An American family that has become one of the wealthiest in the nation due to sales of the powerful opioid OxyContin misled doctors and patients about the dangers associated with the drug, The New York Times reported.

Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center appointed a new president and restructured other staff after an investigation from the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica found mistakes at the Houston-based hospital’s heart transplant center led to patient deaths.

The U.S. healthcare system is not very popular, according to a recent Gallup poll. In fact, 70 percent of Americans describe the system as being “in a state of crisis” or “having major problems,” the poll found.

An aggressive flu season in 2017 contributed to 145,000 global deaths, according to a recent study published by The Lancet. The high figure echoes early estimates of 80,000 flu deaths in the United States in the same year.

Drug prices are going up not just because of new innovations in medications, as the pharma industry frequently cites, but also because the industry is pricing existing products higher, according to a Health Affairs study.

Deaths from cancer in the United States declined 27 percent from a peak in 1991, according to the American Cancer Society.

Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) has been given a lot of credit for trimming readmission rates, but the real results may be far less impressive, according to a recent study published in Health Affairs.

Consumers are used to getting what they need easily with the click of a button, including ordering and receiving their prescription medications through the mail. But those deliveries may be risky if medicines aren't stored and transported carefully, according to a report from NPR.