Medical Journal September 2023 digital edition
September 15, 20231 min
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Accounting for economic uncertainty
September 14, 202313 min
BY Stacy Nahas, Audit Chief Client Care Officer, and Christian Peo, National Managing Partner-Audit Quality & Professional Practice, KPMG US In the current economic climate, organizations have had to adapt their disclosures and SEC filings to accommodate evolving risk areas. The volatile environment has left organizations unsure about the extent to which they will be impacted, while an increase in SEC comment letters has underscored the need for many organizations to gain deeper insight...
Tracking technologies on websites and mobile apps may expose hospitals and other providers to HIPAA violations
September 14, 20239 min
BY Colleen Byrom, Brown & Fortunato Today most hospitals and healthcare providers utilize websites and mobile applications (“mobile apps”) to give their patients easier access to their medical information. However, behind these technologies may lie certain tools that result in the provider violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996’s (“HIPAA”). In fact, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) recently shifted their focus on...
The “Focus 4” threshold tips for surviving an OSHA inspection, part four: No hazardous activity in plain view during the inspection
September 14, 20239 min
BY Travis Vance, Regional Managing Partner, Co-chair of Fisher Phillips’ Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Management Practice Group, Fisher Phillips, and Kevin Troutman, Senior Counsel, Fisher Phillips With maximum limits for Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) penalties increasing every year – currently over $15,000 for serious/other than serious citations and more than $150,000 for a repeat and willful – knowing what to do when OSHA arrives at your door is more important than ever. That’s the...
Let COVID’s resurgence be a reminder: Get the shots you need
September 14, 20236 min
BY John Hawkins, President and CEO, THA COVID-19 is back. And while it may not become a public health emergency this time – knock on wood – its resurgence serves as a timely note of caution. At this writing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported hospitalizations nationwide were up nearly 19% in the most recent week. CDC also reported recently that COVID-19 emergency room visits for adolescents had nearly...
Echinacea use for prevention and treatment of upper respiratory infections
September 14, 20238 min
BY Samuel Mathis, MD, Assistant Professor, UTMB With the recent increase in COVID cases over the past month, this year’s flu season is gearing up to be worse than last year potentially. Many times, patients look for alternative therapies that can help prevent or reduce the duration of upper respiratory infections (URI). As a Family Medicine physician, I regularly get patient visits asking for antibiotics after only 1-2 days of cough, congestion, or rhinorrhea....
Research uncovers possible monoclonal antibody treatment for Lassa fever
September 14, 20235 min
New research out of the University of Texas Medical Branch potentially points to an effective treatment for Lassa fever, a dangerous, often fatal disease common to much of West Africa but considered a significant threat to global health. UTMB’s scientists document how a new drug from Zalgen Labs successfully cured cynomolgus monkeys infected with Lassa virus. There currently is no approved treatment for the disease, estimated to infect 300,000 to 500,000 people a year across...
Combining immunotherapy with KRAS inhibitor eliminates advanced KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancer in preclinical models
September 14, 20238 min
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have uncovered a functional role for KRAS mutations in pancreatic cancer and rapidly translated these findings into a novel therapeutic approach combining a KRAS G12D inhibitor with immune checkpoint inhibitors for early- and late-stage KRAS G12D-mutant pancreatic cancer. The combination therapy led to durable tumor elimination and significantly improved survival outcomes in preclinical models, leading to the launch of a Phase I clinical trial. Two studies describe why KRAS-targeted monotherapy likely is not enough...
Enhanced recovery program successfully reduced opioid use after pancreatic cancer surgery
September 14, 20235 min
By improving hospital care pathways, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center successfully reduced inpatient opioid use by 50% after pancreatic cancer surgery and cut the median opioid prescription volumes at discharge to zero. This approach could help reduce the risk of long-term opioid dependence in patients. In this cohort study, which involved 832 patients undergoing pancreatic resection surgery, the researchers investigated how making incremental modifications to post-surgery procedures affected the amounts of opioids used...
Novel computational tool enhances single-cell sequencing to uncover genetic variants
September 14, 20232 min
Single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) are changes at specific positions in a DNA sequence that can help classify and explain differences in disease susceptibility across populations. While single-cell sequencing provides valuable insights into cellular differences within diverse tissue samples, current tools can only detect a small number of SNVs, limiting information on genetic ancestry. To help bridge this gap, researchers led by Ken Chen, Ph.D., developed a more sensitive computational tool called Monopogen that accurately detects SNVs from...