The Health Care Blog – Page 968 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

Mental health parity & insurance mandates

Sep 29, 2008• 2

By Sarah Arnquist

Last week, Congress got a step closer to passing a Mental Health Parity bill after years of debating the issue. The bill would require insurance companies to provide the same coverage for physical and mental ailments.

For more than a decade, both houses have passed different versions of the legislation only to see it fall apart at the end. The biggest hiccup now seems to be that the bill doesn’t specify which mental disorders it will include.

The unintended consequences of fully covering services for autism, schizophrenia, bipolar and other mental disorders would be a skyrocket in the price of insurance premiums. That’s what critics warn.

Patient advocates argue that mental illness is as real as physical illness. Bipolar disorder is no different than diabetes in terms of its need for chronic, close management. So why should people with a mental disorder be discriminated against and forced to bear a heavier financial burden, which could derail any possibility of them leading a healthy and happy life?

Cognitive Surplus & Tough Economic Times: An Explosive Cocktail?

Sep 26, 2008• 6

By Gilles Frydman

Gilles Frydman is Founder & President of the Association of Cancer Online Resources, the largest online support group for cancer patients. He also blogs regularly at e-patients.net, where this post first appeared.

The growth of the e-Patients movement may be experiencing surprising strength from a completely unexpected source, with many people growing the ranks of the movement because of the greatest motivator of all: saving money.

Clay Shirky’s cognitive surplus observation, made in April 2008, keeps on resonating as I see more and more evidence that, contrarily to what some naysayers would want us to think, the internet and social media are fundamentally important to a significant percentage of Americans looking for answers about wellness or sickness, health or disease.

In his speech Shirky noted :

"The value in media is no longer in sources but in flows; when we pool our cognitive surplus, it creates value that doesn’t exist when we operate in isolation. The displacement of TV watching is coming among people who are using more of their time to make things and do things, sometimes alone and sometimes together, and to share those things with others."

New blog of women offering fresh ideas

Sep 26, 2008• 1

By Sarah Arnquist Logo_2

A group of powerful women have joined forces to add their voices and shape the dialogue about health care issues through a new blog, Disruptive Women in health care.

The site is intended to be "a springboard for fresh ideas in health care," says Robin Strongin, president & CEO of Amplify Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.

The blog launched yesterday at the National Press Club, and today you can read posts by Google Health’s Missy Krasner about making health reform pertinent to the average person. Stephanie Mensh, co-founder of stroke survivor, writes about why Sarah Palin’s fake stance on supporting families with special needs makes her mad. And Glenna Crooks, president of Strategic Health Policy International, Inc. talks about why pharmacists need a larger role in health care delivery.

"My vision of a disruptive woman is someone who not only sees a problem, but jumps in to correct it. She does so with guts and spunk and is not afraid to shake up the status quo," said Strongin, a twenty-five year health care veteran, "Each of these women brings a unique perspective, years of hands on experience, and a track record of speaking up, speaking out and making change."

Around the Web in 60 Seconds (Or Less)

Sep 26, 2008

Esther Dyson explains why she believes Health 2.0 companies, such as Organized Wisdom are a great investment. Dyson has been an early investor and guiding influence on many technology start-ups, including including 23andMe, Medstory (which was acquired by
Microsoft), PatientsLikeMe, Meetup, and Flickr and Del.icio.us (which both
were acquired by Yahoo!)

UPI reports on a free online tool, the CaP Calculator, designed to help clinicians bring more personalized medicine regarding prostate cancer. Here’s the group’s missions statement: "The purpose of CaP Calculator is to provide a user-friendly resource that promotes thorough, educated discussion of prostate cancer risk and outcomes between health care professionals and patients."

Healthfinder.gov launched a redesign that aims to help consumers find better information faster. The site uses everyday language to explain maladies, and steps for prevention, as well as offering users the chance to personalize it for their needs.

MedHelp.org and Drugstore.com teamed up to launch a new online feature called Ask-a-Pharmacist and is the first to focus solely on medications. In the online forum, pharmacists will answer questions related to brand drugs, generic equivalents, common uses, drug
therapy, drug interactions, possible side effects and more.

Mixed reception for hospital ID bracelets

Sep 26, 2008• 2

By Sarah Arnquist

Color-coded hospital bracelets intending to identify categories of patients and prevent errors by ensuring they receive proper care have received a mixed reception, the New York Times reports.

