Information - Pharmacist Digest

STAT+: Apple launches sweeping new health study that may inform future features

STAT

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Apple on Wednesday announced a new longitudinal research study that will investigate relationships between different aspects of health that can be measured using its devices, potentially informing the development of new health features.

Hospitals

Half of adults struggle to access trusted health information

The Pharmacist

DECEMBER 17, 2024

Around half of adults in the UK struggle to access trusted health information, according to a new report.

Informal referrals deprive pharmacies of 'more than £115m a year'

The Pharmacist

OCTOBER 29, 2024

Informal referrals to community pharmacies deprive pharmacies of more than £115 million each year, Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has estimated. Although funding […] The post Informal referrals deprive pharmacies of 'more than £115m a year' appeared first on The Pharmacist.

Community Pharmacies

USDA faulted for disclosing scant information about outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu in cattle

STAT

APRIL 18, 2024

government to release more information to help them assess the risk the outbreaks pose to cattle operations and people. But they are operating largely in the dark because the United States has released such sparse information, said Marion Koopmans, head of the department of viroscience at Erasmus Medical Center in the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

Enhance Healthcare Efficiency With Top Payroll & HCM Services

Download now to make informed decisions and learn how IRIS Payroll & HCM Services can empower your healthcare organization today. Automated HR management streamlines onboarding, scheduling, and performance tracking, allowing more focus on patient care.

Opinion: Done right, AI can give patients crucial information on the quality of their care

STAT

OCTOBER 23, 2023

Yet even as AI is providing doctors with increasingly sophisticated data, the information available to patients has stagnated. Whether you have cancer, need a knee replacement, or face serious heart surgery, reliable comparative information is difficult to find and use. And what is available is often years old. Read the rest…

Hospitals

STAT+: HHS finalizes penalties for providers resorting to ‘information blocking’

STAT

JUNE 24, 2024

The federal government has cemented a key part of its strategy for making patients’ medical records transfer easier: setting disincentives for providers engaging in what’s known as “information blocking.”

Medical Records

Medical Records Hospitals

Opinion: Patients might finally receive practical information with prescriptions — if the FDA doesn’t blow it

STAT

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

After years of deliberation, the FDA has proposed giving patients a simple one-pager for every prescription drug with the information needed for safe and effective use. The Food and Drug Administration knows many of the answers. It wants patients to know them, too.

Packaging

Opinion: STAT+: Some countries are moving to digital prescription drug information for patients. The U.S. shouldn’t follow suit

STAT

JANUARY 22, 2024

Having all of these details in accessible, printed documents keeps patients informed and mitigates the risk of medication errors. However, there’s a growing movement across the world to eliminate printed medication information, making it harder for patients to learn about the drugs that, in many cases, save their lives.

Documentation

Opinion: I grew up in one of Africa’s largest informal settlements. Now I’m helping heal it

STAT

NOVEMBER 24, 2023

In 2001, at the age of 13, I had come to Kenya’s largest informal settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi with my sister. I had only lived in Kibera for 15 minutes when I saw a police officer and was arrested. But it would be years before I saw a real doctor. When we arrived at 3 a.m.,

STAT+: FTC says pharmacy benefit managers are stonewalling requests for information

STAT

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

A much-anticipated inquiry by U.S. antitrust regulators into pharmaceutical industry middlemen has been stymied because the companies have failed to provide many of the documents that, in some cases, were requested as far back as June 2022.

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Documentation

STAT+: 23andMe’s bankruptcy is the worst thing that could happen to just about everyone involved

STAT

MARCH 24, 2025

The same way bankruptcy was described by Ernest Hemingway in 1926: “Two ways: Gradually, and then suddenly.”

Opinion: I’m disabled. I’m terrified about what Medicaid cuts could mean for my life

STAT

MARCH 3, 2025

The letter informed me that I had been approved for Medicaid-funded Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), a form of long-term care. In early January, I received a letter in the mail from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

Hospitals

Alcohol labels should carry ‘Alcohol Facts’ box listing nutrition and allergens, regulator says

STAT

JANUARY 17, 2025

Labels on alcohol could soon feature more thorough information on allergens and nutritional value, if a set of new proposals from the U.S. Treasury Department is approved.

