Monthly Archive for November 2008
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November 26, 2008
links for 2008-11-26
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There are 8.6 million uninsured children in the United States -- including 215,000 in Ohio, according to a new report released today by Families USA.
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Women younger than age 65 with diabetes tend to have worse cardiovascular risk profiles than diabetic men of the same age, leading to higher death rates following a heart attack.
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Following introduction of the MELD score to the liver transplantation allocation system, race was no longer associated with receipt of a liver transplant or death on the waiting list, but disparities based on sex remain.
Posted by: Staff on November 26, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 25, 2008
links for 2008-11-25
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The lowest ‘years of healthy life’ is seen in Estonia, where the age is 59 years for men and 61 for women. In Denmark, by contrast, those values rise to 73 years for men and 74 years for women. The UK is higher than the European average with figures of 69 years and 9 months for men and 70 years and 9 months for women.
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Despite political, social and economic advances by black Americans, racial disparities between blacks and whites persist in just about every measurable form.
Posted by: Staff on November 25, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 24, 2008
links for 2008-11-24
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Financial incentives for doctors can improve the management of coronary heart disease and reduce ethnic differences in quality of and access to care, according to public health experts in the UK.
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...students have been trying for six years to get the administration to tighten its conflicts policies, both in the classroom and at the affiliated hospitals where the students train. One idea they’re pushing is to require faculty and students, while talking about drugs in the classroom, to disclose any ties to the makers of those drugs.
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...fifth graders living in public housing did worse on standardized math and reading tests than fifth graders who lived elsewhere. Researchers found this disparity in fifth-grade test scores even when comparing students at the same school who shared similar demographics, like race, gender and poverty status.
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In one instance, the lawsuit said, the middle schooler's soccer coach asked the girl whether she had AIDS, then told her the team could use her HIV status to its advantage because "the other team will be afraid."
Posted by: Staff on November 24, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 21, 2008
links for 2008-11-21
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Sen. Chuck Grassley is squawking about another eyebrow-raising conflict-of-interest in psychiatry. This tale of drug-industry influence comes with another twist: It involves National Public Radio.
Posted by: Staff on November 21, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 20, 2008
links for 2008-11-20
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Employers are dramatically shifting healthcare costs onto workers, so much so that the average annual deductible for an individual surpassed $1,000 for the first time this year, according to a new study.
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According to the results of a large depression treatment study, published n the November issue of Psychiatric Services, minorities with depression have limited access to treatment. Those who seek treatment receive inadequate care. The findings reveal that even when variables such as poverty, insurance coverage, and education were taken into account, ethnicity and race still impacted treatment.
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The Saskatoon Health Region report, Health disparity in Saskatoon: Analysis to intervention, says putting more health services in the inner city alone won't close the health gap between the rich and poor -- a broader cultural shift will be needed.
Posted by: Staff on November 20, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 19, 2008
links for 2008-11-19
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As Democrats in Congress consider covering more of the uninsured kids by expanding Medicaid, they may want to consider this: Fewer doctors are accepting Medicaid patients not just because fees are so low, but because it often takes months to get paid.
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60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians would not recommend medicine as a career.
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U.S. doctors seem to be fed up. Within the next three years, a new survey shows, almost half are considering cutting back on patients or simply halting their practice. Already, more than three-quarters say, there's a shortage of primary care doctors.
Posted by: Staff on November 19, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
Voices Against The Silence Award
Marilyn Alejandro-Rodriguez, Research Project Coordinator at the Center for Reducing Health Disparities, will be receiving a 2008 Voices Against The Silence Award at The City Club of Cleveland on Friday December 5th.
This award recognizes individuals and organizations who make a difference in the HIV/AIDS community in northeast Ohio.
Marilyn has long been a vocal champion in promoting the needs of HIV/AIDS infected/affected persons and their families and providing education to adults, adolescents and children on protection against HIV infection. She is a spokesperson for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation Caring for Kids program, traveling nationally to educate others.
Prior to joining the Center for Reducing Health Disparities she worked at the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland to improve the cultural competency of the organization to improve the care provided to Latinos/Latinas seeking services. Marilyn has also worked at Proyecto Luz.
Please join us in congratulating Marilyn on this wonderful award.
Posted by: Staff on November 19, 2008
Category: About Us
November 17, 2008
links for 2008-11-17
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The latest life expectancy figures released by Statistics New Zealand show that a newborn non- Maori girl can expect to live more than than 12 years longer than a Maori boy born on the same day, based on current death rates.
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...Mr Chi said providing equal health, education and welfare services by 2020 for China's 750 million rural residents - still more than half the population - would cost 5-8 trillion yuan (£5,800 billion).
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It has never enjoyed the best reputation, but now hospital food has got healthcare critics spluttering in their soup.
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Need a brain scan? An MRI of your head will cost $1,153 at Mass General, or a bargain price of $716 at Winchester Hospital.
Posted by: Staff on November 17, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
Disparities in the quality of hospital food
It seems that the funding system for health care in the UK has lead to disparities in the type and quality of hospital food.
From the Mirror:
In certain parts of the country, patients are tucking into tasty chicken chasseur and beef madras to aid their road to recovery. But elsewhere they have to make do with tasteless mash and soggy veg.
The amount being spent on hospital food in the UK ranges from $2.91 U.S. per patient per day to $24.15 U.S. with the average being $10.62 U.S. (1 British Pound = 1.49 U.S. Dollar.)
Of course, not all of the NHS money has been spent on actual food - they have attempted to improve quality by hiring a famous TV chef.
The NHS hired TV chef Loyd Grossman in 2001 to spice up hospital menus in a £40million revamp, but the Government's Better Hospital Food Programme was scrapped five years later.
