Monthly Archive for May 2010
May 28, 2010
links for 2010-05-28
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Thirty-five percent of the pharmacies could provide no translation service and the rest offered only limited translation services. The results showed that 44 percent of pharmacies located in counties where Hispanics made up more than a fourth of the population were unable to translate instructions.
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Statistics show that language is a major factor in cases of misdiagnosis and instances of poor treatment at hospitals, and delays in service or access to preventive care. Medical error in general is a troubling issue, but patients with limited English proficiency are almost twice as likely to suffer adverse events in U.S. hospitals, resulting in temporary harm or death, according to a pilot study by The Joint Commission - an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits more than 15,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States
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The success of the integrative approach of a medical-legal partnership is one reason advocates say there is bipartisan support, even in health care-weary Congress, for a federal demonstration project to measure the effects on patients, physicians and health centers, said Ellen Lawton, executive director of the National Center for Medical Legal Partnership. Medical Legal partnerships exist as part of a grass-roots program launched in Boston in 1993 and currently there are 85 partnerships in 37 states.
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Omro is among a growing number of Wisconsin school districts that are serving students fresh, locally grown produce through the National Farm to School program — part of an initiative to bring healthy food from local farms to school children. The program sprouted from a desire in the late 1990s to support community-based food systems, strengthen family farms and promoting healthy eating habits in students.
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"The National Action Plan released by HHS calls for all sectors to become engaged in the effort to ensure that consumers have the tools they need to navigate our health care system. Our members are responding to this challenge, and we stand ready to work with others to address this important foundation for the reform of our health care system."
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Amnesty International highlights the number of people living in "extreme poverty" or on less than $1.25 per day, the disproportionate effect that limited progress on Millennium Development Goal targets has had on women and the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by 'ongoing armed conflicts and insecurity.
Posted by: Staff on May 28, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
May 27, 2010
links for 2010-05-27
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New York City’s public hospital system said on Wednesday that some of the thousands of heart test results that were never sent to doctors at Harlem Hospital Center since 2007 had shown signs of abnormal heart function. Hospital officials made the admission a day after acknowledging that results of 4,000 of the tests, called echocardiograms, had never been seen by doctors because of a practice of allowing technicians to read them first.
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As their numbers have grown, from 800 in the 1990s to 30,000 today, medical experts have come to see hospitalists as potential leaders in the transition to the Obama administration’s health care reforms, to be phased in by 2014.
Posted by: Staff on May 27, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
May 26, 2010
links for 2010-05-26
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Economic access has become a primary research focus in public health nutrition, including the work by Adam Drewnowski, UW Professor of Epidemiology and his team. Supermarket chains have specific demographics--consumers differ by age, education, income, health, and even obesity rates. "The county-wide [Seattle] obesity rate in 2007 was 19.8 percent, but our research found that the obesity rate was only four percent among Whole Foods and PCC shoppers," said Drewnowski. "Consumers who shop at most area supermarket chains have obesity rates at 25 percent and higher. Clearly, not all supermarkets are the same and economic access is determined by price."
Posted by: Staff on May 26, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
May 24, 2010
links for 2010-05-24
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"Effective communication between patients and their doctors is critical to ensure proper care and treatment is prescribed, and it's especially important in addressing disparities in the care of high risk patients," said Jill A. Foster, M.D., M.P.H., co-author of the study and medical director at CE Outcomes, LLC, in Birmingham, Ala. "Findings from these surveys suggest that neither patients nor doctors may realize they're missing key cultural differences, an oversight that can impede health outcomes."
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At non-minority-serving hospitals, there were no disparities in readmissions (23.3 percent versus 23.1percent). Heart failure is the most common cause of hospitalizations and readmissions in the Medicare program. Improving efforts at poor-performing, minority-serving hospitals could increase quality of care for all heart failure patients and reduce racial healthcare disparities, researchers said.
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The criteria for prioritizing specific funding should be simple: what are the evidence-based programs that are primed and ready to go, that are proven to work, that we know will move us toward a healthier society and that we can be sure will deliver a large, measurable return on investment? By these criteria, the top priority for prevention spending should be tobacco control.
