Vision Care Direct is an alternative to traditional vision insurance that aims to cut red tape for eye care practices and make eye care more affordable and flexible for patients.
“We never tell doctors what lenses they have to prescribe, what frames they have to buy, how they price,” Don C. Railsback, OD, CEO of Vision Care Direct, told Healio, adding, “We're here to make sure people can get the care they need and doctors can provide the care they want to provide.”
Vision Care Direct offers not vision care insurance, but vision coverage plans, according to its website.
However, it is similar to

Women may experience higher risk for major adverse cardiovascular events at lower coronary plaque burden levels than men, according to data published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.
Risk for MACE, which was defined as a composite of all-cause death, nonfatal MI or hospitalization for unstable angina, was observed at plaque burden as low as 22% for women, whereas risk did not begin to increase in men until plaque burden reached 28%, researchers reported.
“CVD remains the leading cause of death in women, yet women are often perceived as being at lower risk because they tend to have

Adults with obesity receiving tirzepatide 15 mg achieved greater weight loss than those receiving a fixed-dose combination of cagrilintide 2.4 mg and semaglutide 2.4 mg at 84 weeks, according to topline results from REDEFINE 4.
In a phase 3 head-to-head trial, researchers randomly assigned 809 adults with obesity and at least one weight-related comorbidity to receive either a once-weekly injectable fixed-dose combination of the amylin receptor cagrilintide 2.4 mg and the GLP-1 semaglutide 2.4 mg (CagriSema, Novo Nordisk) or the once-weekly injectable GIP/GLP-1 dual agonist tirzepatide 15 mg

Patients prescribed JAK inhibitors for atopic dermatitis were twice as likely to develop acne compared with those taking other medications for their eczema, according to a study published in JAMA Dermatology.
“As JAK inhibitors are used in dermatology clinical practices, acne has consistently appeared as an adverse event,” Maria C. Schneeweiss, MD, instructor in medicine and co-director of dermato-pharmacoepidemiology group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told Healio. “While this was observed in the clinical trials, what was missing was a clear understanding of how frequently this occurs in

The FDA has granted breakthrough device designation for an implantable insulin pump designed for people with type 1 diabetes, according to an industry press release.
The implantable device (Portal Pump, Portal Diabetes) leverages the physiological delivery of insulin to the abdomen, according to the release. The device utilizes continuous glucose monitoring and a proprietary, temperature-stable form of insulin (Portal Insulin, Portal Diabetes).
“We believe patients will achieve much better glycemic control for a dramatically reduced mental burden with the Portal Pump,” Stacy Chambliss, CEO for

Swift endovascular therapy for patients with ischemic stroke can prevent complications such as disability, but not all hospitals can provide it as sometimes, patients who arrive at one ED need to be transferred to another.
When these door-in-door-out (DIDO) times exceed 90 minutes, the odds for worse modified Rankin scale (mRS) scores, poor independent ambulation and other measures increase, according to data published in The Lancet Neurology.
Improving these DIDO times or eliminating the need for transfers altogether may improve patient outcomes. Healio spoke with Robert Glatter, MD, assistant

Researchers from New England Biolabs and Yale University have created a system for engineering the first fully synthetic bacteriophages that could help with future clinical development of phage therapies.
Bacteriophages, also referred to as phages, are naturally occurring viruses that “selectively target and kill bacteria” without infecting human cells, according to WHO. They can be found anywhere, including in soil and water, under rocks, in human microbiomes and even in kitchen sponges.
Experts have heralded phages as a promising, nontraditional alternative for treating

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which begins Feb. 23, attempts to shed light on a condition that affects millions of Americans at some point in their lives.
Healio spoke with B. Timothy Walsh, MD, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, about the mechanisms that fuel three major eating disorders and how best to help those affected.
Healio: How many Americans are affected by eating disorders each year?
Walsh: If you add to anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa the other major eating disorder, binge eating disorder, the number is probably around 3 million Americans who are

U.S. hospitals with higher workloads, higher operating margins, a metropolitan location and nonprofit ownership had a higher probability of adopting ambient AI, according to data published in the American Journal of Managed Care.
“Clinicians should understand that while access to ambient AI tools is growing, it is not yet universal and varies significantly by hospital characteristics,” Ilana Graetz, PhD, professor of health policy and management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, told Healio.
“Those working in well-resourced, nonprofit systems, particularly in

In this video, Betty Hamilton, MD, provides a robust overview of the Tandem Meetings | Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Meetings of ASTCT and CIBMTR.
She highlighted sessions focused on novel cellular and gene therapies, AI, graft-versus-host disease, and more.
“Transplant and cell therapy, it’s a team sport,” Hamilton, a bone marrow transplant physician at Cleveland Clinic and associate professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University, said. “I think the meeting reflects that and that it really takes a lot of different components of the health care team to