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Category Archives: Health Care

What China Can Teach The World About Successful Health Care

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A "barefoot doctor" listens to the heartbeat of a fetus. These community health workers dramatically improved maternal health in China during the 20th century. World Health Organization/U.S. National Library of Medicine hide caption

A "barefoot doctor" listens to the heartbeat of a fetus. These community health workers dramatically improved maternal health in China during the 20th century.

Over the past six decades, China has been experimenting with radically different forms of health care systems.

As the country struggles to figure out the best way to get health care to 1.3 billion people, the rest of the world can learn from its past successes and failures, researchers wrote Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Back in 1949, health care was free to everyone in China. The communist state operated all clinics and hospitals, and it employed all doctors, nurses and health workers.

Then in 1984, the government started implementing free-market reforms. People lost their free medical care. And by 1999, only 7 percent of those living in rural regions had health insurance.

Hospitals began to act like for-profit companies. Doctors and nurses were often rewarded for increasing hospital profits. So they started acting like entrepreneurs.

To patients, it seemed like everyone was just out to make a buck or a yuan. And the public became increasingly angry and distrustful of doctors.

In 2008, the government began to abandon a system based largely on free-market principles and made a commitment to providing affordable health care for all by 2020. About 95 percent of the population had health insurance in 2012.

A community worker teaches fishermen about staying healthy. World Health Organization/U.S. National Library of Medicine hide caption

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What China Can Teach The World About Successful Health Care

Vanguard Health Care Fund's Undervalued Stocks

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Vanguard Health Care Fundis managed by Edward Owens that has worked in investment management for over 30 years. He has managed the Vanguard Health Care Fund(Trades, Portfolio) since its inception in May 1984. Owens received a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.

Owens invests primarily in health care companies (94.6% of Stocks are from that sector). His strategy is characterized by a long-term focus and careful attention to valuations.

The Fund has 89 stocks on its portfolio, with a total value of $42,636 Mil. And Edwards Lifesciences Corp(EW), Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA), Aetna Inc. (AET), Express Scripts Holding Co. (ESRX) are the top 4 Undervalued companies in Vanguard Health Care Funds Portfolio

Edwards Lifesciences Corp(EW)

The company, with a market cap of $15,173 M, is the manufacturer of heart valves and repair products used to replace or repair a patient's diseased or defective heart valve. It is also a global leader in hemodynamic monitoring systems used to measure a patient's cardiovascular function in the hospital setting.

The Fund started to buy this stock on 2013 Q4 and is currently holding 3,402,670 shares (3.16% of outstanding shares) at an average price of $67.63. So far this investment returned a +108%

Over the last year the stock performed a +90%

On the last 5 years the revenue and the book value grew by 13.80% and 12.80% and EBITDA rose by 28.00%.

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Vanguard Health Care Fund's Undervalued Stocks

MN health providers fall short on digital records

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Minnesota officials say thousands of health care providers are violating the state's new rules requiring electronic patient health records but there isn't much they can do about it.

State regulations that took effect Jan. 1 call on all providers to use sharable electronic health records. But while all hospitals and nearly all primary care clinics are complying, the state Health Department says many dentists, mental health professionals and chiropractors are not.

The department argues the digital rules make health care safer and more efficient. Some providers, however, say converting from conventional paper record keeping is too expensive. Others say they worry about patient privacy.

Some state lawmakers are paying attention. A bill moving through the Minnesota House would let providers with seven or fewer caregivers opt out of electronic record keeping. That would exempt about 80 percent of clinics from the mandate and defeat the purpose of the rule, officials say.

"There are very strong patient benefits to electronic health records," said Diane Rydrych, director of the Health Department's policy division. "The reason why we have a mandate is because we want to make sure that those benefits are shared with all patients."

The federal government also has a new requirement for electronic health records, and if health care providers fail to comply they will see reduced Medicare payments. But providers who don't depend on a lot of federal money have less of an incentive to comply with the federal mandate.

When doctors and clinics keep electronic records that can be shared with other medical professionals, their patients get better care, Rydrych said. That was the reason lawmakers passed legislation eight years ago calling for the digital records conversion by the start of 2015.

