7 days in healthcare (May 6th-12th, 2024)

/in /by

 

Summary

Biomedicine

  • The enigma of the brain: The Economist highlights the enigma that the brain represents, made up of hundreds of trillions of cells that generate precise electrical impulses, which influence thoughts, memory and emotions, recommending 8 books on the subject, of which two They refer to the contributions of Ramón y Cajal, whom he compares with Darwin and Pasteur. The brain will be the focus of scientific advancement in the next 30-50 years.
  • CAR-T therapies, beyond blood cancer: Experiments in mice with this therapy manage to improve survival in brain, pancreas and lung tumors.

Global Health

  • One Health, from slogan to action plan: A group of European agencies, led by the ECDC, which includes the EMA, manage to transform the idea of One Health into an action plan, establishing five major strategic objectives.
  • The WHO Pandemic Treaty advances: WHO member states are about to reach an agreement on the response to pandemics, an agreement that, in principle, should be approved in May 2024.

International health policy

  • The great problem of hospital infections: The ECDC releases a report that shows that more than four million Europeans contract infections each year due to hospital admissions. This confirms the old criterion of hospital ethics: “Do not admit anyone unless it is strictly necessary and, if admitted, let them be in the hospital for the shortest possible time.”
  • Whooping cough is increasing in Europe: The ECDC publishes a report that warns of the increase in whooping cough cases in the European Union.

National Health Policy (Spain)

  • The government proposes new benefits in the SNS: condoms, sun creams and glasses: It is more than doubtful that with the financial tensions of an already very generous system (wide portfolio of services with hardly any co-payment), introducing new benefits without a debate in depth is a priority. Arguably, this has more to do with the political use of the system than with health policy.
  • The Catalan Generalitat will supervise the use of Catalan in its hospitals: CatSalut publishes exhaustive 9-page instructions on the subject. Same comment regarding political use of the system and health policy.
  • 18 patients die every day in Spain from hospital infections: According to a large study presented at the congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, four times more than those who died from traffic accidents. More than half of infections are considered preventable.
  • Workplace accidents increase: 56% in ten years. Both workplace accidents and the number of deaths increase in this period (452 deaths in 2012; 716 in 2022).
  • Innovative medicines take more than 800 days to reach patients in Spain: 621 days pass from the time a therapy is authorized by the European Commission until the Ministry of Health includes it in the list of approved treatments, according to the consulting firm. IQVA. To this figure we must add seven months or a year, depending on autonomy, until the treatment reaches the patients’ hands. In total, around 830 days.

Companies

  • International
    • The reengineering of addiction and the tobacco industry: For decades the tobacco industry has manipulated the design and composition of cigarettes to its benefit. Researchers and policy actors should be prepared to anticipate the tobacco industry’s response, given its long history of exploiting regulatory loopholes, according to an extensive article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
    • BioNTech looks to the future: It hopes that 2026 will be its debut in oncology with mRNA vaccines against cancer.
  • National
    • Vithas has a quality policy: The International Joint Commission accredits the Vithas Hospital of Almería, the fourth accredited hospital in this group.
    • Sanitas leaves the Manises hospital: Public reversal in this hospital. Sanitas leaves with discretion and elegance and leaving behind great management. How these things should be done.
    • Mutua Madrileña warns that Adeslas could leave MUFACE: Mutua Madrileña (50.01% shareholder of Adeslas, along with CaixaBank) warns that it will leave MUFACE if the government does not clearly improve conditions. The three companies that participated in the MUFACE model in these three years (Adeslas, Asisa and DKV) lost 600 million in this period. Logically, the possible departure of Adeslas would be a definitive death blow for the MUFACE model.

Biomedicine

Global Health

International health policy

National health policy

Companies