Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Steven Halper raised the price target on Quality Systems (NASDAQ: QSII) to $26.00 (from $23.00)
Friday, September 7, 2018
Urgent Care Centers Ease ER Burden
For minor ills such as sore throats, privately insured Americans increasingly use urgent care centers rather than hospital emergency rooms, a new study finds.
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston analyzed 2008-2015 data from Aetna, the commercial health insurance company.
“The drop in emergency department visits is quite striking and represents a substantial shift in where patients go to get care for conditions such as sore throat and minor injuries,” study author and emergency physician Dr. Sabrina Poon said in a hospital news release.
Poon and her colleagues found a 36 percent decline in ER visits for minor conditions and injuries during the study period. Meanwhile, use of non-ER services — including urgent care clinics, retail clinics and telemedicine — rose 140 percent.
The largest increase (119 percent) in non-ER services was at urgent care centers, according to the study.
Given the high cost of emergency room care, many insurance plans encourage patients to go elsewhere for treatment of trivial problems, the researchers noted.
“The increasing popularity of alternatives to the emergency department is likely being driven by a variety of factors, including cost, convenience, and long wait times,” said study co-author Dr. Jay Schuur, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s.
“In the next few years, it will be important to see how these trends evolve and whether the growth of alternative sites results in lower cost care or more use of medical care,” Schuur said.
The findings were published in the Sept. 4 JAMA Internal Medicine.
More information
The American College of Emergency Physicians explains the difference between emergency care and urgent care.
SOURCE: Brigham and Women’s Hospital, news release, Sept. 4, 2018
Naloxone Nasal Spray Works Best to Stop Opioid OD
A one-step nasal spray is the easiest form of naloxone to give someone suffering an opioid overdose, researchers say.
Increased public availability of naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, is considered a key way to reduce opioid overdose deaths. But there’s more than one way to administer it, and it wasn’t clear which method would be most successful when given by a bystander.
In this study, 138 adults watched a two-minute video demonstrating how to administer naloxone using one of the three methods — two nasal sprays and one intramuscular shot. Each participant then selected one method to administer naloxone to a mannequin.
The study participants had a higher rate of success with the single-step nasal spray than with an intramuscular naloxone injection. They administered the one-step nasal spray faster than either a multi-step atomized spray or shot.
“With training, nasal sprays in general had a higher degree of success than the shot,” said study author William Eggleston. He’s a clinical assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Binghamton University in New York.
“Even if it seemed to us it was a no-brainer that we should be using nasal sprays, we had no data before, so now we have some to support that,” he said in a university news release.
The study was published in the August issue of the journal Addiction.
More information
The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has more on naloxone.
SOURCE: Binghamton University, news release, Aug. 29, 2018
Shire Acquires sanaplasma AG Boosting Plasma Collection for Immunology
Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG) announces the acquisition of sanaplasma AG, a source plasma collection company headquartered in Switzerland. The acquisition of sanaplasma AG is expected to increase Shires access to plasma in the longer term and add to its European plasma collection network, complementing existing core capabilities in plasma supply and manufacturing.
Plasma is essential to the manufacture of immunoglobulin therapies that help treat patients living with certain rare immunological diseases. Immunology is Shires largest franchise, with 18% growth on a pro-forma basis in 2017 to $4.4 billion in product sales, primarily driven by increased global demand for subcutaneous and intravenous immunoglobulin brands. This acquisition is expected to support the growth of the Immunology business and help meet the needs of patients around the world.
Sue Brown, VP Global Operations for Shire BioLife Plasma Services, said:The acquisition of sanaplasma AG demonstrates Shires commitment to its rapidly growing and leading Immunology business. The combination of sanaplasma AGs 14 plasma centres in the Czech Republic and Hungary with our more than 100 BioLife centres in the US and Austria will help us to meet the continuously growing demand for plasma-derived medicines. Dr. Martin Lukas, co-owner of sanaplasma AG said:I look forward to working with the team at Shire during the transition to help ensure continuity of supply, know-how transfer, and a smooth handover to position the business for future success as it continues to meet patient needs.
sanaplasma AG is a privately-owned company focused on source plasma collection through its operation of 14 European plasmapheresis centres; 11 in the Czech Republicand three in Hungary.
