Change is inevitable, and that’s no different in the healthcare industry. New technologies, regulations and research continue to emerge as health systems, hospitals and physicians strive to succeed in the move from fee-for-service to value-based care. We’ve put together a list for you of some recent healthcare headlines that are bound to change healthcare in 2020.
A team of researchers from the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found that boosting SIRt3 levels through a ketone ester-rich diet may slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The team observed that this type of diet appeared to increase SIRT3 in rodents that received it. A study paper detailing their research was published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Researchers from the University of Kiel in Germany announced at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2019 that their new meta-analysis of 12 clinical trials involving more than 15,000 patients showed that adding capecitabine to standard chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) improves both disease-free and overall survival. Capecitabine is an oral fluoropyrimidine and is approved for use as monotherapy or in combination with docetaxel in metastatic breast cancer.
The United States Supreme Court announced recently that it would be taking up a case centered on states’ ability to regulate aspects of prescription drug reimbursement. Some pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have been accused of spread pricing, a practice states including Iowa and Arkansas have tried to regulate. Spread pricing occurs when a PBM reimburses a pharmacy at a different price than a health plan for a prescription drug. It’s alleged to increase profits for PBMs while putting some pharmacies out of business.
The health system has launched its first venture as part of its new Mayo Clinic Platform, a “strategic initiative to improve health care through insights and knowledge derived from data.” The Clinical Data Analytics Platform is designed to apply advanced analytics to deidentified data from across Mayo Clinic and other organizations. It will also delve into scientific literature “to advance medicine and improve the health of patients.”
According to a new report from Medscape, the rate for physician burnout has decreased, albeit slightly, from 46 percent in 2015 to 42 percent in 2020. The report also found that Generation X physicians are more likely to experience burnout than their counterparts and female doctors are 25 percent more likely to report it. About 15-20 percent of physicians surveyed for the report disclosed they dealt with depression.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is renaming its Health IT division and focusing on new technologies and services to improve the use of data. The mission of the new Division of Digital Healthcare Research is to “produce and disseminate evidence about how the evolving digital healthcare ecosystem can best advance the quality, safety and effectiveness of healthcare for patients and their families.” One of its first acts was to announce a new funding opportunity, “Improving Quality of Care and Patient Outcomes During Care Transitions.”
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