A new Jackson Healthcare survey of hospital nurses found that nurses estimate spending one quarter of their twelve-hour shift on indirect patient care. Respondents cited regulatory requirements, redundant paperwork and logistical challenges as the primary contributors of time spent away from the patient’s bedside. The study, which targeted nurses, nursing managers and chief nursing officers (CNO) across the U.S., was conducted in partnership with StatCom and Travel Nurse Solutions. It was based upon an online survey of 2,439 nurses, and focuses on the 1,663 who work in hospital settings.

About one-third of physician leaders acknowledge that factors other than medical care represent a "major influence" in their decision-making regarding tests or procedures. In the HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey of physician leaders, 33% said fear of lawsuits was a "major influence" when ordering tests or procedures. Another 48% consider such defensive medicine concerns a "minor influence." Thirty percent say reimbursement and revenue considerations are a "major influence," with another 38% saying these fiscal considerations are a "minor influence." Pressure from patients themselves is considered a major influence by 28%, with 55% citing that as a minor influence.

ChangingHomeCare.com has launched a combined effort between homecare providers and homecare vendors to take a proactive approach to reshaping the national healthcare debate about the future role of homecare. ChangingHomeCare.com has announced the creation of a completely free exchange of best practices and thought-provoking ideas among homecare providers and patients, with the goal to make homecare a larger part of the national healthcare solution.

Notable Findings from NLN Survey of Schools of Nursing: Program Expansion Stalls; Insufficient Faculty Major Constraint to Expansion of Postlicensure Programs - The NLN's annual survey of all nursing programs in the United States gathers key statistics including admissions, enrollments, graduations, student demographics, and numbers of faculty. The 2009 annual survey was administered from May to September 2009 to obtain 2007-2008 data. Recent additions include unused educational capacity, constraints on expanding admissions, faculty vacancies and recruitment, and the impact of faculty shortages on educational capacity.

A unique procedure performed by Tom Stys, MD and Adam Stys, MD with Sanford Heart Hospital was recently selected as case of the week by Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the premier educational resource for the interventional cardiology and endovascular medicine community. Cases featured by TCT are innovative and complex, often describing, for the first time, an application or a technique. Cases featured weekly with TCT are used by physicians nationally and internationally as an educational resource on the latest procedures, techniques and methods in cardiology.

UCSF scientists have received a $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to embark on a major neuroimaging study of a degenerative brain disease that is at least as common as Alzheimer’s disease in people under age 60. The fatal disease, known as frontotemporal dementia, affects decision-making, behavior, emotion and language. It gradually destroys the ability to behave in a socially appropriate manner, to empathize with others, learn, reason, make judgments, communicate and carry out daily activities.

Planned Medicare Cuts Threaten U.S. Cancer Care Delivery System. Community oncologists nationwide, under the support and leadership of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), launched a national petition to urge President Obama and lawmakers to reverse drastic cuts in reimbursement for cancer care implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on January 1, 2010 and compounding through 2013.

Physical Therapy is effective for management of low back pain; A "cornerstone" of non-surgical treatment, report concludes. A review article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons should help convince many patients with low back pain to consider physical therapy as a first line of treatment for their condition, according to Paul Weiss, PT, Dip. MDT, physical therapist and sole proprietor of Cedar Hill Physical Therapy in Summerfield, NC. The review, published in February of last year, recommends that in most cases of symptomatic lumbar degenerative disc disease, a common cause of low back pain (LBP), the most effective treatment is physical therapy combined with anti-inflammatory medications.

Founded by Harvard Physicians, Medical Learning System’s next-generation education platform ensures medical students and professionals remember their training, saving lives in the process. “I feel like every time learn something new, I forget something else.” Such frustration – expressed by a second year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School – is, unfortunately, shared by countless other medical students across the nation. This failure to retain knowledge is often ignored until it manifests as substandard patient care.

The United States Department of Justice filed a complaint in Boston federal court today, alleging that pharmaceutical manufacturer Johnson & Johnson committed Medicaid fraud by paying Omnicare pharmacies kickbacks for recommending that nursing home patients use Risperdal® and other Johnson & Johnson drugs. Omnicare is the largest pharmacy supplying drugs to nursing homes in the United States. The kickback scheme had originally been reported by a Chicago pharmacist whistleblower, who was fired by Omnicare after reporting the scheme. The government's action came in a "qui tam" suit filed for the whistleblower, Bernard Lisitza, under the False Claims Act by Chicago lawyers Michael Behn and Linda Wyetzner of Behn & Wyetzner, Chartered. The False Claims Act allows private citizens with knowledge of fraud (called "relators") to help the government recover ill-gotten gains.