Wellness

Using health care analytics — sometimes called business intelligence — researchers and consultants are mining clinical and claims data to discover gold standards and establish best practices for prevention, treatment and self care and, ideally, help reduce waste, abuse and fraud. The goals are simple but have remained elusive.

Should patients undergoing broad DNA testing for a specific ailment be told of unexpected findings that signal risk of cancer or other serious diseases, even if they don’t request the information?

How three employers are making employee health a priority and seeing the results in their bottom line.

Children of such women were more likely to have scores in the lowest quartile for verbal ability, reading accuracy and reading comprehension than those whose mothers had sufficient iodine levels, according to the study published today.

Sixty-nine percent of employers tells the IFEBP that they definitely plan to provide employer-sponsored health care when exchanges begin in 2014; in 2012, only 46% of companies were willing to commit to that.

Lowering sodium intake, a drumbeat of doctors’ efforts to improve patient health, may have the opposite effect if taken to the extreme, scientists said.

“We may be jumping the gun,” says one expert. “While there is cognitive decline with normal aging, if we pull out people with brain disease, there’s not enough of a decline for us to worry about older peoples’ ability to make financial decisions.”

Wanting to leverage the new fitness facility to better help employees manage their work balance, Brocade launched a WellFit council made up of a cross-functional group of about 10 people.

Merck & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Roche Holding AG have opened a new front against cancer with the next generation of experimental drugs that use the human immune system to seek and destroy tumor cells.

A test from Genomic Health Inc. helps predict whether prostate cancer is aggressive or slow- growing and is available now.

U.S. hospitals charge prices that, at times, can be thousands of dollars different for the same medical procedures, even within towns or states, according to federal data released today.

Guest blogger Heath Shackelford suggests employers’ focus on measuring the return on investment for wellness programs is distracting from the real effects these programs can have.

An analysis of the most common uterine cancer suggests the disease should be reclassified into four categories that may help lead to more targeted treatments.

In the hunt for return on investment, employers are taking a closer look at financial disincentives in wellness.

Employers, experts pay closer attention to getting the best return on investment for expenditures on wellness incentives.

A two-year study from UnitedHealthcare shows its disease management program for diabetes can help people with the condition manage it more effectively, while also reducing related costs for employers.

A mere 12 ounces serving size of sugar-sweetened soft drink a day may increase the chance of developing Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, according to a study published recently by Diabetologia.

Reinforcing other studies, Truven finds that more than two-thirds of the 6.5 million emergency department visits during the study period for those under the age of 65 were avoidable and could have saved employers and health plans millions.

The epilepsy drug was also tied to a three-fold increase of autism spectrum disorder, which includes Asperger syndrome and other developmental disorders, according to research published Tuesday.

Chili peppers and migraines have traits in common, a fact scientists are exploiting to develop drugs capable of preventing the debilitating headache’s painful symptoms before they attack.