About the public’s health
7 things to know about the coronavirus outbreak: Good summary to-date of the outbreak.
A self-aggregating peptide: implications for the development of thermostable vaccine candidates: Vaccines delivered to warm areas without refrigeration will quickly degrade. This animal research shows great promise for thermostabile vaccines that will retain their potency for at least a year.
About healthcare quality and safety
ISMP Publishes Top 10 List of Medication Errors and Hazards Covered in Newsletter: The Institute for Safe Medication Practices published its annual errors and hazards list. Among the items is selecting the wrong medication after entering the first few letters of the drug name in the EMR.
About health insurance
UnitedHealth: MA plan holders save nearly 40% more compared to fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries: “UnitedHealth’s analysis, which was conducted by consulting firm Milliman, found that the average annual healthcare costs for a 72-year-old MA beneficiary were $3,632 and $5,960 for beneficiaries on fee-for-service…The analysis also found that a typical MA beneficiary who also has Part D prescription drug coverage spends $1,477 less than beneficiaries on fee-for-service with Part D coverage.”
340B has minimal effect on health spending, study finds: MedPAC “found that for 340B hospitals, spending on cancer drugs was 2 percent to 5 percent higher than hospitals that don't participate in the program and 1 percent to 7 percent higher than physician offices, a modest increase in overall healthcare spending since 2018.
The spending also depends on the type of cancer. MedPAC found that spending on cancer drugs was only higher among 340B hospitals for prostate and lung cancer. These increases couldn't be definitively linked to incentives from the 340B program and could be due to other factors…”