EHR Vendor Epic Nets Supreme Court Victory In Workers’ Arbitration Case
The court ruled that businesses can block employees from joining together to file claims for wage theft and other work-related violations. "The virtues Congress originally saw in arbitration, its speed and simplicity and inexpensiveness, would be shorn away and arbitration would wind up looking like the litigation it was meant to displace" if workers gathered their complaints under class action lawsuits, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.
Modern Healthcare:
Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Epic In Arbitration Case
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that companies can prohibit workers from using class-action litigation to resolve workplace disputes, handing Epic Systems Corp. and other employers a win. In a 5-4 decision on three consolidated cases, the justices said companies can include clauses in employment contracts that require employees to use individual arbitration to resolve disputes. That decision could affect about 25 million employees. (Arndt, 5/21)
In other national health care news —
The Hill:
HHS Secretary To Head U.S. Delegation At World Health Assembly
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will attend the 71st World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, as the head of U.S. delegation on Tuesday. Azar will deliver remarks on the the U.S. commitment to global health security, attend official events focused on key public health challenges and participate in multiple bilateral meetings with health ministers and officials from other nations, according to HHS.The WHA is the decisionmaking body of the World Health Organization. (Hellmann, 5/21)
The Washington Post:
Suicide Rates For Black Children Twice That Of White Children, New Data Show
African American children are taking their lives at roughly twice the rate of their white counterparts, according to a new study that shows a widening gap between the two groups. The 2001-2015 data, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, confirm a pattern first identified several years ago when researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio found that the rate of suicides for black children ages 5 to 12 exceeded that of young whites. The results were seen in both boys and girls. (Nutt, 5/21)
The New York Times:
Want To See Your Baby? In China, It Can Cost You
A day after Juliana Brandy Logbo gave birth to twins this month through an emergency cesarean section in a Chinese hospital, she thought the worst was over. Then the demands for money began. First, Ms. Logbo said, the hospital told her that she had to pay $630 in hospitalization fees if she wanted to see her girls. Three days later, she said, the amount rose to nearly $800. She didn’t have the money. The demands left her weeping outside the newborn department in the hospital. (Wee, 5/22)
NPR:
Doctor Burnout Fueled By Denying Immigrant Care
One patient's death changed the course of Dr. Lilia Cervantes' career. The patient, Cervantes says, was a woman from Mexico with kidney failure who repeatedly visited the emergency room for more than three years. In that time, her heart had stopped more than once, and her ribs were fractured from CPR. The woman finally decided to stop treatment because the stress was too much for her and her two young children. Cervantes says she died soon after. Kidney failure, or end-stage renal disease, is treatable with routine dialysis every two to three days. Without regular dialysis, which removes toxins from the blood, the condition is life threatening: Patients' lungs can fill up with fluid, and they're at risk of cardiac arrest if their potassium level gets too high. (Harper, 5/21)
The New York Times:
New Cancer Treatments Lie Hidden Under Mountains Of Paperwork
Dr. Nikhil Wagle thought he had a brilliant idea to advance research and patient care. Dr. Wagle, an oncologist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and his colleagues would build a huge database that linked cancer patients’ medical records, treatments and outcomes with their genetic backgrounds and the genetics of their tumors. The database would also include patients’ own experiences. How ill did they feel with the treatments? What was their quality of life? The database would find patterns that would tell doctors what treatment was best for each patient and what patients might expect. (Kolata, 5/21)