ARLINGTON, VA—Eighteen months ago, the Department of Health and Human Services received a less than stellar grade more...

WASHINGTON, DC—As the debate over health care reform heated up in Congress last month, President Obama submitted a nominee for Surgeon General who would be more...

WASHINGTON, DC—As the September 30 deadline for achieving interoperable electronic health records approaches, the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are more...

TACOMA, WA—Schizophrenia is a disease that erects barriers between the person suffering from it and their ability to lead a fulfilling and “normal” life within their community. more...

Pressure and time: combine the two and you can get a multitude of results. Apply the two to coal and you’ll eventually get diamonds. Apply them to human flesh, and in a much shorter time, you will get pressure ulcers…painful areas of necrosis and ulceration that are a bane for any patient confined to a bed for long periods of time. They are also a frustrating fact of life for anyone confined to a wheelchair, especially those patients who have little or no feeling in the lower half of their body.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—For the last 5 years, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been in the midst of a process to realign its capital assets—closing some facilities, opening others, and shifting resources around—in an attempt to keep pace with the geographic location and health care needs of the veteran population. This endeavor is guided by a 5-year-old report that may no longer present an accurate picture of veterans’ needs and what changes VA needs to make. Some legislators and veteran’s advocates are questioning whether VA’s plan is out of date, and raising the possibility that it was inherently flawed to begin with.

BETHESDA, M.D.—When traditional medicine fails, patients frequently turn to other sources of hope and healing. In 2007, 83 million adults used some form of complementary or alternative medicine, according to the National Health Interview Survey. This is equal to about 38% of the entire population. Those 83 million people made 354 million visits to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers and spent $33.9 billion doing so, making up more than 10% of the total out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans in 2007.