Daily Rounds: Hospital Kickbacks Alleged; Coaxing Anti-Cancer Genes; Consciousness Revealed; Noisy Treatment Rising

Steward lures 150 doctors tied to Beth Israel - Metro - The Boston Globe (bostonglobe.com) "As health care competition heats up in Massachusetts, upstart Boston hospital chain Steward Health Care System has lured away 150 doctors affiliated with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s physician group by making them an offer so generous that Beth Israel’s lawyers question whether its terms amount to illegal kickbacks."

Promising cancer therapy is based on epigenetics - latimes.com "Azacitidine is a type of chemotherapy that proved too toxic to use. But, given at very low doses in the study, patients were able to tolerate the medication. At low doses, the drug doesn't kill cancer cells — the aim of traditional chemotherapy — but instead appears to coax genes to switch on to fight cancerous cells." (Los Angeles Times)

Brain Exam Detects Awareness in 3 ‘Vegetative’ Patients - NYTimes.com "Three severely brain-injured people thought to be in an irreversible “vegetative” state showed signs of full consciousness when tested with a relatively inexpensive and commonly used method of measuring brain waves, doctors reported Wednesday. Experts said the findings, if replicated, would change standards in treating such patients." (nytimes.com)

Noisy treatment in hospitals - The Boston Globe “There are more and more pieces of equipment attached to each patient, so the sheer number of alarms going off has risen exponentially,’’ she said in an interview, calling the noise an “invisible source of trauma’’ in the hospital." (boston.com)