GlobalWatch

Even good hospitals often fail: Study US hospitals are improving the quality of their care, but even the best fail too often to provide the ...

Even good hospitals often fail: Study
US hospitals are improving the quality of their care, but even the best fail too often to provide the right treatments, such as immediately giving aspirin to victims of heart attacks and properly administering antibiotics to pneumonia patients, according to a nationawide study involving more than 3,000 hospitals.

8220;Wherever you live and whatever you8217;re being treated for, you really should get the same quality of care,8221; said Ashish Jha of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who led one of the analyses published in the New England Journal of Medicine. 8220;Our study reinforces that that8217;s really not happening.8221;

Night shift 8216;link8217; to breast cancer
Night shift workers who had low levels of the body8217;s vital 8220;sleep hormone8221;, were significantly more likely to develop breast cancer than those who were awake during the day but got plenty of shut-eye at night, a team of scientists reported in Boston.

8220;Two or three years ago we probably would have been reluctant to say there was an association,8221; said Dr. Eva Schernhammer, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women8217;s Hospital. 8220;But now the evidence is becoming clearer,8221;8217; that a relationship exists between tumor development and being exposed to light at night, she said.

8220;This study brings us one step closer to understanding why night shift workers may be more likely to develop breast cancer.8221;

During daylight or exposure to bright lights, the hormone melatonin is suppressed. Switch off the lights, and melatonin, secreted by the brain8217;s pineal gland, begins to stream into the blood. The hormone flows most copiously during sleep, thus its nickname, the sleep hormone.

Macular degeneration drug8217;s new benefit
Eyesight sharpened so dramatically for some patients who took a new drug for age-related macular degeneration that they could theoretically meet the basic vision requirements for driving, researchers have announced.

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8220;About 40 pc of patients achieved vision of 20/40 or better by month 12, and 20/40 is an important level of vision,8221; said Dr. Joan Miller of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston.

8212; Agencies