By Jacob Goldstein
IMS Health is nearing a deal to sell itself for nearly $4 billion, the WSJ reports. That raises a simple question: What does IMS Health do, anyway?
Drug companies pay IMS for information about the prescribing habits of individual doctors. This, of course, is very valuable stuff for the drug company sales reps who make calls at doctors’ offices. IMS buys the raw prescription data — which doesn’t … Continue Reading
By Shirley S. Wang
The pharmaceutical industry is undergoing big cuts and the U.S. unemployment rate hit its highest mark since April 1983, but the health-care services sector continues to grow, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The health-care industry added an additional 29,000 jobs in October, nearly the same amount it grew in September. In total, since the start of the recession, the industry has added 597,000 … Continue Reading
By Jacob Goldstein
Sorry about all those exclamation marks in the headline. But there’s lots of action in DC today, what with the House set to vote on the big health-care bill this Saturday.
The AMA came out in favor of the House bill today. Not a huge surprise, given the group’s endorsement of the health-care bill introduced in the House earlier this year. Still, the new version of the legislation splits a provision … Continue Reading
By Jacob Goldstein
The oft-cited WHO ranking that said the U.S. has the 37th best health-care system in the world is dated and had problems even when it was new, WSJ stats maven Carl Bialik writes in his column today.
The ranking was published in 2000, and came up against a major problem: Good data weren’t available from many countries. So researchers used other measures, such as literacy rates and income inequality, to … Continue Reading
By Jacob Goldstein
Yes, the big health-care bills moving through Congress include a few measures to increase the number of primary-care doctors. No, those measures probably aren’t enough to satisfy the demand for primary-care projected by medical educators and others, Kaiser Health News reports
Medicare payments to primary-care docs would be boosted by 10% under the the House and Senate bills. And about 1,000 residency … Continue Reading