Top Story

Morning Read: Are palliative and hospice care behind steep drop in ER mortality rates?

Also, China healthcare spending has soared to $3.9 billion in overseas acquisitions across pharma, biotech and healthcare through the first half of the year and Amicus acquired Miamed.

emergency rush

TOP STORIES

Mortality rates in U.S. emergency rooms fell by nearly 50 percent from 1997-2011. Citing a study in Health Affairs, the study concluded that advances in palliative and hospice care played a role. But it also listed other factors such as pre-hospital resuscitation policy changes, improved quality for Medicaid and Medicare patients. — Becker’s Infection Control and Clinical Quality

China healthcare spending has soared to $3.9 billion in overseas acquisitions across pharma, biotech and healthcare through the first half of the year. China’s domestic market is fragmented so the idea is that an overseas acquisition could help the likes of Fosun Pharmaceuticals and Creat Group Corp. diversify their portfolios and identify new opportunities for growth. — Bloomberg

LIFE SCIENCES

In a $90 million deal, Amicus acquired Miamed which has a treatment in pre-clinical development for a rare neurological  for which there is currently no cure—cyclin-dependent kinase-like 5 (CDKL5) deficiency. — FierceBiotech

PAYERS-PROVIDERS

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Mount Sinai Health System is making an app available to patients called MountSinaiNY  to make doctor appointments, pay hospital bills and access medical records through MyMountSinaiChart. — HealthcareIT News

TECHNOLOGY

National Institute of Health Clinical Center commissioned Connexient to develop an indoor navigation app for visitors to find their way around their 322 acre clinical research institution. The result is Take Me There. — MobiHealthNews

POLITICS

CMS has irked the American Hospital Association over its plan to stop paying hospitals’ off-campus ambulatory facilities at the same rate as hospital-based outpatient departments. “We are extremely dismayed by the short-sighted policies in today’s proposed rule,” AHA Executive Vice President Tom Nickels said. — Modern Healthcare, AHA

A LITTLE BIT EXTRA

The discovery of a molecular pain switch is driving biotech companies to develop pain medications that can activate that switch to relieve pain without causing addiction. — Scientific American, STAT News

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