Healthy Living, News & Research

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has published a grid summarizing and evaluating 7 pieces of health care information technology legislation before the U.S. Congress. They promise to update the report regularly. (PDF)

On Thursday, June 30, David Brailer, M.D., Ph.D., National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, HHS, Winston Price, M.D., FAAP, President, National Medical Association, and Dean A. Rosen, Director of Health Policy, Office of Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist, M.D answered questions about the government's role in developing an electronic medical information network, whether or not enhanced access to medical information can improve quality of care as well as reduce cost and errors, what steps are necessary to protect patient privacy, and more. View video, download transcripts and find resource links on-line.

A study of seven public hospital networks looked at the care 75,000 diabetics received. "The study found that the hospitals helped diabetic patients control their blood-sugar levels to the same degree as diabetics in HMOs." Some of the numbers:
• 56% were uninsured or on Medicaid
• 34% of Latino patients and 37% of black patients had healthy blood-sugar levels, compared with 45% of white patients.
• 33% of uninsured patients had healthy blood-sugar levels, compared with 47% of Medicare patients. Medicare patients had the best blood-sugar levels, higher than those with private coverage.
Read the Kaiser summary to find out what professionals say is behind the numbers. There's also a link to the whole study in a PDF file. (Source: kaisernetwork.org)

Internet access is fast becoming a basic public necessity — just like water, gas or electricity. But far too many Americans, especially in rural and poorer urban areas, are finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide, priced out by high monthly fees or stranded by corporate redlining that has deemed their towns and neighborhoods to be unprofitable. Rural broadband access can lower costs of doing business and allow rural business owners to succesfully compete in the marketplace. Access to broadband can even convince younger residents to stay rural longer, stabilizing declining populations. Find positionn statements, state-level legislative updates and reports on-line.

Elias Zerhouni, M.D. , director of the National Institutes of Health,
talks with Jackie Judd, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation and
former correspondent with ABC News, about key issues in national medical
research and policy, including new NIH conflict-of-interest and ethics
rules, funding for medical research, the fight against HIV/AIDS, racial and ethnic disparities in health, ensuring public access to published NIH-supported research and the state of NIH-funded stem-cell research.
View video, download transcript and find links to related issues.

The Joslin Diabetes Center has published new nutrition and activity guidelines for overweight and obese people who have Type 2 Diabetes or those who are at risk for developing the disease. The guidlines are nicely summarized in the press release. There's a link to the full guidelines as a pdf that can be found at the bottom of the Web page.

An article by Bruce Link and Jo Phelan that focuses on the causes of health inequalities is summarized on the Robert Wood Johnson site. Phelan and Link believe that social status is a fundamental influence on disease outcome. Even though risk factors change over time, socioeconomic status is always linked to such risks. People with more resources are better able "take advantage of what is known about preventing disease and maintaining health. Thus, they argue, we should identify policies that can equalize such coping advantages so that one's socioeconomic status is not such a powerful determinant of health." (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)

A new study of the news media by Project for Excellence in Journalism finds men are cited as sources much more often than women on a wide range of topics. Women are most likely to be sources in "lifestyle" stories.

Find links to recent health care stories from all of NPR's news programs organized by date and categories such as "People & Places," "Research News," "Global Health," and "Legal Affairs." Check out the special sections on "What Americans Eat" as well as the "Editor's Picks."

The National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU) has developed the
Health Care Coverage Options Database, an on-line tool to help make
American health care consumers aware of all of the coverage options
available to them. The Database contains information about private health
insurance coverage, as well as the many public and private programs
available to Americans to help them obtain the medical care they need.
Policymakers, the media and other interested parties can also use the
Database as a means of comparing health care coverage options for
Americans on a state-by-state basis.