Latest news with #hospitals
Times of Oman
a day ago
- Business
- Times of Oman
Oman's 'Dhamani' platform revolutionises health insurance with record activity in 2025
Muscat: The National Health Insurance Platform 'Dhamani' has released its operational report for the first half of 2025, revealing a surge in activity that underscores its growing role in streamlining health insurance services across the Sultanate of Oman. According to the latest figures, the platform processed more than 4.2 million transactions, averaging 40,000 transactions daily. Of these: 2.3 million were eligibility verifications for insured individuals. 1.4 million dealt with medical approvals. 700,000 were claims submitted by hospitals. In a significant milestone, OMR 3.5 million were electronically transferred from insurance companies to hospitals, emphasizing Dhamani's focus on efficiency and transparency in financial settlements. The platform's integrated network now includes: ▪ 33 hospitals ▪ 37 health complexes ▪ 33 specialised health centres ▪ 20 clinics
Times of Oman
a day ago
- Business
- Times of Oman
National Health Insurance platform 'Dhamani' reports strong activity
Muscat: The National Health Insurance Platform 'Dhamani' has released its operational report for the first half of 2025, revealing a surge in activity that underscores its growing role in streamlining health insurance services across the Sultanate of Oman. According to the latest figures, the platform processed more than 4.2 million transactions, averaging 40,000 transactions daily. Of these: 2.3 million were eligibility verifications for insured individuals. 1.4 million dealt with medical approvals. 700,000 were claims submitted by hospitals. In a significant milestone, OMR 3.5 million were electronically transferred from insurance companies to hospitals, emphasizing Dhamani's focus on efficiency and transparency in financial settlements. The platform's integrated network now includes: 33 hospitals 37 health complexes 33 specialized health centers 20 clinics These developments highlight Dhamani's expanding footprint and its strategic contribution to raising service standards, reducing administrative delays, and ensuring seamless communication between healthcare providers and insurers.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Hospitals on high alert for world's most contagious disease after young child is infected
Multiple hospitals in North Carolina are on high alert this week after confirming the state's first measles case in a popular college town. Doctors and health officials are on the lookout for people exhibiting signs of the infection, including a red, splotchy rash, fever, cough, runny nose, and sore throat. The child visited several public places after being infected, putting a concerning number of people at risk, as measles has an infection rate of 12-18, meaning one infected person can spread it to 12 to 18 other people. It is so contagious that if someone has it, it can spread to 90 percent of people who aren't immune, such as those not vaccinated. Measles vaccination rates in the US are high, with about 91 percent of children receiving the MMR vaccine by age two. To stop the virus from spreading, however, coverage needs to be at least 95 percent for herd immunity. But in many pockets of the US, parents are increasingly choosing to forego vaccination for their children, often citing debunked claims about injuries and a retracted paper linking the shots to autism. The current outbreak, which has sickened 1,200 people, killed three, and spread to all but 13 states, has its epicenter among Mennonite communities in West Texas, where vaccination rates hover around 46 percent. North Carolina hospitals are just the most recent to be placed on high alert after reported measles exposures and infections and staff are bracing for more cases. 'This was inevitable. We knew that eventually we would get a case here as well,' Dr David Wohl at UNC Health said. 'Measles is an incredibly infectious virus. It can linger in the air; it can linger on surfaces. People born before 1957, we basically assume you are immune because it was so widespread and it is so catchy, that it's almost impossible that you weren't exposed before the vaccines became available.' The child visited Piedmont Triad International Airport, the Greensboro Science Center, the Greensboro Aquatic Center, and ParTee Shack, as well as several spots in Kernersville, including a Sleep Inn and Lowe's grocery store, all in Guilford and Forsyth counties. Joshua Swift, Forsyth County public health director, told the Raleigh News & Observer: 'The patient has been treated and released, and is isolating and recovering.' The child will no longer be considered infectious by Thursday. North Carolina does not see many measles cases, with just one in 2024 and three in 2018. However, Dr Michael Smith, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Duke Health, is concerned about low vaccination rates among children. 'Until this year where we've had a lot of measles, as a parent you could say, 'Well measles is not really common in the United States so I'm not going to worry about it,'' he said. 'That story is not true. 'The MMR vaccine does not cause autism. Don't take it from me as a doctor – I'm a dad and both my kids are vaccinated. This is a safe and effective vaccine.' Despite cases of measles reaching peaks not seen since 2019, the CDC's newly formed committee for vaccine recommendations announced that the outbreak has stalled. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said: 'There's some really good indicators that we have hit a plateau, the cases are definitely decreasing. 