Labelling

STAT+: Teva fined $503 million for disparaging a rival and using patents to thwart competition

STAT

OCTOBER 31, 2024

The European Commission found the company had artificially extended the patent protection of Copaxone and systematically spread misleading information about a rival product.

Drug Pricing

STAT+: FDA cancels vaccine advisory committee meeting

STAT

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Offit said the email contained no information about rescheduling the meeting, and noted that the meeting is a critical resource for vaccine makers trying to figure out which flu strains to include in their shots for the next flu season.

Vaccines

STAT+: FDA scolds drugmaker over promotion that touts ‘misleading’ comparison with generics

STAT

MARCH 4, 2025

However, not only was there a lack of important risk information, but the promotional panel also maintained there was greater patient adherence to its drug compared with generics. The agency pointed out that the study cited by the company did not support this conclusion because of problems with the study design and methodology.

Opinion: Bloated patient records are filled with false information, thanks to copy-paste

STAT

JUNE 20, 2023

I recently took care of a patient whose medical records included multiple notes about her past open-heart surgery. Only she had never undergone open-heart surgery. Read the rest…

Medical Records

STAT+: Drug may make chemotherapies less effective in cancer patients with obesity — but many doctors are in the dark

STAT

OCTOBER 28, 2024

The information, however, is not in the label because the drug — originally manufactured by Merck — was never fully tested in this population. A drug used to combat fungal infections in cancer patients comes with a big caveat — research shows the medicine can last twice as long as in people with obesity.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy Labelling

Opinion: How much personal health information does King Charles owe the public?

STAT

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

5, Buckingham Palace shared the news that King Charles had started treatment for cancer.

What YouTube Health is doing to combat misinformation and promote evidence-based content

STAT

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

Responsibility is at the core of how YouTube works and how we treat sensitive information, particularly around health.” “People come to us to learn how to fix their fridge and to learn about medicines,” he said in an interview. “There’s a lot of responsibility, and we take that seriously.

Questions about Pfizer’s GenAI ‘Health Answers’

STAT

MARCH 4, 2025

Pfizer recently rolled out a new generative AI product, called Health Answers by Pfizer , designed to provide consumers trustworthy information about common questions. Sign up to get it delivered in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.

Opinion: 23andMe’s bankruptcy doesn’t diminish its impact

STAT

MARCH 25, 2025

Most individuals never contemplated accessing their genetic information independently, nor imagined using genetic data proactively to make personal health decisions. Read the rest…

Opinion: Being a chronically ill young adult is hard enough. Finding information about my fertility is even harder

STAT

JANUARY 3, 2024

I recently turned 25. I should be taking risks, jet-setting with other Barbies, and flouncing around in tiny tops. Instead, this chronically ill Barbie spent her first four days of 25 in a scene from “Oppenheimer.” ” On my birthday, I spent nine hours convening with specialists three hours away from home.

STAT+: Health plan formularies lowered barriers to fair access to some drugs, analysis finds

STAT

DECEMBER 19, 2024

generally provide “fair access” to 11 treatments for several serious diseases, although transparent coverage information is often lacking for some medicines, a new analysis has found. Most of the formularies run by some of the largest health plans in the U.S.

Department of Veterans Affairs

Department of Veterans Affairs Diabetes Drug Pricing

Opinion: Gene therapy trials should emphasize transparency, not secrecy

STAT

DECEMBER 20, 2024

It is time to put the sharing of information among research teams ahead of the current prioritization of secrecy for commercial purposes. 18, a female pediatric patient participating in a clinical trial suffered a systemic hyperinflammatory syndrome and died about two weeks after receiving a gene therapy.

Turning Loss into Purpose: My Journey to a Pharmacy Career to Make a Difference

Pharmacy Is Right For Me

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

I utilized my campus’ career center and was really proactive in reaching out to local pharmacists to seek information about their experiences and passion for pharmacy. They often have resources and information to broaden your understanding of pharmacy as a career. My favorite part of pharmacy school is giving back to my community.

STAT+: Belgian anti-trust authorities probe Roche for allegedly delaying biosimilars of two cancer meds

STAT

MARCH 17, 2025

The agency also maintained Roche disseminated “erroneous information” about using biosimilars in combination therapy.

