Health Highlights: April 7, 2008

More than half of the problems cited involved overdoses or allergic reactions to painkillers.

Homer and his colleagues, writing in the April issue of the journalPediatrics, said their findings confirm the need for "aggressive, evidence-based prevention strategies to decrease the substantial risk for medication-related harm to our pediatric inpatient population."

Experts cited by theAPsaid the problem could well be bigger than the study concluded, since researchers reviewed only selected cases and hospitals.

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Millions Endangered by Global Climate Change

Global climate change -- including rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns -- could expose millions of people worldwide to poverty, disease and hunger, the World Health Organization said Monday.

A rise in malaria-carrying mosquitoes, notably in the cooler climates of South Korea and portions of Papua New Guinea, is an ominous sign that global warming has already begun to impact human health, the WHO said.

Hotter weather tends to shorten the breeding cycle of mosquitoes, allowing them to breed much faster and increase the risk of disease, theAssociated Pressquoted WHO Director Shigeru Omi as saying.

"Without urgent action through changes in human lifestyle, the effects of this phenomenon on the global climate system could be abrupt or even irreversible, sparing no country and causing more frequent and more intense heat waves, rain storms, tropical cyclones and surges in sea level," he predicted.

Residents of poorer countries are particularly vulnerable, since they already face widespread malnutrition among other serious health issues, Omi said.

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Some Teaching Hospitals Cost More Than Others: Study

The U.S. government is paying nearly four times the price to care for chronically ill people at certain teaching hospitals than at other teaching institutions, new research concludes.

The evaluation of Medicare spending to care for chronically ill elderly and disabled people was done by researchers at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

The authors concluded that the government could save billions if some hospitals practiced more efficiently,USA Todayreported Monday.

Teaching hospitals usually are associated with medical schools and allow new doctors to deal with complex medical cases and use new technologies.

The researchers evaluated cases that ended in death involving 192,242 Medicare patients between 2001-2005. All had at least one of nine chronic ailments such as heart disease or diabetes. Factors evaluated included the length of hospitalization, the number of doctors involved, and time spent in the intensive care unit.

Among the 93 teaching hospitals included, the average cost for hospitalization over a patient's last two years of life was $67,369, the study found.