes into contact with sexually transmitted infections….
- $2.6 billion VA shortfall raises more criticism, anger (militarytimes.com)
House lawmakers say the Veterans Affairs Department's $2.6 billion budget shortfall for this fiscal year is further proof of administrators' incompetence and poor planning…VA officials have a slightly different take, saying the shortfall is a sign of their extraordinary efforts….
- Many doctors misunderstand key facets of opioid abuse, study shows (sciencedaily.com)
prescription pain medications or how addictive formulations can be, which may be contributing to the epidemic of prescription opioid abuse....“Physicians and patients may mistakenly view these medicines as safe in one form and dangerous in another, but these products are addictive no matter how you take them,” ...
- Do advocates overestimate the benefits of personalized medicine? (fiercehealthcare.com)
..advocates of personalized or precision medicine may have set up unrealistic expectations about its promise while leaving many questions unanswered,…."Even though personalized medicine will be useful to better understand rare diseases and identify novel therapeutic targets….the promise of improved risk prediction, behavior change, lower costs, and gains in public health for common diseases seem unrealistic,"….
- Doc groups call for ICD-10 grace period (fiercepracticemanagement.com)
The country's four largest state medical associations (Texas, California, Florida and New York) say two years of 'on-the-job training' will avert financial disaster for physician practices…"We believe that two years of transition time, on-the-job learning by physicians--plus our continued ICD-10 educational activities--will result in a much less disastrous transition to this overwhelmingly complicated new coding system,"......
- Genetic discovery uncovers key tool for morphine production in poppies (sciencedaily.com)
Scientists…have made a key genetic discovery in poppies, paving the way for more effective painkillers…The gene, called STORR, is only found in poppy species that produce morphinans….completes the set of genes needed for genetic engineering of morphine production in microbes such as yeast. Whether or not this can compete commercially with plant based production remains to be seen.....