Red bracelets indicate allergies, amber says the patient has a falling risk and purple tells hospital staff that the patient has a not resuscitate order. The DNR bracelets seem to be attracting the most criticism.

Apparently, the Joint Commission warns that the purple bracelets may "brand" patients by their end-of-life choice, and may upset family members unfamiliar with the patient’s wishes.

Are those really legitimate reasons for blocking greater uptake of this seemingly simple and pragmatic strategy to improve patient care and ultimately deliver the care the patient wants?

A Genius Shines…And, Where the Light Doesn’t, Hospitals Don’t

Sep 25, 2008

By Michael L. Millenson

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that hospitals could dramatically reduce the hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries they unintentionally cause patients ever year, but it may take a genius to coax change out of ossified organizations. As for getting hospitals to publicly disclose injuries and deaths the law says they must? That’s another story entirely.

On the good news front, The MacArthur Foundation has just honored Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Peter Pronovost with a “genius award,” the informal moniker for the go-and-do-smart-stuff prize given to MacArthur Fellows.

Pronovost, you may recall, is the critical care physician who came up with the idea of culling lengthy guidelines on error prevention in the ICU into a simple checklist of five precautionary steps. When tested in ICUs throughout Michigan, the result was to “change the culture of [the] institutions in the interest of reducing the risk of medical errors and hospital-acquired infections,” the foundation noted. “Pronovost’s checklist intervention yielded a significant and sizeable decrease in rates of infection and is currently being replicated by hospitals across the U.S. and Europe.”

Some good news in health care, really

Sep 25, 2008• 5

By Jocelyn Guyer

Even as the economy has fallen into an abyss and I find myself with distressing frequency discussing with people whether Levi Johnston really loves Bristol Palin, it turns out that there is actually some good news out there about health coverage. Over the past year, 19 states have taken significant strides toward covering more children despite challenging fiscal times. At a National Health Policy Forum last week, three states explained their progress. And, no, the featured states weren’t the usual suspects like Massachusetts with its impressive, but so-complicated-that-you-need-an-MIT-degree-to-untangle-it system or Vermont with its population of 62 people and 4 dairy farms. They were Louisiana, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.

Here are the details of what they’ve done:

If you can stay awake, the candidates’ health plans explained

Sep 25, 2008• 2

By Sarah Arnquist

The New England Journal of Medicine and Harvard University teamed up to bring you this compelling, hour-long nail-biter of Gail Wilensky and David Cutler discussing their respective candidates’ health plans.

I wonder if the NEJM has had to buy more bandwith to support the flood of viewers?

In all seriousness, I think it’s great the NEJM is sponsoring this type
of dialogue. It probably won’t reach many people, but it might reach
and influence those who have the potential to influence others — legislative staffers,
journalists, doctors and health care leaders.

There have been calls recently for more serious coverage of the candidates’ health care issues. We need a mix of coverage. This kind of wonky dialogue and the kind that ordinary folks read and watch — yes that 800-word explainer story with a few pithy quotes.

Speaking of ordinary folks …

Sep 25, 2008• 3

By Sarah Arnquist

PBS will air its film, "Critical Condition," at 9 p.m. Tuesday Sept. 30. Here’s what PBS says about the film:

What happens if you fall sick and are one of 47 million people in America without health insurance? "Critical Condition" by Roger Weisberg ("Waging a Living," P.O.V. 2006) puts a human face on the nation’s growing health care crisis by capturing the harrowing struggles of four critically ill Americans who discover that being uninsured can cost them their jobs, health, home, savings, even their lives. Filmed in vérité style, "Critical Condition" offers a moving and invaluable expose at a time when the nation is debating how to extend health insurance to all Americans.

Immediately after the film, Susan Dentzer, health correspondent for
"The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," will moderate a discussion with
spokespersons for McCain and Obama and other health policy experts.

Study Shows Unpaid Medical Bills Put Families in Debt

Sep 25, 2008• 2

By Shuka Kalantari

While the federal government plans to bail out the financial sector with $700 billion of taxpayer dollars, a growing number of tax payers are grappling to get themselves out of debt from unpaid health care bills.

Yesterday’s New York Times discussed two studies released on Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Center for Studying Health System Change. The studies show that more and more American families have debt from health care.

"Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $12,680 annually for family coverage this year – with employees on average paying $3,354 out of their paychecks to cover their share of the cost," said the Kaiser Family Foundation news release of the study.