Bradley unveils new logo

Bradley University announced Wednesday that it is introducing a new university logo that reflects both the rich tradition of the institution and a modern expression of the university brand.

The previous university wordmark was implemented in the late 1990's. University staff worked to create the new logo system to unite the campus’ graphic identity.

“The new logo system is a positive step forward in cohesively branding Bradley. I am pleased and excited about the new look,” said Bradley President Gary Roberts.

The updated logo system will begin to appear across Bradley’s electronic presence immediately. Implementation of the logo system in print materials, signage, etc. will occur in various stages to incur minimal cost to the university. 

While the new logo system includes a "B" shield similar to the Department of Athletics' mark, the shield in the university logo is smaller to maintain emphasis on the university's name.  There is also a difference in the font used, the university said. 

The most and least expensive ballparks are...

Although some Major League Baseball stadiums cater to their fans with affordable tickets and food prices, others are notorious for some pretty steep charges.

Personal finance website GOBankingRates.com conducted a cost analysis of attending a game at all 30 MLB stadiums, comparing the price of four factors:

• Two tickets
• Two hot dogs
• Two beers
• Parking

While the average cost of spending a day enjoying America's pastime is $77.92, fans attending a game at Angel Stadium of Anaheim pay the cheapest per-game average cost ― $47.60 ― whereas Boston Red Sox fans pay the highest per-game average cost at Fenway Park ― $157.

To learn where your team ranks, see the full findings at: http://www.gobankingrates.com/personal-finance/ranked-most-least-expensive-stadiums-mlb-fans-watch-baseball-game/ 

"Seeing a baseball game in person is an experience well worth the price, especially for die-hard fans," said Elyssa Kirkham, lead reporter on the study for GOBankingRates. "But ticket prices keep rising each year ― up 3.3 percent in 2015 ― which might price some fans out of the ballparks. Some franchises definitely are cheaper for their fans, which makes it more affordable for people to enjoy a stadium game or even more than one in a season."

Additional Insights:

• The Great American Ballpark, where the Cincinnati Reds play, sells hot dogs for just $1.
• The price of a small beer at an MLB game ranges from $4 to $7.75.
• The difference between the most and least expensive admission ticket to a game is about $40.
• The three cheapest stadiums to catch a game are in the West ― Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Dodger Stadium and Chase Field, where the Arizona Diamondbacks play.
• The three most expensive stadiums to attend a game include Boston's Fenway Park ― home of the Red Sox ― Chicago's Wrigley Field ― home of the Cubs ― and New York's Yankee Stadium.

Methodology: GOBankingRates surveyed four costs of attending a baseball game at all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums: (1) ticket prices, calculated by averaging the cost-per-game for the five cheapest season ticket prices advertised on the baseball team's official MLB site; and (2) parking, (3) beer, and (4) hot dog prices, as reported in the April 2015 Team Marketing Report. To find the cost of attending a game, GOBankingRates assumed two guests and calculated the total cost of two tickets, two hot dogs, two beers, and one parking spot. Stadiums were ranked by this amount to find the least and most expensive stadiums for baseball fans attending a game.

Landmark study on the cost of cancer treatments released

A Milliman study released Tuesday shows that over the last decade the total costs of treating patients with cancer in the United States have risen no faster than overall costs for Medicare and commercially insured populations.

Contrary to a commonly held belief that cancer care costs have rapidly outpaced other health care spending trends, the study actually found that total costs of treating patients with cancer have increased at essentially the same rate as all health care spending since 2004.

Commissioned by the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) and conducted by researchers at the actuarial firm Milliman, the study took a retrospective look at claims data for the Medicare and commercially insured patient populations from 2004-2014. The report is being released today in conjunction with a briefing to U.S. congressional health care staff as well as a meeting with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

The three key findings of the COA study are:

1. The increases in costs from 2004 to 2014 were essentially the same in actively treated cancer patients and the non-cancer population.
2. Drug spending, which made up one-fifth of the total costs in actively treated cancer patients in 2014, has increased at the highest rate of all component costs, fueled by new biologic cancer drugs.
3. Cancer care has moved significantly into the more expensive hospital setting since 2004 and is an important component of the increase in the cost of care.

The study found that per patient costs for the total population, actively treated cancer population, and non-cancer population increased at very similar rates over the 11 year study period. In the Medicare population, the increases were 35.2% per patient per year for the total population, 36.4% for the actively treated cancer population, and 34.8% for the non-cancer population. For the commercially insured, the cost increases were 62.9% for the total population, 62.5% for the actively-treated cancer population, and 60.8% for the non-cancer population.

For this study, Milliman researchers defined "actively treated" cancer patients as those with one or more claims for chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or cancer surgery in a given year. "Non-actively treated" cancer patients included all members coded with a cancer diagnosis but not having one or more claims for chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or cancer surgery within the year. All members without a cancer diagnosis code were considered the non-cancer population. The total population contains all three of these groups.

"There has been a long-held belief in research and policy circles that cancer care costs in America have gone up disproportionately as compared to other health care costs. This study shows that this commonly held belief is not supported by the evidence," said Debra Patt, MD, MPH, MBA, practicing oncologist at Texas Oncology (Austin, TX), and COA board and study team member. "What these data actually show are that per capita oncology cost increases are proportional to total healthcare spending. It is evident that per capita spending in oncology is less when patients are treated in a physician office setting in comparison with the hospital outpatient department. I hope with the advent of new initiatives such as the Oncology Medical Home, pathway management, and other value-based care initiatives, we should see even more success in providing high value care for our patients."

