Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff, Wales, has ordered two Synergy volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) systems, bringing the department's installation to four.

With the federal government putting $1.1 billion into comparative-effectiveness research, two Baylor College of Medicine scientists advocate investing in research that puts science into practice in doctors' offices and clinics across the U.S., according to a perspective in the May 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed a slight increase in its 2010 fiscal year policies and payment rates for inpatient services furnished to Medicare beneficiaries by both acute-care hospitals and long-term care hospitals.

Congressmen Mike Thompson, D-Calif., Bart Stupak, D-Mich., Lee Terry, R-Neb., and Sam Johnson, R-Texas, have introduced bipartisan legislation that would expand Medicare reimbursement to more facilities in urban and suburban areas for the use of telehealth equipment and services.

An average of 14,000 Americans lose health coverage each day, healthcare insurance premiums grow more than three times faster than wages and physician reimbursement has declined by more than 20 percent in the past eight years. Couple these sad statistics with a demographic shift that will see an ever increasing number of U.S. citizens eligible for, and needing services from, Medicare and it becomes clear that present healthcare delivery policies are quickly becoming fiscally unsustainable.

In 2006, nearly 4.4 million hospital admissions, totaling $30.8 billion in costs, could have been potentially preventable with timely and effective ambulatory care or adequate patient self-management of the condition, according to a report published last month from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Scribe Healthcare Technologies has incorporated M*Modal Speech Understanding technology into its web-based medical dictation, transcription and archive solutions.

Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., has introduced the Quality FIRST Act (H.R. 1776), a bill to provide for a program of quality measurement and reporting and for the use of performance-based payment within Medicare for inpatient services.