healthcare

Apple is accused of disregarding environmental and health care standards in favor of its mercenary goals. Environmental groups in China report that Apple pays little or no attention to environmental and work safety standards.

The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) published a critical report on the Apple supply chain, accusing the company of only caring about the "price and quality" of its products.

Citi launched a new product called the Citi Flu Card which is a corporate healthcare payment solution from Citi’s Global Transaction Services. The Citi Flu Card allows employers to reduce employee healthcare spending by shifting the administration of flu shots from doctors’ offices or on-site clinics to more cost effective pharmacy locations. It does not require prepayment, and restricts use to flu vaccinations at over 17,000 pharmacies and clinics nationwide including CVS/pharmacy, Rite Aid, Target, MinuteClinic, The Little Clinic and any of the Kroger Family of pharmacies.

International Business Machines has partnered with Aetna Inc to launch a service meant to help hospitals improve patient care via better management of electronic medical records and other digital data.

IBM says the new service developed in association with Aetna subsidiary ActiveHealth Management, would help physicians access patients' health data like previous medical records, claims, and lab data from multiple sources and quickly analyze what the best treatment might be.

Microsoft introduced a new feature to its increasingly getting popular search, sorry, decision engine Bing. Now it provides more healthcare content from its new partners and instant answers with "hard-to-discover data", the company says. You can find instant, specialized information about illnesses, treatments, medical facilities, etc. when entering health-related queries.

 Secure-24, Inc., provider of managed hosting and disaster recovery services, has entered into a partnership agreement with ATMP Consulting Group, a strategic IT specialist in electronic medical record (EMR) standards, to provide Private and Group Practice Physicians with secure hosting and project management for their EMR applications.

 With budget anxieties pervading the congressional healthcare debate, the Senate on Wednesday sidetracked popular legislation that would have increased Medicare payments to doctors by nearly $250 billion over the next decade. Voicing concern about adding that much money to the federal deficit, a coalition of 12 centrist Democrats, one independent and all the Senate's Republicans voted to block consideration of the bill, at least for now. The goal of the bill -- to overturn a scheduled 21% reduction in doctors' fees under Medicare -- enjoys broad bipartisan support.

 Allscripts announced today an agreement with Intuit Inc. to become the first to offer Quicken Health(SM) Bill Pay. The online service integrates with Allscripts' practice management and revenue cycle management solutions, used by 110,000 physicians, to help patients understand their medical bills and pay them online while helping physicians get paid faster.

 According to an Associated Press-GfK poll the ratings the US President Barack Obama are again rising since their decline after the inauguration. New figures show that Americans are getting more optimistic again while concerns over the economy, health care and war remain with less support being expressed for the war in Afghanistan.

The report revealed that 56% of respondents polled last week approve of Obama's job performance as compared with 50% reported in September. This improvement is the first after Obama took office earlier this year.

President Barack Obama takes center stage on Tuesday to try to explain to the American people his broad agenda for jolting the United States out of deep recession and confronting long-term economic challenges. Riding high in opinion polls, Obama will deliver a State of the Union-style televised address at 9 pm EST (0200 GMT on Wednesday) in his first appearance before a joint session of Congress since he took office five weeks ago.