As expected, when looking at a breakdown of specific elements of costs for treating cancer patients, the researchers found large increases in spending for cancer drugs. The portion of these costs associated with all chemotherapy (including biologic, cytotoxic, and other chemotherapy and cancer drugs) in the actively treated cancer population increased over the study period from 15% to 18% in the Medicare population and from 15% to 20% in the commercially insured population.

Practicing oncologists on the COA study team noted that a significant portion of the drug cost trends align with specific clinical advances in new biological therapies and breakthrough drugs.

"Patients' cost of cancer drugs remains a huge issue that drug manufacturers and the entire oncology community must immediately address. However, this study shows that drug prices are but one piece of a complex puzzle that adds up to the total cost of cancer care for patients and payers," said David Eagle, MD, a practicing oncologist at Lake Norman Oncology (Mooresville, NC), COA board and study team member. "If we are to make any meaningful progress in controlling spending on cancer care we need to take a much more holistic look at all of the cost drivers, including site of service differences."

The study also took an in-depth look at cost trends in the site of service for chemotherapy infusion. It found that the site of service for chemotherapy infusion in America has dramatically shifted away from the physician office to the generally higher-cost hospital outpatient settings. Milliman found that the proportion of chemotherapy infusions delivered in hospital outpatient departments nearly tripled, increasing from 15.8% to 45.9% in the Medicare population during the study period. For the commercially insured population the increase was much more dramatic, going from 5.8% to 45.9%. As of 2014, 340B hospitals accounted for 50.3% of all hospital outpatient chemotherapy infusions in the Medicare population.

The study confirmed that patients who had their chemotherapy delivered entirely in the hospital outpatient setting incurred a significantly higher cost than patients whose chemotherapy was delivered entirely in a physician office. For Medicare patients, the difference was $13,167 (37%) higher in 2004 and $16,208 (34%) higher in 2014; for commercially insured patients it was $19,475 (25%) higher in 2004, and $46,272 (42%) higher in 2014.

"We combined several perspectives and skill sets - actuarial, public health, and clinical - to conduct this real world data project," said Pamela Pelizzari, MPH, lead study researcher with Milliman. "As a result, I believe that this work will inform organizations across the spectrum of healthcare, from ACOs to insurers, from patient advocates to bioscience companies."

"It is critical that physicians, patients, payers, and policymakers have a clear and accurate understanding of the complex cost drivers behind this devastating disease," said Ted Okon, executive director, COA. "There is misguided policy coming out of Washington, like the proposed Medicare experiment on cancer care, that will just drive up cancer costs, not get them under control."

A full copy of the study, methodology, and detailed appendices is available on the COA website atwww.CommunityOncology.org/CostDrivers.

About Community Oncology Alliancea
The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) is a non-profit organization dedicated solely to preserving and protecting access to community cancer care, where almost 70 percent of Americans with cancer are treated. COA leads community cancer clinics in navigating an increasingly challenging environment to provide efficiencies, patient advocacy, and proactive solutions to Congress and policy makers. To learn more about COA visit www.CommunityOncology.org.

CDC: 1 in 68 school-age children have autism

An estimated 1 in 68 (14.6 per 1,000) school-aged children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a CDC report published recently in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance Summary.

This report shows essentially no change in ASD prevalence, the proportion of school aged-children with ASD, from the previous report released in 2014. However, it is too soon to know whether ASD prevalence inthe United Statesmight be starting to stabilize. CDC will continue tracking ASD prevalence to better understand changes over time.

The data come fromCDC's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network– a tracking system that provides estimates of the prevalence and characteristics of ASD among 8-year-old children in 11 communities inArizona,Arkansas,Colorado,Georgia,Maryland,Missouri,New Jersey,North Carolina, South Carolina,Utah, andWisconsin. The data in the latest report are for 2012 while the data in the previous 2014 report were from 2010.

Although the average ASD prevalence of the 11 ADDM Network sites combined did not change between 2010 and 2012, ASD prevalence still varied widely between the 11 communities. Differences were seen by geographic region and between sites with different access to data resources.

"What we know for sure is that there are many children living with autism who need services and support, now and as they grow into adolescence and adulthood," saidStuart K. Shapira, MD, PhD, chief medical officer for CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

The new report also underscores where efforts and resources can be directed to better support children and families with ASD. Black and Hispanic children continue to be less likely to be identified with ASD than white children. In addition, black and Hispanic children receive developmental evaluations later than white children.

"Targeted strategies are needed to identify and address barriers in order to lower the age at which black and Hispanic children are evaluated, diagnosed, and connected to the services they need," saidDaisy Christensen, PhD, a CDC epidemiologist and lead author of the ADDM Network report.

The report also shows that, overall, less than half (43%) of children identified with ASD receive developmental evaluations by age 3. This suggests that many children may not be getting identified as early as they could be. Progress needs to be made to reach the Healthy People 2020 goal of increasing to 47% the proportion of children with ASD having a first evaluation by age 3.

"The most powerful tool we have right now to make a difference in the lives of children with ASD is early identification," said Dr. Shapira. "Parents, childcare professionals and doctors can monitor each child's development and act right away on any developmental concerns. It's important to remember that children can be connected to services even before an official diagnosis is made."

CDC's"Learn the Signs. Act Early."program provides parents, childcare professionals, and healthcare providers free resources, in English and Spanish, for monitoring children's development. The program offers parent-friendly, research-based milestone checklists for children as young as 2 months of age. The program also offers information about what to do if there is a developmental concern and whom to contact for assistance.

For more information about "Learn the Signs. Act Early." visitwww.cdc.gov/ActEarly. For more information about CDC's autism activities, visitwww.cdc.gov/Autism.