STAT+: Lawmakers ask FDA to review Hims’ Super Bowl ad for ‘misleading’ patients

STAT

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

wrote that they worry that the Hims ad, which will be seen by millions of people during the big game on Sunday, “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information” about the compounded weight loss drugs that it promotes. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.)

Compounding

Tracking bird flu virus changes in cows is stymied by missing data, scientists say

STAT

MAY 2, 2024

Department of Agriculture after the agency again failed to include basic information needed to track how the virus is changing as it spreads.

Labelling

Opinion: The ethical implications of Elon Musk’s unorthodox approach to medical science

STAT

JULY 8, 2024

These aren’t the latest social media influencer tactics, but the way Neuralink, Elon Musk’s neurotechnology company, has disseminated information about its medical research. Neuralink’s unconventional approaches to research have challenged many norms of medical science.

Communication

Opinion: H5N1 communication has been strictly for the birds. Didn’t the federal government learn anything from Covid?

STAT

MAY 9, 2024

In the wake of pointed criticism about its failure to release new information about the growing H5N1 outbreak in livestock, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. The posted material further confused the public.

Communication

How the FDA’s new nutrition labels could prod the food industry to get healthier

STAT

JANUARY 15, 2025

A new government proposal to display nutritional labels on the front of food packaging is aimed at helping Americans make more informed choices about what they eat. An eventual side effect, research and expert commentary suggests, could be nudging the food industry to make healthier food, too.

Labelling

Labelling Packaging Diabetes

Hospitals pledge to protect patient privacy. Almost all their websites leak visitor data like a sieve

STAT

APRIL 3, 2023

And almost every one of them uses sophisticated data tools to track and share the personal information of visitors as soon as they start clicking on their websites. A new study found that 99% of U.S.

Hospitals

STAT+: Epic, CHAI, and others weigh in on demand for AI at HIMSS25

STAT

MARCH 5, 2025

I’m here at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference in Las Vegas. Y ou’re reading the web edition of STAT’s AI Prognosis newsletter, our subscriber-exclusive guide to artificial intelligence in health care and medicine.

Opinion: Millions of people are missing from U.S. disability data

STAT

SEPTEMBER 24, 2024

For instance, they appear in the Census Bureau’s surveys, which provide information that “generates data that help inform how trillions of dollars in federal funds are distributed each year.” Combined, they are used in at least 17 U.S. population.

Few hospital websites post about LGBTQ+ services or policies, study shows

STAT

OCTOBER 14, 2024

When children’s hospitals around the country were subject to threats and harassment in 2022 over misconceptions about gender-affirming care services, many of them responded by stripping information about the care from their websites.

Hospitals

Hospitals Medical Schools

STAT+: UnitedHealth cyberattack cripples pharmacies’ and hospitals’ ability to process insurance claims

STAT

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

It would not disclose any other information and directed STAT to its update page. The severity of the attack started to become more apparent Thursday after UnitedHealth disclosed a “suspected nation-state” is behind the cyberattack, which began on Wednesday. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Hospitals

STAT+: U.K. becomes the first country to release detailed data on sponsors that fail to register clinical trials

STAT

MARCH 28, 2024

Last week, the Health Research Authority posted complete registration information for 1,545 trials, including the name of the study, the sponsor, and registration number for the trial. And for almost all of the registered clinical trials, the sponsor had informed the HRA it was registered. The findings were notable.

Health data breaches hit an all-time high in 2023

STAT

DECEMBER 21, 2023

Odds are, you’ve gotten at least one of the unnerving letters in your mailbox this year: “We’re writing to inform you of a cybersecurity incident,” it might start.

HIPAA

Scientists want to put carbon footprints on drugs. But it’s hard to get accurate numbers

STAT

OCTOBER 5, 2023

Anyone picking up a prescription from their pharmacy is used to the reams of paper that typically accompany it: information on safety, storing, and how to use the drug. What if that information also included your medicine’s carbon footprint?

