HEOR News

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Has No Borders: Engaging Patients as Partners to Deliver Global, Equitable, and Holistic Healthcare (The Lancet)

In a commentary, Christopher A. Lamb, Cate Titterton, Rupa Banerjee, Anna Gomberg, David T. Rubin, and Ailsa L Hart write that while Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are considered to be diseases of high-income countries, inflammatory bowel disease today is a global condition with an accelerated incidence in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, paralleling industrialization and lifestyle change.
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High Price of Popular Diabetes Drugs Deprives Low-Income People of Effective Treatment (KFF News)

Supply shortages and insurance hurdles for GLP-1 agonists have left many patients with diabetes and obesity without the medicines they need to stay healthy, and according to a KFF poll, 54% of adults who had taken a GLP-1 drug, including those with insurance, said the cost was “difficult” to afford.
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Canada’s Family Physician Shortage (The Lancet)

According to the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the country’s historic level of population growth has outstripped its supply of family physicians, and the result is a crisis with often severely negative health implications for as many as
6 million patients, and in some regions, as much as 30% of the population lacks access to a family doctor.
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New Guidance Aims to Reduce Bloodstream Infections From Catheter Use (WHO)

The first global guidelines to prevent the occurrence of bloodstream and other infections caused by the use of catheters placed in minor blood vessels during medical procedures include 14 good practice statements and 23 recommendations on key areas for health workers, including: education and training of health workers; techniques of asepsis and hand hygiene practices; insertion, maintenance, access, removal of catheters; and catheter selection.
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Tests Could Lead to Fewer People Having Unnecessary Chemotherapy After Surgery for Early Breast Cancer (NICE)

Patients with breast cancer may be able to forego chemotherapy by using tumor profiling tests recommended by the UK healthcare authority to guide treatment decisions after surgery, if test results indicate that a person is at low risk of cancer recurrence.
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WHO Updates List of Drug-Resistant Bacteria Most Threatening to Human Health (WHO)

According to WHO’s updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List 2024, critical priority pathogens, such as gram-negative bacteria resistant to last-resort antibiotics, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to the antibiotic rifampicin, still present major global threats due to their high burden. But high-priority pathogens, such as Salmonella and Shigella, are of particularly high burden in low- and middle-income countries, along with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, which pose significant challenges in healthcare settings.
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Rural Hospitals Experienced More Patient Volume Variability Than Urban Hospitals During the COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020–2021 (Health Affairs)

Researchers found that changes in average daily medical volume at rural hospitals showed a dose-response relationship with community COVID-19 burden, ranging from a 13.2% decrease in patient volume in periods of low transmission to a 16.5% increase in volume in periods of high transmission.
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Japan Weighs Incentivizing Childbirth by Fully Covering Expenses (Kyodo News)

The Japanese government is considering fully covering expenses for child delivery under the public medical insurance system from fiscal 2026, in its latest effort to battle the declining birthrate. While under the medical insurance system in Japan, people basically pay 10% to 30% of medical costs out of pocket when they receive treatment for illness and injuries, but normal deliveries are not considered illnesses and therefore not covered.
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New Report Flags Major Increase in Sexually Transmitted Infections, Amid Challenges in HIV and Hepatitis (WHO)

According to a new report from the World Health Organization, new data show that sexually transmitted infections are increasing in many regions, with new syphilis cases among adults aged 15-49 years increasing by more than 1 million in 2022, reaching 8 million. The highest increases occurred in the Americas and the African region.
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Good News for India’s Healthcare System (Indian Express)

National Health Accounts data show that government health expenditure as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product increased by an unprecedented 63% between 2014-2015 and 2021-2022. There was also a consistent decline in out-of-pocket expenditure as a share of the total health expenditure, dropping from 62.6% to 47.1% in 2014-2015 versus 2019-2020.
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