Intuitive Surgical Submits Robotic Platform for Lung Biopsies to FDA
Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (Nasdaq: ISRG), the pioneer and a global technology leader in robotic-assisted, minimally invasive surgery, today announced it has submitted a premarket notification to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the companys new flexible robotic-assisted, catheter-based platform, designed to navigate through very small lung airways to reach peripheral nodules for biopsies.
Lung cancer is the worlds leading cause of cancer deaths. The majority of suspicious lesions found in the lung are small and difficult to access, which can make obtaining a diagnosis challenging.
Intuitive brings more than two decades of leadership in robotic-assisted surgical technology and solutions to this innovative new platform, which supports the companys leadership in the advancement of minimally invasive care.
Premarket notification is one of the regulatory processes that the FDA uses to review information about medical devices before they are allowed to be marketed in the U.S.
FDA Approves TEVA’s Cassipa to Treat Opioid Dependence
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. on Friday received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its drug Cassipa to be used in the treatment of opioid dependence.
The FDA said the new action also provides a new dosage strength of buprenorphine and naloxone sublingual film, which are applied under the tongue, in both brand name and generic versions and in various strengths.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said “The FDA is committed to helping those with opioid use disorder transition to lives of sobriety. We’ve taken a number of steps to advance the development of new FDA-approved treatments for opioid dependence and encourage health care professionals to ensure patients are offered an adequate chance to benefit from these therapies.”
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. is a division of Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. (TEVA).
American Depository Receipts of Teva finished Friday trading down 1.15%, to $21.50, after Credit Suisse downgraded the stock to neutral on concerns the FDA’s upcoming decision on Teva’s migraine drug may not go well, and will weigh on the shares. In after-hours trading Friday, Teva’s ADRs were down 0.09% to $21.48.
Unintended consequences of free medical school
I’m probably in the minority on this, but I’m not a fan of the NYU School of Medicine free tuition program. Now I’m all for debt relief for medical students who start their careers with a mortgage. I was one of them. After 13 years, I’m still one of them! I’m also for any initiative that drives more medical students to career paths like primary care, where massive debt makes higher paying subspecialties more desirable. As a practicing primary care internist, and a former academic physician that worked with medical students, this is a cause I’m passionate about. But while NYU continues to be lauded from all directions for this incredible investment and commitment, I suspect the program will not achieve its purported goals.
Let’s start off by respecting the fact that NYU is one of the best medical schools in the country. As a former residency program director at an excellent academic institution, we were always thrilled to recruit students from NYU. NYU med themselves recruit the best and brightest undergraduate students across the country. But the current reality of medical education is this. Whether it’s medical school or in residency, the best students often pursue the highest paying and most competitive fields. There are many reasons for this and education debt is certainly one of them.
With the tuition relief NYU is offering, the medical school will suddenly become even more competitive. I suspect their upcoming classes will be an even less academically diverse sampling of ultra-driven students trying to climb Mount Everest. The assumption that these extremely bright hard-working students will suddenly give up on competitive subspecialty fields (that earn a lot more by the way) is basically the antithesis of their academic and personality traits that probably got them there in the first place. It seems like the school is hoping that being debt free will suddenly cause a rush of altruism that will bring students to fields like medical research, pediatrics, and family medicine. But let’s remember, it is altruism that partly got them into medicine and accepted into medical school in the first place. After talking to students and residents for ten years, I’ve learned that once they are in, many feel that selflessness and commitment to the well-being of others can also be achieved through higher-paying specialty fields like dermatology, emergency medicine, plastic surgery, and cardiology. And I agree with them.
I hope I’m wrong about this. Our broken health care system needs more medical students to choose careers in research and primary care. But a free ride at an elite medical school is not the answer. Like tax cuts to wealthy corporations that often do stock buybacks while augmenting the bottom lines of investors, most of these great students at NYU Med will take the tuition relief and probably just run with it to well-deserved and lucrative career options. And instead of being indebted to banks, perhaps they will feel indebted to their alma mater and become generous donors. That’s a good way to help keep a program going that although looks good on press releases, may not actually make a huge difference.
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