Cincinnati-based revenue cycle managment company Ensemble says that former HCA Healthcare CFO Bill Rutherford has joined its board of managers. Rutherford recently retired from HCA Healthcare after 34 years. During his tenure, he oversaw financial operations including the Treasury Department, Office of the Controller, Information Technology, Government Programs, Strategic Resource Group and Revenue Cycle Operations. Rutherford joins a board that includes Jane Moran, CIO at Mass General Brigham.
Cognitively normal human brain samples collected at autopsy in early 2024 contained more tiny shards of plastic than samples collected eight years prior, according to a new study. Overall, cadaver brain samples contained seven to 30 times more tiny shards of plastic than their kidneys and liver, said co-lead study author Matthew Campen, Regents' Professor and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
The FDA has given two biotechnology companies approval for clinical trials that will transplant organs from genetically modified pigs into patients with kidney failure, an experimental but potentially groundbreaking innovation for thousands of Americans on the waiting list for organ transplants.
Virginia moved closer Monday to shielding doctors from extradition if they provide reproductive or gender-affirming healthcare to out-of-state patients, advancing legislation that underscores the deepening divide over healthcare access and state sovereignty. The Senate narrowly passed Senate Bill 1098, sponsored by Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, which would block the extradition of healthcare providers facing criminal charges in other states for performing medical services that are legal in Virginia. Every Republican opposed the measure.
A bill Gov. Kathy Hochul signed Monday aims to make it harder for authorities in other states to prosecute New York doctors who prescribe abortion medication online. The new law allows doctors to keep their names off of prescription labels for mifepristone and misoprostol, drugs commonly used to terminate early pregnancies. Instead, they'll be allowed to list their practices or — once lawmakers approve an agreed-upon tweak in the coming days — the addresses of the practices instead, according to Hochul’s approval message. Hochul approved the legislation three days after a Louisiana grand jury hit Dr. Margaret Carpenter, a doctor from the Hudson Valley town of New Paltz, with a criminal abortion charge alleging she prescribed abortion medication to a resident of the state. Abortions are banned in Louisiana, with limited exceptions.
The following statement by National Nurses United (NNU), the largest U.S. union of registered nurses, is a reaction to the Trump administration's announcement that hospitals and other health care facilities are now open for immigration raids:
Nurses across the United States are outraged that the Trump administration rescinded guidelines previously barring immigration raids on “sensitive areas,” including hospitals and other health care facilities. Hospitals should be places for healing, where all patients feel safe receiving care, without fear. Our patients, who we make a sacred oath to help and heal, without discrimination, should never be forced to forego lifesaving treatment because our government has made our workplaces sites of harm and terror.