NPR audio report: Advocates renew push for mental health “parity” bill

A bill has long lingered in Congress that would require health insurers to provide equal benefits for mental and physical ailments. President Bush has vowed to sign such a mental health “parity” bill on several occasions, but the Republican-controlled House repeatedly blocked it. Now, with Democrats in control of Congress, mental health advocates are quietly planning a quick campaign for the bill’s passage. NPR (Click the “Listen” icon to hear the audio report.)

Editor’s Note: Achieving mental health parity is long overdue. Make sure you let your representative and senator know where you stand on this issue.

AHA’s Start! Program encourages sticking to fitness resolutions

The American Heart Association is launching a campaign to inspire Americans to fulfill their resolutions to get active and stay in shape in the new year. The Start! program includes an online fitness and nutrition tracker that allows users to enter what they eat each day and how much they exercise. It then provides a summary of calories in and calories out.Seattle Post-Intelligencer/Associated Press

Editor’s Note: This may be the reminder you need to maintain your New Year’s resolutions!

CMS to post comparisons of hospitals’ heart attack death rates

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid plan to list a comparison of hospitals’ heart attack and heart failure death rates on the Internet as part of an effort to improve hospital performance. The national Medicare death rates are 17.8 percent for heart attacks and 11.6 percent for heart failure. Federal agencies in December informed nearly 4,000 hospitals how their 30-day death rates for 2003 compare with those rates. USA TODAY

Editor’s Note: Acute Care Case Managers, alert your organization to this new project from CMS and get involved in the process as this will be another duty that you will most likely be involved in.

Commentary: Health IT should be a top priority

Providing health professionals with access to health IT must be a top national priority because the “technological gulf in healthcare isn’t just inefficient and costly; it may also be involved in costly inefficiency and the persistence of a high error rate in medicine,” former speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich and Siemens Medical Solutions executive Janet Dillione write in this commentary. The Philadelphia Inquirer

Editor’s Note: Case managers can be catalysts in assisting their organizations in getting on board with IT projects by letting administrators know what information you need to be able to show outcomes that demonstrate your value.

New pediatric schedule recommends greater vaccine use

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued its recommended immunization schedule for 2007, calling for more vaccines for younger patients. The schedule calls for routine oral live rotavirus vaccines for infants, a second dose for chickenpox, routine HPV vaccines for girls as young as 11 and annual flu shots for children between 6 months and 59 months of age. Yahoo!/Reuters

Editor’s Note: Pediatric case managers, make sure you update your tools to include this information from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Reports: U.S. healthcare improves; preventive care still lags, especially for minorities

Category for archiving: Disease Management

The quality of U.S. healthcare is improving at a modest rate, but Americans — especially minorities, the uninsured and poor — are falling behind in preventive care according to new government reports. A divide in access to care persists as well, with poor and minority patients generally receiving poorer care, and the uninsured faring the worst in access to care. The Washington Post/Associated Press

Editor’s Note: Cultural diversity is one of the educational requirements for case managers. Let me know your challenges with addressing cultural diversity in your practice so that we can discuss them in an upcoming issue of Case in Point. You can reach me at allewellyn@dorlandhealth.com.

Nursing leader works to address chronic shortage

Barbara Moran, a certified nurse midwife, has been elected 2008 President of the Board of Directors of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. Moran says her goal is to develop nursing leaders in an era when the nation faces a chronic shortage of nurse professionals. The Washington Times

Editor’s Note: What role are you playing in your community to spread the word on the benefits of nursing as a career to our youth? Share your ideas with me, so that I can share them with other readers of Across My Desk. You can reach me by email at allewellyn@dorlandhealth.com.

Drugmakers vie for FDA approval of fibromyalgia drugs

Drugmakers are in a race for FDA approval of their treatments for relieving fibromyalgia, even though physicians are not comfortable yet with diagnosing the pain and fatigue condition. Despite doctor reservations, Eli Lilly, Forest Laboratories, Pfizer and Wyeth all have drugs pending before the agency in hopes of meeting what they see as a large, untapped need. Reuters

Editor’s Note: This will be interesting to watch for case managers involved in working with patients affected by this chronic disease.

CDC: Arthritis costs reach $128 billion and climbing

The CDC reports the cost of arthritis and related conditions rose to $128 billion in 2003 and likely will climb as the U.S. population ages. The figure includes $80.8 billion in direct costs such as medical expenses and $47 billion in indirect costs such as lost wages. MSNBC/Associated Press

Editor’s Note: Identification of patients at risk for arthritis is important to decrease the complications related to this disease.

Study: Providers often leave seniors’ sleep complaints off charts

A study of 1,503 patients aged 60 and older concludes that, despite the fact that more than two-thirds of older patients report sleep problems, medical professionals rarely note that on patients’ charts. The study found 69 percent of patients had at least one sleep complaint and 40 percent had two or more, but doctors added the sleep complaints to charts only 19 percent of the time. Forbes

Editor’s Note: Another reason for electronic medical records with reminders programmed in to ensure that all issues the patient brings up are documented in the chart.

Weight-loss surgeries increase most among middle-aged patients

The number of people aged 55 to 64 who had some kind of surgery to help them lose weight increased from 772 in 1998 to 15,086 in 2004, according to a new study. In all age groups, more than 120,000 Americans had some type of weight-loss surgery in 2004, with the largest increase seen among middle-aged people. Yahoo!/Reuters

Editor’s Note: Bariatic surgery should be the last resort for patients with weight challenges. These statistics raise the question: Do we just look for the quick fix when facing problems?