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The price tag on a patient-centered medical home

The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a concept at the heart of many health care reform models that aim to both improve the quality of care and reduce wasteful spending. But a new analysis of federally qualified health centers finds that clinics with higher scores as medical homes also had higher per-patient operating costs.

The research, published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented today at the AcademyHealth conference in Orlando, Fla., is the first national study to put a price on these additional costs.

Higher medical home performance rating of community health centers linked with higher operating cost

CHICAGO – Federally funded community health centers with higher patient-centered medical home ratings on measures such as quality improvement had higher operating costs, according to a study appearing in JAMA. This study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the Annual Research Meeting of AcademyHealth.

Long-term testosterone treatment for men results in reduced weight and waist size

In testosterone-deficient men, major weight loss was an added benefit of testosterone replacement therapy for most of the patients who participated in a new study. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston.

"The substantial weight loss found in our study—an average of 36 pounds—was a surprise," said the study's lead author, Farid Saad, PhD, of Berlin-headquartered Bayer Pharma.

Is arm length the reason women need reading glasses sooner than men?

Rockville, Md. – Studies have consistently reported that women require reading glasses or bifocal lenses earlier than men. According to a recent Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science paper, the gender difference is caused by factors other than focusing ability, such as arm length or preferred reading distance, which should be considered when prescribing readers or bifocals.

Parents' work-life stress hinders healthy eating

In a tight economy, with fewer jobs, many people end up working harder and sacrificing more to stay employed. A new study finds that one of those sacrifices is sometimes their own and their family's nutrition.

Research: Many programs to help diabetics manage their health do work

TORONTO, June 22, 2012 –A new study has found that programs aimed at helping people prevent or manage diabetes are most successful if they are directed at the patient or the health care system. Programs aimed at physicians were only successful for patients with poorer diabetes control.

Such interventions also work best for diabetics in poorer health than those who are managing their illness well, the study found.

Telehealth can reduce deaths and emergency hospital care, but estimated cost savings are modest

Research: Effect of telehealth on use of secondary care and mortality: findings from the Whole System Demonstrator cluster randomised trial

Editorial: Telehealth for long term conditions

For people with long term conditions, telehealth can reduce deaths and help patients avoid the need for emergency hospital care, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

However, the estimated scale of hospital cost savings is modest and may not be sufficient to offset the cost of the technology, say the authors.

Don't blame TV: Parents determine whether kids are active or couch potatoes

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University aren't telling you anything new when they pile on modern children and complains they are increasingly sedentary, spending too much time sitting and looking at electronic screens.

But it's not necessarily because of the newest gadgets – parents play a major factor in whether young children are on the move.

Mayo Clinic: Common blood pressure drug linked to severe GI problems

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered an association between a commonly prescribed blood pressure drug, Olmesartan, and severe gastrointestinal issues such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss and electrolyte abnormalities -- symptoms common among those who have celiac disease. The findings are published online today in the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Research shows how racial and gender profiling can affect outcome of traffic stops

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- Racial profiling has gained national attention in recent years, and a Kansas State University researcher is finding that it can involve an additional factor: gender.

Jeremy Briggs, doctoral candidate in sociology, Topeka, is analyzing police actions during routine traffic stops to understand how race and gender are connected. Perhaps one of his most significant findings is that black and Hispanic women are just as likely as white men to be ticketed, arrested or searched during a traffic stop.

How cheetahs outpace greyhounds

In a 0-60 mph stand off, most cars would be hard pressed to give a cheetah a run for its money, and at their highest recorded speed of 29m/s (65mph) cheetahs easily outstrip the fastest greyhounds. But, according to Alan Wilson from the Royal Veterinary College, UK, there is no clear reason for the cheetah's exceptional performance. 'Cheetahs and greyhounds are known to use a rotary gallop and physically they are remarkably similar, yet there is this bewitching difference in maximum speed of almost a factor of two', he says.

Alcohol may be involved in up to 640,000 hospital admissions in England and Wales every year

Alcohol may be involved in up to 640,000 hospital admissions and nearly 2 million visits to emergency care departments in England and Wales every year, suggests research published online in Emergency Medicine Journal.

The authors base their findings on the number of patients requiring treatment at one inner city emergency care department in the South West of England, and the extrapolation of those figures.

Heart patients get post-traumatic stress disorder too

New York, NY (June 20, 2012) — One in eight people who suffer a heart attack or other acute coronary event experience clinically significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a meta-analysis of 24 studies led by Columbia University Medical Center researchers. The study also shows that heart patients who suffer PTSD face twice the risk of having another cardiac event or of dying within one to three years, compared with those without PTSD.

Innovative, automated strategies to engage patients at home are key to improving health outcomes

PHILADELPHIA – In a Perspective piece published Online First this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, a group of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania propose a multi-pronged approach to the new practice of so-called "automated hovering" that aims to improve patients' compliance with medication and dietary regimens and other positive health behaviors.

New delivery method improves efficacy of 2 common Parkinson's disease medications

A new delivery method for levodopa/carbidopa, a common dual-drug Parkinson's disease (PD) regimen, significantly improved the duration of the drugs' effectiveness in people with advanced PD, according to research by Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The new method is continuous delivery of an intestinal gel formulation of the therapies, which are traditionally taken orally. The study found that the continuous gel delivery reduced "off" time—when the medicine's effectiveness wears off—by an average of nearly two extra hours per day.