Insurers Pay Doctors To Push Generic Drugs
Two New York health insurance companies are rewarding doctors with cash incentives for prescribing generic drugs. The companies, Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rochester, N.Y., and Independent...
View ArticleVideo Games Helping Burn Patients
One of the most popular video game consoles on the market, the Nintendo Wii, is being used to rehabilitate burn patients. Therapists at the William Randolph Hearst Burn Center at NewYork-Presbyterian...
View ArticleSour Feelings Over Sweetener
For coffee and tea drinkers, choosing a sweetener pink, blue, or yellow packet? became more complicated with the introduction this month of Truvía, billed as "Nature's Calorie-Free Sweetener."...
View ArticleMount Sinai To Move Into $1B Campaign's Public Phase
Mount Sinai Medical Center has quietly raised $320 million and will soon move into the public phase of a $1 billion capital campaign. According to hospital leaders, the campaign is a signal that the...
View ArticleMontefiore Takes Over Our Lady Medical Center
Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx is expected to open a fourth division of its 1,100-bed hospital today, as it takes over the nearby Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center just after the stroke of...
View ArticleRockefeller Archive Gets Its Independence
The Rockefeller Archive Center which houses 80 million pages of documents, 750,000 photographs, and thousands of reels of microfilm has become an independent organization after 34 years of being...
View ArticleHospitals Try To Rein in Doctors' Rudeness
The nurse later said she sensed the surgeon was in a bad mood when he walked into the operating room. Things did not improve when she handed him the wrong size gloves, and they deteriorated further...
View ArticleCash-Strapped Brooklyn Hospital Plans To Shutter Obstetrics Department
A cash-strapped hospital in Brooklyn Heights announced plans today to stop delivering babies as part of a reorganization plan designed to solve some of the hospital's financial woes. Long Island...
View ArticleHospital Obstetrics Ward Will Close Amid Malpractice Crisis
A cash-strapped Brooklyn hospital will stop delivering babies, aiming to regain its financial footing and reduce its escalating medical malpractice costs. Long Island College Hospital, in the Cobble...
View ArticleGotbaum Seeks To Make Cesarean Rates Public
The public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, is asking the city's health department to publicize cesarean section rates at New York City hospitals on its Web site. In a letter Ms. Gotbaum sent yesterday to the...
View ArticleHealth Groups Launch Infrastructure Agenda
A coalition of New York health care organizations has introduced a five-point agenda aimed at improving New York's primary care infrastructure. Calling the agenda a "road map" for lawmakers, the...
View ArticleNew York Hospitals Are Maneuvering in War on Cancer
In their quest to attract patients, recruit top researchers, and burnish their reputations, hospitals in New York City are setting their sights on cancer patients. Buoyed by scientific advances,...
View ArticleKidney Procedure Illustrates Some Wide-Ranging Possibilities
During a recent cross-country kidney transplantation a California woman received a kidney from an anonymous, living donor in New York the operation was the easy part. The bigger problem for...
View ArticleClosure of Hospital's Obstetrics Unit Is Criticized
The decision by Long Island College Hospital to close its obstetrics unit will deprive Brooklyn residents of needed maternity services, according to elected officials who plan to rally outside the...
View ArticleMoving Uptown, Couple Entices Friends To Follow
When Rabbi Elie Kaunfer and his wife, Lisa Exler, decided to move with their daughter to Washington Heights from the Upper West Side, they resolved to bring some of their friends with them. Several...
View ArticleSalary Talks May Lead to Home Health Aide Strike
A union representing 30,000 home health aides in New York City is stepping up a campaign to increase wages for its members, a message it plans to deliver at a rally today at Madison Square Garden. The...
View ArticleNursing Home CEO Arrested for Not Providing Workers' Compensation
The president and CEO of a Bronx nursing home that has been the focus of a probe by Attorney General Cuomo, and the site of multiple employee protests, has been arrested. The president of Kingsbridge...
View ArticleRare Device Aids N.Y. Brain Surgeons
Inside the operating room, three screens projected the magnified image of the patient's brain as surgeons prepared to remove a tumor. But all eyes were trained on one screen in particular: the one...
View ArticleCity Woman Is 120,000th Recipient of Cochlear Implant
For nearly 40 years, 72-yearold Susan Grossman suffered progressive hearing loss that restricted her use of the telephone and made listening to her favorite singer, Frank Sinatra, impossible. That...
View ArticleFederal Aid Could Avert Hospital Cuts
New York hospitals are turning to the federal government to offset Governor Paterson's proposal to slash Medicaid spending by more $500 million this year and $1 billion next year. Describing those cuts...
View ArticleCity Hospitals Most Affected Under Proposed Medicaid Cuts
New York City hospitals would bear the brunt of Medicaid cuts proposed by Governor Paterson, losing more than $663 million over the next two years, according to an analysis by hospital groups. Overall,...
View ArticleHospitals, Paterson at Odds Over Proposed Cuts
The fight between hospital groups and Governor Paterson is on. Hours after hospital groups publicized a new radio ad warning that budget cuts could force hospitals to close, the state's health...
View ArticleMount Sinai Appoints a President
Mount Sinai Hospital has tapped its chief operating officer, Wayne Keathley, to be president following the resignation of Dr. Burton Drayer. Dr. Drayer, who was named president of the hospital in 2003,...
View ArticleAlbany Has Fix For Doctors' Insurance Ills
By freezing liability premiums for a year, lawmakers have delivered financial relief to doctors in New York, but the battle over malpractice insurance rates is far from over. Lawmakers placed a...
View ArticleNew York's Hospital Project Approval Process May Change
The lengthy approval process faced by hospitals seeking to purchase equipment or undertake construction projects may soon get shorter. State health officials are considering changes to the "certificate...