"If I go to see my doctor or any caregiver that I might have, it's important for them to know about things like allergies, other tests that I've had, other conditions that I have so that they can be providing appropriate care for me," Rydrych said.

Some health care professionals worry about the privacy of electronic records. It's a particular concern in practices such as psychotherapy, said St. Paul psychologist Peter Zelles.

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MN health providers fall short on digital records

Health care workers rally at Sapperton Park

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Health care workers and supporters rally for better funding in Sapperton Park, across the Royal Columbian Hospital, on Tuesday.

image credit: MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER

A couple dozen health care workers and their supporters sacrificed their lunch hour on Tuesday to rally in Sapperton Park against funding cuts.

Their rumbling bellies likely werent lost on their colleagues toiling in Royal Columbian Hospital across the street.

The rally was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the expiration in 2014 of the Health Accord that ensured a steady annual increase in transfer payments for health care from the federal government to the provinces. The end of that agreement means those payments now increase by only three per cent annually instead of six per cent.

The decision by the Liberals to meekly accept what Ottawa was offering means that British Columbia could be losing as much as $5 billion in transfers over the next 10 years, said Judy Darcy, the NDP MLA for New Westminster.

Not getting that money has meant an erosion of services and an increased workload for health care workers, said Val Avery, the president of the Health Sciences Association, the union that represents 16,000 health care professionals in more than 250 hospitals and agencies.

Health care needs to meet the needs of everyone, she told the rally.

Darcy said she hears every day from constituents who are having trouble finding a family doctor or cant get access to primary health care.

Thats going to get worse, not better, she said.

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Health care workers rally at Sapperton Park

Health Care's New Social and Structural Transformation

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In 334 B.C., Alexander the Great, having triumphed in Macedonia and Greece, visited Troy en route to his Asian campaign. Although we know he visited the tomb of Achilles (whom he had admired, like no other, since reading Homer as a child) with his trusted general and friend, Hephaestion, there is no significant recorded detail about his time there. However, knowing what we do about Alexander and his sense of predestination, it might well have gone something like this:

Alexander purposefully strode into the ruins of Achilles tomb, then suddenly stopped. He slowly turned his head from side to side, and then upward examining the eroding columns surrounding him, most no longer supporting any structures above. He then looked down at the rubble that the fallen stone lintels had become.

Strange, he uttered under his breath, then spoke audibly, strange this impermanence. It matters not what ones exploits, or what civilizations one might conquer. This was Achilles, the greatest warrior the world has ever known before now.

He looked up and over at Hephaestion, then back at one of the pillars, running his hand over the once polished, but now uneven and pitted surface one always has the sense that his physical form is impermanent, but it is obvious that the monuments erected in his favor, no matter how grand, or how sound are no different all goes to dust in time.

He patted one of two pillars still intact and sharing a supported structure above. He looked up again and smiled, my master Aristotle was a great admirer of trabeation this post and lintel form it was for millennia the strongest known structure, prior to the arch.

His brow then furrowed, and his countenance darkened. He leaned forward, placing his forehead onto his hand resting upon the stone, and no longer smiling, he whispered, you too; however, will fall.

Sure, I could have just said, nothing lasts forever, but it just seemed more powerful and dramatic to put the words into the mouth of someone who once conquered the world

Paul Starr, professor ofsociologyandpublic affairsatPrinceton University, and co-Editor of The American Prospect, wrote the book The Social Transformation of American Medicinein 1984 one that deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction that year.

Starr described in great detail the pathway that the enterprise of health care had taken from the early nineteenth century up to that time from an informal home- and community-based undertaking, to a huge and powerful industry. Although written more than a quarter of a century ago, revisiting Starrs framework is helpful when one considers the massive sociologic change that is in process at this moment, and one that will change the health care delivery system like nothing that has come before even when one weighs against it things such as the accumulated mass of biomedical scientific discovery.

