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Study explores how private equity acquisitions impact hospitals
Private equity investment in hospitals has grown substantially in the 21st century, and it accelerated in the years leading up the COVID-19 pandemic. Now a new study of short-term acute care hospitals acquired by private equity firms finds they not only have higher markups and profit margins, they’re also slower to expand their staffs.
In a study published in Health Affairs, a multi-institutional team of investigators led by Dr. Anaeze C. Offodile II, a nonresident scholar in the Center for Health and Biosciences at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, the Gilbert Omenn Fellow at the National Academy of Medicine and an assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, examined private involvement in short-term acute care hospitals and combed through proprietary databases to identify private equity transactions involving such ho
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In separate votes, an FDA advisory committee recommended that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and atezolizumab (Tecentriq) hold on to accelerated approval as first-line therapy for advanced bladder cancer, pending additional clinical trial data.
The Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) voted 5-3 in favor of Merck maintaining accelerated approval status for pembrolizumab as initial treatment for patients with platinum-ineligible (cisplatin and carboplatin) advanced/metastatic urothelial cancer.
By a 10-1 vote the panel favored continuation of accelerated approval for Genentech s atezolizumab for the same indication. The FDA is not bound by advisory committee decisions but usually follows the committees recommendations.
Despite the disparity in the two votes, panelists indicated that neither decision came easily, as confirmatory trials required for final approval turned out negative or have yet to be completed.
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Washington, D.C., April 29, 2021 - Two studies related to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) evaluating the use of risk-avoidance strategies and robotic-assisted technology, respectively, are being presented as late-breaking clinical science at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2021 Scientific Sessions. An analysis of strategically avoiding high-risk PCI cases indicates systematic risk-avoidance does not improve, and may worsen, the quality of hospital PCI programs. A study of a robotic-assisted PCI shows the technology is safe and effective for the treatment of both simple and complex lesions; this has the potential to address the occupational hazards associated with radiation exposure and procedure-related orthopedic injuries for physicians.
OKC bombing, pandemic similar in ‘complicated bereavement’ By: Trevor Brown Oklahoma Watch April 26, 2021
Two people share a moment recently at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. The chairs behind them represent 168 people who died in the bombing on April 19, 1995. (Photo by Whitney Bryen/Oklahoma Watch)
Robin Gurwitch knows all too well about loss.
Gurwitch was working as a psychologist and program director at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center on April 19, 1995.
After the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, she was among the first responders to provide mental health services to victims and their families.
Now a professor at Duke University Medical Center, Gurwitch is one of the nation’s leading authorities on grieving, with a resume that includes working with victims of 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and a long list of other tragedies.