View ArticleAmerica's Obesity Problem Takes Another Helping
New Yorkers are getting fatter again. According to a new report, New York is the 37th most obese state, and the state's adult obesity rate last year grew to 23.5% from 22.4% the year before. In a...
View ArticleA New Kind of Supersizing Tempts at Healthy Salad Bars
Whole Foods Market bills itself as a destination for organic and natural food, and the tactic seems to have worked, as a health-conscious crowd can often be seen at its prepared foods sections and in...
View ArticleHospital Woes Are Worse In N.Y. Than Rest of U.S.
Two separate financial reports are depicting growing financial problems for nonprofit hospitals nationwide and in New York, where analysts said hospitals have smaller operating margins and are under...
View ArticleCity, So Far, Bucks Trend on Poverty
New York's local economy is defying a depressing trend felt throughout the country, as the percentage of those living in poverty fell last year even as the number of impoverished Americans grew....
View ArticleN.Y.'s HIV Infection Rate Dwarfs Rest of Country
New Yorkers are becoming infected with HIV at three times the national rate, according to new data from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Based on a new model for tracking recent...
View ArticleCity: Staten Island Man Dead From West Nile Virus
A Staten Island man with West Nile virus has died in the first fatal case this year, the city's health department confirmed today. The 65-year-old man became ill and died earlier this month. City...
View ArticleStaten Island Resident With West Nile Virus Dies
A Staten Island man with West Nile virus has died, the city's health department confirmed. City health officials, who did not identify the 65-year-old, said he became ill and died earlier this month....
View ArticleNew York Shows Improvement In Infant Mortality Numbers
The city's infant mortality rate a barometer of its overall health dropped to a record low in 2007, health officials are reporting. The officials said there were 5.4 infant deaths for every 1,000...
View ArticlePrimary Care Boost on Tap For Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan's only hospital is planning an $8 million wellness center to offer primary care services to tens of thousands of downtown residents and Wall Street employees. New York Downtown...
View Article$3B Study Seeks a Prevention 'Blueprint'
For the doctor behind a $3 billion national study of children's health, Philip Landrigan, the idea of identifying environmental triggers for common diseases is a priceless endeavor. Billed as the...
View ArticleState Recovers $269M In Medicaid Fraud, Waste
State auditors recovered more than $269 million in Medicaid fraud and waste between October 2007 and March 2008, officials from the state's Office of the Medicaid Inspector General told The New York...
View ArticleSeeking Survival, Hospitals Are Turning to Makeovers
Hospitals seeking to avoid being forced to close are embracing a new tactic: makeovers. The strategy is a last-ditch effort for some hospitals condemned by the Berger Commission in its 2006 report,...
View ArticleFewer Full-Calorie Drinks In Schools, Report Finds
The country's largest beverage companies are supplying schools with fewer full-calorie drinks than they did four years ago, according to a new report. Companies shipped drinks containing 58% fewer...
View ArticleMediSys May Figure in Case Of Seminerio
Details of an alleged scheme by a state lawmaker accused by federal prosecutors of accepting more than $500,000 in exchange for lobbying activities point in the direction of the MediSys network as the...
View ArticleDoctors: Insurance Companies Affect Treatment
The vast majority of doctors in New York say they feel pressure from insurance companies to prescribe certain medical treatments, sometimes at the expense of what is best for the patient, according to...
View ArticleChemical in Plastic Is Linked to Heart and Liver Problems
In the first study of the effects on humans of exposure to a chemical widely used in plastic baby bottles and food containers, researchers found that the compound increases the risk for heart disease,...
View ArticleTo Love, Honor, Obey And Study Nursing
Christine Tassone Kovner was 25 years old and a student at the University of Pennsylvania when she first laid eyes on Anthony Kovner, a professor 11 years her senior. Their shared interest in health...
View ArticleUpstate Hospitals Aim To Hire City Doctors at Fair
In a bid to address a physician shortage, hospitals in upstate New York will seek to recruit New York City doctors at a job fair slated to take place this week. The Where to Practice open house, set...
View ArticleCity Lights Ugly Campaign To Deter Smokers
Rotting teeth, blackened lungs and oozing tumors are among the grisly images on free matchbooks the city's health department is now giving away in a new anti-smoking tactic. Starting this week, 330,000...
View ArticleQueens Hospital Makes Last-Ditch Effort To Save Itself
In a last-ditch effort to stay in business, Parkway Hospital in Queens has filed an injunction to prevent state health officials from closing down the hospital next week. A hearing is set to take place...
View ArticleBedbugs Emerge as New Area of Housing Law
Lawyers who visited Brooklyn housing court were abuzz recently, when bed bugs were reportedly spotted inside a courtroom on Livingston Street. A spokeswoman for the courts insists the courts are...
View ArticleBed Bug Boom Is a Boost To One Sector
The bedbug boom has brought many people pain, but it does have at least one upside: Exterminators are profiting. The president of PestAway, Jeffrey Eisenberg, who has a loyal following on the Upper...
View ArticleFounding Dean Named for CUNY School of Public Health
A former top official at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Kenneth Olden, has been appointed founding and acting dean of the proposed CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. Previously,...
View ArticleNew York Lags in Regulating Bed Bugs
In response to a growing bed bug epidemic, a number of cities across the nation have adopted new measures to identify and eradicate bed bug infestations and others, including New York, are exploring...
View ArticleSalt Is Next on City's Hit List
New York City's health tsar, who has already waged war against tobacco, trans fats, and calories, appears to have chosen his next public enemy: salt. Voicing cautionary tales about high blood pressure...
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