About pharma
A flawed Covid-19 study gets the White House’s attention — and the FDA may pay the price: This article explains critiques of the recently reported Henry Ford system study that claimed benefit for hydroxychloroquine use earlier in hospitalized patients. “Not only was it not randomized, outside experts noted, but patients who received hydroxychloroquine were also more likely to get steroids, which appear to help very sick patients with Covid-19. That is likely to have influenced the central finding of the Henry Ford study: that death rates were 50% lower among patients in hospitals treated with hydroxychloroquine.” Experts fear that the President will mandate retesting of the drug even though all other major studies have failed to prove a benefit.
Walgreens swings to a quarterly loss as coronavirus drives up costs, lowers doctor visits; shares fall: “Walgreens said its profits were squeezed by a shift in sales to low-margin items, increased supply-chain costs and higher expenses for labor and store cleaning.”
Live Updates: July 2020 Drug Price Increases: The 42 drugs that have price increases in July “add to the 857 brand and generic drugs that already increased in price by an average of 6.8% from January 1 to June 30, 2020.” The article has a list of the medications.
CVS Pharmacy introduces new app feature for reading “talking” prescription labels: “By the end of 2020, 1,500 CVS Pharmacy locations will be equipped to affix special RFID labels to prescription vials. When the RFID labels are scanned by Spoken Rx in the CVS Pharmacy app, which can be accessed by users using Siri or Google Assistant on their phones, prescription label information will be spoken out loud.”
Becton Dickinson Gets $42 Million HHS Contract for Injection Device: “HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has granted Becton Dickinson a $42 million contract to manufacture hundreds of millions of syringes and needles for delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.”
About the public’s health
Best Hospital Cities Ranking 2019: This study ranks cities by the infrastructure, quality and accessibility of their hospitals. Included is an international list…#1 is Tokyo. The only US city in the international top 20 is Boston.
ACS Updates HPV Vaccination Recommendations to Start at Age 9: The latest American Cancer Society recommendation for HPV vaccination.
About health insurance
Walmart launching insurance agency in Dallas with focus on Medicare: Another case of cross functional diversification: “Job listings show the company has quietly formed Walmart Insurance Service, LLC., focusing initially in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. The listings indicate that the initial focus will be on selling Medicare plans, though it's unclear if that means Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare supplemental plans or both.”
Medicare Beneficiaries’ Race and Ethnicity Data Inaccurate: “Significant inaccuracies exist in Medicare beneficiaries’ race and ethnicity data, which could exacerbate disparities in healthcare access and quality, according to a study published in Medical Care.
Administrative data, including insurance plan enrollment and demographic information, are contained in the Medicare Beneficiary Summary File (MBSF), the team stated. In contrast to administrative data sources, national surveys of Medicare beneficiaries include self-reported race and ethnicity…
‘The inaccuracy of state-level data on Medicare beneficiaries’ race and ethnicity is staggering,’ said Irina Grafova, assistant professor at Rutgers School of Public Health.
‘We found that, in 19 states, about 20 percent of Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries were misclassified as belonging to another ethnic group. In 24 states, more than 80 percent of American and Alaskan Native beneficiaries of Medicare were misclassified. And in the majority of states, at least one-fourth of Asian American and Pacific Islander beneficiaries were misclassified.’”
Authors suggest self-reporting is far more accurate than assigned race; the latter was done in the Medicare home-care setting.
About healthcare IT
VA inks 10-year, $100M deal with Philips for remote critical care services:”The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has inked a $100 million contract with Philips to extend its remote intensive care capabilities.
As part of the 10-year contract, the VA will work with Philips to enhance telehealth technology and services including tele-ICU, diagnostic imaging, sleep solutions and patient monitoring to improve care for veterans.”
About healthcare quality
COVID19 Impact & Mitigation Strategies for Payer Quality Improvement 2021: This AHIP-commissioned study found that because of delayed preventive care and reduced ambulatory visits, COVID19 will have a negative impact on 74 percent of the NCQA HEDIS quality measures. By far, the highest impact is on behavioral health.