No Easy Fix for Nephrology ‘Brain Drain’
The field of nephrology needs to get creative in making itself more appealing to young medical students, researchers say. Interest in the field has been waning as the need for kidney specialists grows.
CMS Announces Call on ICD-10 Conversion Process
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will discuss its ICD-10 conversion process during a May 18 national teleconference for Medicare fee-for-service providers.
Certification Regulations Complicate Meaningful Use Program
Of the three tenets of meaningful use—adopt certified electronic health record technology, demonstrate core and menu set requirements, and report on clinical quality measures—the piece about adopting certified EHRs is more complicated than most health care providers anticipated.
Beware Physician Compare: Medicare Site Inaccurate, Say Wronged Practices
Doctors say if CMS can’t get simple biographical information right, expanding the website to include quality scores by 2013 might not produce a trustworthy resource.
Genes, Not Race, Determine Donor Kidney Survival; Implications for Kidney Transplant Recipients and Kidney Donors
A new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center sheds light on what causes certain kidneys to do better than others after being transplanted, providing doctors with an easy way to screen for donor kidneys that have the best chance of survival.
The American Society of Transplantation Announces 2011 Achievement Award and Grant Recipients
The American Society of Transplantation (AST) announced the recipients of its 2011 Achievement Awards and Grants at the recent American Transplant Congress in Philadelphia. The recipients were selected for the originality, innovation and commitment they bring to AST and the field of transplantation.
High Prevalence of Cognitive Impairment Seen in CKD Patients
Patients with moderate chronic kidney disease had a higher prevalence of moderate cognitive impairment than did patients receiving hemodialysis in a prospective pilot study conducted at two clinics. Findings from recent studies suggest that there is an association between estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and cognitive function.
Kidneys for Sale: The Case for a Legal Organ Market
Most proposed changes to the healthcare system involve a tradeoff between costs and health outcomes. A potential exception to this rule would be a controversial policy that increases kidney donation, which would allow substantial savings on dialysis therapy for patients with end-stage renal disease.
Desperate Americans Buy Kidneys From Peru Poor in Fatal Trade
The illicit market for organ transplants is thriving as affluent, often desperately ill patients travel to countries such as Egypt, Peru and the Philippines, where poor people sell them their organs.
UPMC Halts Adult Living-Donor Kidney Transplant Program
UPMC has temporarily shut down its adult living-donor kidney transplant program. The reason has not been released, however a spokesperson for the medical center said it was a voluntary decision and was not related to a donor or recipient death.
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