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WHAT kills more than five times as many Americans as AIDS? Hospital infections, which account for an estimated 100,000 deaths every year.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which are calling for voluntary blood testing of all patients to stem the spread of AIDS, have chosen not to recommend a test that is essential to stop the spread of another killer sweeping through our nation's hospitals: M.R.S.A., or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The C.D.C. guidelines to prevent hospital infections, released last month, conspicuously omit universal testing of patients for M.R.S.A.

Staph bacteria are the most prevalent infection-causing germs in most hospitals, and increasingly these infections cannot be cured with ordinary antibiotics. Sixty percent of staph infections are now drug resistant (that is, M.R.S.A.), up from 2 percent in 1974.

» Search Healthcare-Specific Tags: Hospital Infections - Staphylococcus - Staph bacteria
» New York Times

Taking the Health Care System Off Life Support: A New Alternative for Insuring More Americans

The United States currently spends $126 billion on the uninsured, yet the country has 45 million people who lack access to adequate health care insurance. The nation cannot continue to ignore this growing health care financing crisis and hope for a “silver bullet” government cure – there is none. Any real and lasting solution will require broad-based collaboration and a focus on specific issues and possible responses.

[mp3] Download / via: Deloitte Insights Podcast

UnitedHealth Group "McGuire steps down, Hemsley appears unscathed" (Buy 2)

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