Pharmaceutical Companies

Pharmaceutical Companies Pharmaceutical Companies Drug Development

STAT+: FDA rejects Rocket Pharmaceuticals’ gene therapy for ultra-rare condition, another setback for field

STAT

JUNE 28, 2024

Rocket Pharmaceuticals said Friday that the Food and Drug Administration rejected its gene therapy for an ultra-rare, sometimes fatal immuno-deficiency syndrome, saying the company needed to submit more information to prove it can safely manufacture the product.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Q&A: How AI can fail people with disabilities

STAT

MARCH 14, 2025

It also provides health care professionals with a stream of information that ensures a person is breathing through the night. The steady push of air from a CPAP machine can be lifesaving for people with sleep apnea. Read the rest…

Inquiry into unexplained bird flu case in Missouri broadens to a close contact

STAT

SEPTEMBER 13, 2024

The CDC revealed the previously undisclosed information in FluView , its weekly report on influenza activity. In an hour-long press briefing involving CDC officials on Thursday, no mention was made of this possible additional case.

STAT+: Apple launches sweeping new health study that may inform future features

Half of adults struggle to access trusted health information

Trending Sources

Informal referrals deprive pharmacies of 'more than £115m a year'

USDA faulted for disclosing scant information about outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu in cattle

Enhance Healthcare Efficiency With Top Payroll & HCM Services

Opinion: Done right, AI can give patients crucial information on the quality of their care

STAT+: HHS finalizes penalties for providers resorting to ‘information blocking’

Opinion: Patients might finally receive practical information with prescriptions — if the FDA doesn’t blow it

Opinion: STAT+: Some countries are moving to digital prescription drug information for patients. The U.S. shouldn’t follow suit

Opinion: I grew up in one of Africa’s largest informal settlements. Now I’m helping heal it

STAT+: FTC says pharmacy benefit managers are stonewalling requests for information

STAT+: 23andMe’s bankruptcy is the worst thing that could happen to just about everyone involved

Opinion: I’m disabled. I’m terrified about what Medicaid cuts could mean for my life

Alcohol labels should carry ‘Alcohol Facts’ box listing nutrition and allergens, regulator says

STAT+: Teva fined $503 million for disparaging a rival and using patents to thwart competition

STAT+: FDA cancels vaccine advisory committee meeting

STAT+: FDA scolds drugmaker over promotion that touts ‘misleading’ comparison with generics

Opinion: Bloated patient records are filled with false information, thanks to copy-paste

STAT+: Drug may make chemotherapies less effective in cancer patients with obesity — but many doctors are in the dark

Opinion: How much personal health information does King Charles owe the public?

What YouTube Health is doing to combat misinformation and promote evidence-based content

Questions about Pfizer’s GenAI ‘Health Answers’

Opinion: 23andMe’s bankruptcy doesn’t diminish its impact

Opinion: Being a chronically ill young adult is hard enough. Finding information about my fertility is even harder

STAT+: Health plan formularies lowered barriers to fair access to some drugs, analysis finds

Opinion: Gene therapy trials should emphasize transparency, not secrecy

Turning Loss into Purpose: My Journey to a Pharmacy Career to Make a Difference

STAT+: Belgian anti-trust authorities probe Roche for allegedly delaying biosimilars of two cancer meds

STAT+: Lawmakers ask FDA to review Hims’ Super Bowl ad for ‘misleading’ patients

Tracking bird flu virus changes in cows is stymied by missing data, scientists say

Opinion: The ethical implications of Elon Musk’s unorthodox approach to medical science

Opinion: H5N1 communication has been strictly for the birds. Didn’t the federal government learn anything from Covid?

How the FDA’s new nutrition labels could prod the food industry to get healthier

Hospitals pledge to protect patient privacy. Almost all their websites leak visitor data like a sieve

STAT+: Epic, CHAI, and others weigh in on demand for AI at HIMSS25

Opinion: Millions of people are missing from U.S. disability data

Few hospital websites post about LGBTQ+ services or policies, study shows

STAT+: UnitedHealth cyberattack cripples pharmacies’ and hospitals’ ability to process insurance claims

STAT+: U.K. becomes the first country to release detailed data on sponsors that fail to register clinical trials

Health data breaches hit an all-time high in 2023

Scientists want to put carbon footprints on drugs. But it’s hard to get accurate numbers

STAT+: FDA rejects Rocket Pharmaceuticals’ gene therapy for ultra-rare condition, another setback for field

Q&A: How AI can fail people with disabilities

Inquiry into unexplained bird flu case in Missouri broadens to a close contact

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