'As we are seeing fewer cases in the southwest, we continue to see global introductions come into the US, which thankfully to date have mainly been short, terminal trains of transmissions as opposed to more sustained transmissions we saw in the southwest.' Overall, the risk to the US population is low, according to the CDC's committee, though state health agencies will continue to closely monitor transmissions and communities at higher risk. Yet Dr Wohl told WRAL News that the hospital staff have been working hard for months to prepare for an outbreak of measles or multiple outbreaks at once. Weekly case rates are on the decline, reaching a high the last week of March, with 116 new cases, before falling to 24 cases the week of May 11. They shot up again to 52 cases the week of May 18. The week ending June 15 saw nine new cases confirmed, marking the lowest count since the outbreak began in mid-January. Yet several other states – Washington, Michigan, Utah, and Virginia, among others – have also been placed on high alert after public health officials identified new cases, in some instances, for the first time in decades. In Virginia, staff have identified two exposures to measles within a one-week period at Dulles International Airport. One infected person, who had visited multiple businesses, came from North Carolina, while the second was an international traveler. In Michigan, the Grand Traverse County Health Department confirmed a third case of measles and has officially put the public on notice. Dr Joe Santangelo, Munson Healthcare's Chief Medical, Quality and Safety Officer, warned: 'Measles is one of the most contagious viruses known to man. 'With something like measles, we want to be very proactive in notifying the community if they may have been exposed to measles just because of how contagious this virus can be. 'We do believe it to be isolated to a bit of a population and we did share some exposure sites late last week and we're going to continue to monitor that.' Child vaccination rates in the US have been declining since the Covid pandemic and have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. State immunization programs reported pandemic-related disruptions in the 2021-22 school year. Studies indicate between 26 percent and 41 percent of households had at least one child miss or delay a well visit during the pandemic. The rate of vaccine exemptions among kindergartners — covering both medical and nonmedical reasons — held steady during the pandemic. However, in the 2022–23 school year, exemption rates increased in 41 states, raising the national rate from 2.6 percent to 3 percent, the highest ever recorded in the US. Ten states reported exemption rates above five percent. Among kindergartners with exemptions, more than 93 percent were for nonmedical reasons.
BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- Health
- BreakingNews.ie
Department of Health probing consultant ‘productivity conundrum'
Consultants could have held 1.5 million more appointments last year if they were operating on the same level of productivity as 10 years ago, according to new metrics calculated by the Department of Health. It comes as Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill launched a tool which she said would hold 'hospitals and individual specialisms to account' over translating increased investment into better productivity. Advertisement The Department of Health's new dashboard collates pre-existing statistics into fresh formats that provide perspectives on what was dubbed a 'productivity conundrum' by senior officials. It also allows for comparisons on waiting lists and other performance indicators. While the tool allows specialties and hospitals to benchmark their performance against their peers, the department said the dashboard is a 'learning tool' and 'not a stick to beat anyone with'. A senior official stressed that the initial focus of the dashboard was about transparency and 'putting a spotlight' on the ability to convert resources into services for patients. Advertisement However, there are performance management expectations in health service reforms – with the department figure saying that anyone making major public investment in healthcare would want to be assured that the site has demonstrated an ability to convert investment into improved services. On what was described as a 'productivity puzzle', officials said a 'great increase' in the total number of whole time equivalent (WTE) consultants had occurred against a fall in outpatient appointments per consultant. There were 1,812 WTE consultants in 2016, rising to 3,061 in 2024. However, the number of appointments per consultant has fallen from 1,686 in 2016 to 1,209 in 2020 – where it appears to have roughly plateaued into the present day. Advertisement Using the correlating 3.1 million outpatient appointments in 2016, the department said this meant the same efficiency could have resulted in 5.2 million outpatient appointments last year. However, this is 1.5 million above the actual figure of appointments which stood at just 3.7 million in 2024. Department officials said the dynamics behind that discrepancy have yet to be explained, adding that Ireland would have a 'vastly more effective service' and 'massive reductions in waiting times' if 2016 productivity levels had been maintained. Acknowledging that consultants may find the blunt comparison unfair given the impact of Covid-19 on the intervening years, officials still said the health service seems to be 'a bit stuck' on the roughly 1,200-appointments-per-consultant figure. Advertisement 'We're open to hearing from consultants who are the experts in it.' A department official said it 'definitely warrants a major effort' to push back towards previous productivity levels – even if 2016 rates are no longer realistic. 