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"These findings are very timely as Congress considers the more comprehensive Fatherhood, Marriage and Families Innovation Fund, proposed in the President's 2011 budget," said Carmen R. Nazario, HHS' assistant secretary for children and families. "The results of this study show that it is possible to positively influence and strengthen families with support programs, but also suggest that the current approach isn't adequate.
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Twenty years ago, the United States ranked 29th in the child mortality rate, according to data analyzed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. But as much of the world makes strides in reducing child mortality, the United States is increasingly lagging and now ranks 42nd globally, behind much of Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates, Cuba and Chile. The estimates, derived from modeling based on international birth records and other sources, are being published Monday in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Posted by: Staff on May 24, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
May 22, 2010
links for 2010-05-22
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Some of the increased spending on drugs for young people went toward flu medications tied to the H1N1 pandemic. But that built on a base of increasing use of prescription drugs in children due to obesity, diabetes and other health issues that used to be largely the province of the middle-aged. Overall, Medco says, 26% of those under 19, and 29% of kids aged 10 to 19, are taking medications for a chronic condition. Among the meds they’re taking: diabetes drugs, antihypertensives, cholesterol medications and asthma treatments. “All of these adult drugs are popping up in children, which is really disturbing,” Robert Epstein, Medco’s chief medical officer, said on a conference call with media
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The poll found very strong support (94%) for the idea that institutions conducting medical and health research-government, universities and private industry-should work together. Americans see such collaboration as leading to greater knowledge, better success rates and faster development of cures and treatments, as well as avoiding duplication and maximizing resources devoted to research and development.
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This past month researchers at Harvard Medical School published the largest study to date of what has been termed “primary nonadherence” and found that more than 20 percent of first-time patient prescriptions were never filled. According to Dr. Michael A. Fischer, more important factors contributing to nonadherence are likely affordability, physician-patient communication and the cumbersome process of filling out a prescription.
Posted by: Staff on May 22, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
May 20, 2010
links for 2010-05-20
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"It's important to note the report finds that having a usual source of medical care, such as a primary care provider, does not affect the number of times people under age 65 visit the emergency department," Dr. Angela Gardner, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said of Wednesday's report.
"In 2007, approximately one in five persons in the U.S. population had one or more emergency department visits in a 12-month period," the report from the National Center for Health Statistics reads.
Cultural Competency: Neighborhood Tour and Conference for Researchers took place yesterday with more than 80 researchers in attendance. The tour was provided by Lolly the Trolley and participants were able to choose either a tour through the Stockyards and Asiatown neighborhoods, or Hough and Asiatown neighborhoods. Click the above link to read the article published in today's Plain Dealer.
Posted by: Staff on May 20, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
May 14, 2010
links for 2010-05-14
Posted by: Staff on May 14, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading
May 07, 2010
links for 2010-05-07
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When analyzing obesity disparities among women, socioeconomic status and social context may be more important than race, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions.
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Hospitals need to do a better job of informing patients about charity-care programs that could cover all or some of their medical costs, according to a national report released yesterday. The Access Project and Community Catalyst, two health-advocacy groups based in Boston, surveyed 99 of the nation's almost 5,000 hospitals last summer. The groups found that about 85 percent of hospitals mention charity-care programs to patients, fewer than half provide applications for financial help, and a quarter post eligibility criteria for the programs on their websites. In lieu of paying federal or state taxes, nonprofit hospitals are expected to provide free or discounted medical care to low-income patients.
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Nearly 80,000 chemicals are in use in the United States, and yet only a few hundred have been tested for safety, the report notes.
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Avniel Serkin-Ahmed, a youth advocate, spoke of his experience. "When I was a toddler I received my first mental health diagnosis. Determined to make sure that I would have the best and most 'normal' life possible, my mother fought hard to make sure that I received the supports, services and tests that I needed. My mother faced many unnecessary roadblocks throughout the years in order to ensure that I had the services that I needed at a very early age. Receiving these services at an early stage in my life set a great foundation and provided me with the tools that would need to be successful in my future."
Posted by: Staff on May 07, 2010
Category: Lunch Break Reading