Note: x-rates.com was used for currency conversion.
Posted by: Staff on November 17, 2008
Category: Health Disparities; Health Inequities; Hospital Food; Nutrition
November 14, 2008
links for 2008-11-14
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State officials are considering capping enrollment in California's health insurance program for children of the working poor, as an influx of new clients overwhelms it.
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Chronically ill patients in the United States spend more out-of-pocket money, skip needed care, and report more medical errors than patients in seven other industrialized countries, a new survey finds.
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The election of the nation’s first African-American president raises questions about racial disparities in health care.
Posted by: Staff on November 14, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 13, 2008
links for 2008-11-13
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The odds of having a premature baby are lowest in Vermont and highest in Mississippi. The March of Dimes mapped the stark state-by-state disparities in a new "report card."
Posted by: Staff on November 13, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
Health and Educational Disparities in Autism: A Call for Action
Just a reminder that tomorrow Nabil El-Ghoroury, PhD, Pediatric Psychologist at MetroHealth Medical Center and Senior Instructor in Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University will present, Health and Educational Disparities in Autism: A Call for Action.
The lecture will take place on November 14 from 3:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. in R240 of the Rammelkamp Building at MetroHealth Medical Center. There is no fee and your parking will be validated.
To RSVP, please email or call Michele Abraham at mep2@case.edu or 216-778-3858.
Posted by: Staff on November 13, 2008
Category: Works in Progress
November 12, 2008
links for 2008-11-12
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The American Medical Association’s House of Delegates voted Monday to undertake a study of the repatriation of uninsured immigrant patients by hospitals, a practice that has been examined by The New York Times in two recent reports.
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Without waiting for President-elect Barack Obama, Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, will unveil a detailed blueprint on Wednesday to guarantee health insurance for all Americans by facilitating sales of private insurance, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, and requiring most employers to provide or pay for health benefits.
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Australia's public hospitals are unsafe, overcrowded and underfunded, resulting in 1,500 unnecessary deaths a year, a national doctors group said on Wednesday in a report titled "Public Hospitals Flatlining."
Posted by: Staff on November 12, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 11, 2008
links for 2008-11-11
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As General Motors faces a liquidity crisis many of the company’s retirees are trying to navigate Medicare and plan for their own finances in the wake of the company’s decision to drop its lifetime health coverage for some 100,000 white-collar retirees.
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The lives of 8,000 black Americans could be saved each year if doctors could figure out a way to bring their average blood pressure down to the average level of whites, a new study found.
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Hospitals everywhere in America - public, non-profit institutions as well as private, profit-making ones-routinely charge the uninsured, the people who have no clout, the most. How much more? On average, five times as much, according to K.B. Forbes, a patient-rights advocate who has spent the last three years analyzing and securing reductions in the hospital bills of uninsured working people from California to Florida.
Posted by: Staff on November 11, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 10, 2008
links for 2008-11-10
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Analysts estimate that 15 million people could gain access to Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program because of federal policy changes likely to be enacted in the coming months (Source: "Health Insurers Prime for New Business with Democratic...
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Families with a “gross wage base” between $20,000 and $60,000 a year are about to be swamped by health care costs, Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt argues in a guest post on the New York Times blog Economix.
Posted by: Staff on November 10, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 07, 2008
links for 2008-11-07
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Robert Laszewski expects the new President and Congress to keep their health care promise by starting incrementally to insure more Americans.
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In a sign of the economy’s toll on the health care system, some hospitals are seeing fewer paying patients — and more people at emergency rooms unable to pay their bills.
Posted by: Staff on November 07, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 06, 2008
links for 2008-11-06
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We, as doctors, must swallow hard and admit that we do not control the quality and value of health care any longer - and it has been a long time since we did.
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According to one non-partisan health policy group, President-elect Barack Obama’s victory, even coupled with Democratic gains in Congress, is unlikely to yield sweeping health reform in the next two years.
Posted by: Staff on November 06, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading
November 05, 2008
Insurance status and treatment in the ER
From Newsweek.com:
...[Adil] Haider and his colleagues analyzed almost 430,000 moderate to severe cases of traumatic injury (from auto accidents, gunshots and other causes) treated between 2001 and 2005. Controlling for age, gender, type and severity of injury, they found that, overall, uninsured patients were 50 percent more likely to die from their injuries than insured patients. Among white patients, the mortality rate for those with insurance was 4.2 percent, compared with 7.9 percent for the uninsured. The numbers for minorities were worse. Uninsured African-Americans died at more than double the rate of the insured, 11.4 percent to 4.9 percent. And while 6.3 percent of insured Hispanic patients died after traumatic injury, the rate for uninsured Hispanics was 11.3 percent.
The study also uncovered dramatic differences in survival rates for patients of different races and insurance status. When compared with an insured white patient, black patients with equivalent injuries but without insurance had a 78 percent higher risk of dying; for uninsured Hispanics, the risk was 130 percent higher.
You can find the rest of this story at Newsweek.com. The original study is published in the Archives of Surgery.
Posted by: Staff on November 05, 2008
Category: Health Disparities; Health Inequities; Uninsured; emergency care; insurance
November 04, 2008
links for 2008-11-04
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The internationally respected Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development recently threw out a warning flag to Canada. It says the income gap between Canada’s rich and poor is growing faster than most of the other 30 developed nations in the world, and that our governments need to stop that trend.
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As the lights dim on the presidential campaign and the financial crisis drags on, the prospects for universal health care in the U.S. seem to be dimming too. But what about narrowing our expectations to universal primary care?
Posted by: Staff on November 04, 2008
Category: Lunch Break Reading