Patients seeking to conserve privacy and personal dignity – i.e. anyone who’s ever been forced to wear a traditional hospital gown that often reveal too much – may soon bid adieu peek-a-book hospital garb. Indeed, researchers from the University of Montreal have designed a revolutionary healthcare garment that preserves modesty.

A unique collaboration in one of Pennsylvania’s most medically underserved regions promises a brighter future for children with autism and their families. Highlands Hospital, a not-for-profit community hospital in Connellsville, Pa., has entered into a consultation agreement with the Ohio-based Cleveland Clinic to develop state-of-the-art services for children with autism in southwestern Pennsylvania.

In a new warning eye specialists say that hand held laser pointing devices could lead to serious eye damage if used inappropriately. This warning came from the Royal Liverpool Hospital and Manchester Eye Hospital after a teenager developed eye problems after laser light was shone into his eyes.

The overall proportion of hospital patients who died in the hospital after a heart attack fell by 37 percent between 2000 and 2007, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The rate fell from from 106 per 1,000 patients to 67 per 1,000 patients during the period

A new Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University Center for Aging Research (IUCAR) study provides effective strategies to help hospital systems, physicians and other care providers to overcome end zone hurdles and actually take evidence-based research to the patient’

“Bake sales saved the nonprofit Athol Memorial Hospital the first time around, Steve Penka says with a smile. Eleven years later, it took a big Tennessee-based, for-profit hospital chain to keep it in business,” the (Worcester, Mass.) Telegram & Gazette reports. In light of a recent report by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, many are surprised Athol is around at all.

Aetna Better Health in Pennsylvania and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia announced today that they have reached agreement on a new contract that adds the hospital to the Medicaid provider’s network in Pennsylvania. The new contract is effective immediately.

Prof. Lars Leksell (1907-1986), inventor of the radiosurgical instrument that bears his name and a faculty member of Karolinska University Hospital (Solna, Sweden), performed the world’s first Gamma Knife surgery at nearby Sophiahemmet Hospital, the location of the first Leksell Gamma Knife. Karolinska University Hospital recently acquired Elekta’s fifth generation radiosurgery system, Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion.

The Wall Street Journal examines Lifeline Express, “the world’s first hospital on rails,” which is run by Impact India, a group that “initially focused on immunization and prevention of diseases such as polio and malaria.” Its success has spread to China and Zimbabwe, where three Lifeline Express trains are operated, and to “hospital river boats based on the India model have been set up to tend to patients in Bangladesh and Cambodia.” It has also been used as a model for other health projects in India, according to the newspaper.

HIV-infected patients are at a markedly increased risk for community acquired Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) infections according to a new study by researchers at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County and Rush University Medical Center.