As Doctors Get a Life, Strains Show

From the Wall Street Journal
U.S. medicine is in the middle of a cultural revolution, as young physicians intent on balancing work and family challenge the assumption that a doctor should be available to treat patients around the clock.
At the same time, the attempt by new doctors to lead a less-pressured work life is putting additional [...]

Iowa Hospital License Fees Increase

From the Des Moines Register:
Since 1947, Iowa hospitals have paid $10 a year for their state licenses. That is one-third of what it now costs to license a bait shop in Iowa.
The inspections department has contended that the hospital license fee is unreasonably low, given the public cost of licensing and oversight.
The Legislature last week [...]

Researchers Fault FDA Inaction On Risks of Blood Substitutes

Blood-substitute products have consistently resulted in deaths and heart attacks that could have been avoided had the Food and Drug Administration acted early enough, according to researchers who analyzed clinical studies of the products.
At issue are a class of experimental fluids, designed to replace donor blood, that the U.S. Army and Navy hope to use [...]

ER wait times posted on hospital website

Scottsdale Healthcare is the first in Arizona, and one of the first in the nation, to post real-time wait times for its hospital Emergency Rooms on its web site. Times posted on www.shc.org represent the time it takes to get a patient from the ER’s front desk to an exam room. Wait times are updated [...]