Starr suggests that the medical-industrial enterprise has been built, on another trabeative (pillar and lintel) structure. Consider two solid columns, holding up a large monolithic rectangular stone. One column represents Dependence, and the other, Legitimacy. The large lintel stone on top is Authority.

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Health Care's New Social and Structural Transformation

Patient navigators can help cut through health care's red tape and potentially save money

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A medical emergency leaves you with tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid hospital bills. Your health insurance company rejects coverage for an important medical test. An unexpected diagnosis requires you to find three new medical specialists.

In today's health care system, consumers are increasingly on their own when these complex -- and often costly -- medical problems arise. Primary care doctors once helped patients manage such situations, but many physicians now have 15 minutes or less for each appointment. It's in this high-pressure environment that a new industry of patient advocates -- sometimes called patient navigators -- has emerged, offering to help guide patients through knotty health situations.

Driven by an increasing number of baby boomers dealing with chronic medical problems, the field has mainly taken shape in the last 5 to 10 years, according to Professor Theresa Cronan of San Diego State University.

"People with chronic conditions use the health care system more. But the health care system has become so complex that it's really hard for people to navigate," said Cronan, who has studied the health advocacy industry.

Here are some questions and answers about these businesses and the services they offer:

WHAT DO PATIENT ADVOCATES DO?

Patient advocates are hired to help solve health care problems or help patients get the best care possible. Advocates can work for companies with hundreds of employees or operate as stand-alone consultants for a handful of clients. Some of the most common tasks health advocates work on include:

Negotiating discounts and payment plans for large medical bills;

Managing and filing insurance paperwork, especially appeals where companies deny coverage for expensive procedures or equipment;

Helping patients find and schedule appointments with medical experts who specialize in rare or hard-to-treat diseases.

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Patient navigators can help cut through health care's red tape and potentially save money

These 10 Pharma and Health Care Stocks Were the Best S&P 500 Performers Last Quarter

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Health care is a hot investment sector, encompassing new and emerging biotech and pharmaceutical companies as well as larger health care servicer providers. Some of the industry's best performers last quarter included well-known big benefits companies.

The S&P 500 Health Care Index rose 6.16% for the first three months of the year, outstripping the broader S&P 500 Index, which inched just 0.44% higher for the same time period. These 10 health care stocks significantly outperformed their sector index.

TheStreet paired the 10 best health care performers with TheStreet Ratings to determine whether they really are good investments going forward.

TheStreet Ratings, TheStreet's proprietary ratings tool, projects a stock's total return potential over a 12-month period including both price appreciation and dividends. Based on 32 major data points, TheStreet Ratings uses a quantitative approach to rating over 4,300 stocks to predict return potential for the next year. The model is both objective, using elements such as volatility of past operating revenues, financial strength, and company cash flows, and subjective, including expected equities market returns, future interest rates, implied industry outlook and forecasted company earnings.

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These 10 Pharma and Health Care Stocks Were the Best S&P 500 Performers Last Quarter

Health Care Sector Update for 04/02/2015: CNAT,RPRX,OCRX

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Top Health Care Stocks

JNJ +0.63%

PZE +0.26%

MRK +0.68%

ABT +0.60%

AMGN -0.55%

Health care stocks were moderately higher Thursday with the NYSE Health Care Sector Index climbing 0.4% and shares of health care companies in the S&P 500 also gaining about 0.4% as a group.

In company news, Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. ( CNAT ) tumbled Thursday after today pricing a $20.1 million public offering of 3.5 million shares of its common stock at $5.75 apiece, a 15.6% discount to Wednesday's closing price for the stock.

The company also issued 30-day options to underwriters to buy up to 525,000 more shares to cover possible overallotments. It expects to use net proceeds to fund clinical trials of its emricasan drug candidate, including preparation for registration trials of the experimental liver treatment.

CNAT shares recently were down over 11% at $6.08 each, or just 8 cents above their low for the session. The stock has traded within a 52-week range of $5.06 to $11.74 a share, already slipping more than 10% before today's slide.

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Health Care Sector Update for 04/02/2015: CNAT,RPRX,OCRX


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