'The productivity and savings taskforce is really determined that we get to grips with productivity in these kind of very benign and positive times in terms of investment and expansion, because it will be vital if we ever have to deal with more, more challenging fiscal circumstances.' One of the other key metrics measured by the dashboard is 'composite activity output', which attempts to distil years-long increases in productivity across different types of care into a single figure to allow for comparisons against workforce and expenditure increases. Advertisement Officials said it showed that some hospitals are 'notably better' at converting their input into activity, adding that they wish to determine the reasons for that. The department said the dashboard provided an entirely new view on data which had not been previously used sufficiently well to inform service planning and development. Minister Carroll MacNeill said the dashboard was an effort to present 'the best transparency we possibly can' on hospital activity. She said there had not been enough focus on how hospitals are locally managing increased investment in the most efficient way for better patient outcomes. Ms Carroll McNeill said: 'For too long hospitals have had the opportunity to regard themselves as independent republics. 'They are very much part of a State system that is funded by the State, and it's a reasonable and appropriate process to shine this light in relation to their activity.' She said it could not be the case that increased investment in health did not result in increased efficiency. Ms Carroll McNeill added: 'That means more outpatient appointments, that means better use of surgical capacity, that means better use of diagnostic capacity. 'And I think the productivity dashboard here is a way of making sure that we are holding hospitals and individual specialisms to account to manage themselves better.' Other potential uses for the dashboard include assisting GPs in deciding where to refer patients, having consulted the waiting lists trends in their region. Officials also believe that moves to a fuller seven-day working week will improve productivity.
Medscape
2 days ago
- Health
- Medscape
Cardiovascular Risk Not Key in Presurgical Med Management
TOPLINE: The STOP-or-NOT study of patients undergoing major noncardiac surgery found no difference in the postoperative risk for death or major complications in those who continued or discontinued treatment with renin-angiotensin system inhibitors (RASi) prior to the procedure. A new post hoc analysis of the randomized controlled trial found stratification of preoperative cardiovascular risk does not affect patient outcomes for the strategy, either. METHODOLOGY: Researchers conducted a post hoc analysis of the multicenter STOP-or-NOT randomized clinical trial, which included patients at 40 hospitals in France between January 2018 and April 2023, with a 28-day postoperative follow-up. Participants included 2222 patients (median age, 68 years, 35% women) who had been treated with RASi agents for at least 3 months before undergoing major noncardiac surgery. Patients were randomly assigned to either continue taking their RASi until the day of surgery or discontinue the medication 48 hours before the procedure. Primary outcome measures were a composite of all-cause mortality and major postoperative complications. Secondary outcomes included major cardiovascular events and acute kidney injury. The researchers used the Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI), the American University of Beirut-HAS2 Cardiovascular Risk Index, and systolic blood pressure prior to randomization to assess cardiovascular risk. TAKEAWAY: Using the RCRI, 592 patients were categorized as low risk, 1095 as intermediate-low risk, 418 as intermediate-high risk, and 117 as high risk. The American University of Beirut-HAS2 score categorized 1049 patients as low risk, 727 as intermediate-low risk, 333 as intermediate-high risk, and 113 as high risk. While the risk for postoperative complications and major cardiovascular events varied with a person's score on the RCRI, continuing or discontinuing RASi was not associated with an increased risk for surgical complications. IN PRACTICE: 'This study found that preoperative cardiovascular risk did not affect patient outcomes with respect to the strategy of continuing vs discontinuing RASi before major noncardiac surgery, suggesting that the decision to continue or discontinue RASi should not be influenced by a patient's preoperative cardiovascular risk assessment,' the researchers wrote. SOURCE: The study was led by Matthieu Legrand, MD, PhD, of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care at the University of California, San Francisco. It was published online on June 25 in JAMA Cardiology. LIMITATIONS: The researchers acknowledged several limitations of the research, including how the sample size may have limited the ability to detect complications with small effects in subpopulations. The absence of systematic postoperative troponin measurements also reduced sensitivity in detecting myocardial injury. DISCLOSURES: Several of the authors disclosed receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, Edwards Lifesciences, Nordic Pharma, and others. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
