Practice Management
The United Kingdom’s Health Security Agency has now contracted with a supplier to purchase more than 5 million doses of human H5N1 avian flu vaccine to prepare the country should an avian flu pandemic occur. The virus has been causing a prolonged global outbreak with new cases emerging in humans recently—although the risk still remains quite low. Poultry and dairy cattle are the most likely animals to experience outbreaks of the virus, and thousands of …
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation and a number of its partners issued a joint advisory last week, highlighting cybercriminal activities by a ransomware group known as BianLian. With a history of attacking the healthcare sector, BianLian has targeted various other industries as well. The group gains system access using legitimate remote desktop protocol credentials then steals system-user credentials. The hackers then extort the target organizations by threatening to publicly release the stolen data. By using …
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Almost half a million Americans who currently do not have health insurance have signed up for a new 2025 health plan through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace so far, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports. To put the numbers in context, about 8.2% of Americans (27 million people) were uninsured this year, compared to 16% in 2010, according to federal data. And there are still a few weeks left in open enrollment. The …
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) presented the preliminary results of new research on montelukast at the American College of Toxicology meeting recently, describing potential side-effect risks for the oral asthma drug. Montelukast may be leading to mental health conditions and suicide by attaching to multiple brain receptors that are involved in psychiatric functioning, researchers say. According to Reuters, thousands of patients have reported neuropsychiatric episodes, prompting the FDA to launch a comprehensive investigation and …
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CEO Tim Barry, the founder and top executive of VillageMD, is stepping down from his role as the company faces significant financial difficulties. Majority owner Walgreens Boots Alliance has reported substantial losses amounting to billions of dollars, according to Forbes. VillageMD has struggled for more than a decade to attract patients to its clinics located within Walgreens retail stores. This has led to a sharp reduction in its intended expansion plans to stand up clinics …
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President-elect Trump has announced his intended appointment of Janette Nesheiwat, MD, to be the next surgeon general, according to NPR. She is currently a medical director for CityMD and has contributed to Fox News. With a specialization in emergency and family medicine, she is known for supporting vaccine efforts with an emphasis on the balance of risk and benefit. CityMD merged with Summit Health and was ultimately acquired by VillageMD in early 2023 for $8.9 …
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued its first clinical practice guideline on prescribing opioids for outpatient acute pain management in children, published in Pediatrics. The guideline recommends using immediate-release opioids at the lowest dose for age- and weight-appropriateness, with an initial supply of no more than 5 days unless the pain is due to trauma or surgery requiring longer treatment. Codeine and tramadol should not be prescribed to children under 12, adolescents with …
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In a study of 320,141 children published in JAMA Network, researchers found those treated with amoxicillin-clavulanate had a slightly higher risk of treatment failure (defined as lack of effectiveness or intolerability) compared with amoxicillin. And for those treated with amoxicillin-clavulanate, there was also a higher risk of gastrointestinal symptoms and yeast infections. Accessing treatment in urgent care was more common among patients who received amoxicillin-clavulanate (9.6%) than those who received amoxicillin (5.9%), and urgent care …
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Researchers quantified the real-world risk for hospitalization among adults diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in outpatient settings in a study presented in JAMA Network Open. They examined all-cause 28-day hospitalization following outpatient RSV infections among all adults as well as a high-risk subgroup of adults across 6 RSV seasons comprising 67,239 outpatient infections. Data revealed approximately 5% of adults experienced all-cause hospitalization within 28 days following outpatient RSV infections. The analysis showed an absolute …
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Rates of postpartum depression (PPD) have doubled over the last decade, according to a Kaiser Permanente cross-sectional study of 442,308 births from 2010 to 2021, presented in JAMA Network Open. The rate of diagnosis jumped from about 9% to 19% in 2021 (P for trend <.001). In the study, 83.7% of subjects had initiated prenatal care during the first trimester, and authors note that in spite of better screening tools and clinician awareness, PPD continues to be …
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