Latest California Healthline Stories
How Should California Deal With Obesity?
Battle lines against obesity are being drawn in several arenas — from a proposed tax on sugary drinks in a Northern California city to a new national Walt Disney Company policy against accepting junk-food advertising. We asked experts what California should do.
HHS Funds Health Innovations Aimed at Improving Care, Saving Money
HHS on Friday announced 17 new recipients of health care innovation grants in California, the largest of which was a $19 million award for the Pacific Business Group on Health to expand its coordinated care project.
Nationwide, 81 innovation grants were dished out. Last month, HHS issued 26 innovation awards, including four in California. In all, California received 21 of the 107 grants.
“This means a significant expansion of something where we’ve seen good results so far,” said David Lansky, CEO of the Pacific Business Group on Health. PBGH received $19 million from HHS to expand the Intensive Outpatient Care Program in collaboration with the California Quality Collaborative, a network of providers in California.
San Diego Barbershops Offer Shave, Haircut and Health Screening
Volunteers this month will descend on barbershops in Southeast San Diego to screen African-American men for diabetes and high blood pressure during a multicity event aimed at raising awareness and addressing health disparities.
Survey: Californians Concur on Need for Prevention
At a joint Assembly and Senate health hearing yesterday, results of a Field Poll unveiled a few days shy of the official release indicate that an overwhelming majority of Californians (about 80% of those surveyed) believe government and schools need to pitch in to fight childhood obesity and that preventive health programs pay for themselves in reduced health care costs to the state.
That tied in nicely with the intent of the hearing, which was convened by the two legislative health committees to look at ways to focus health policy toward prevention of chronic conditions such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
“When we look at the fact that individual [health] behavior and people’s environment contribute to about 70% of our health care costs, it should really be addressed,” according to Larry Cohen, founder and executive director of the Prevention Institute and a panelist at the hearing. “But our health care investment is only about 4% in prevention.”
Personal Stories Highlight Oral Chemotherapy Bill
New legislation proposed by Assembly member Henry Perea (D-Fresno) would require health plans to provide chemotherapy in pill form, in some cases.
“This bill will provide greater access for oral chemotherapy treatment,” Perea said on the Assembly floor late last week. “This is the right thing to do, to allow people access to lifesaving drugs.”
Perea introduced the measure with his personal account of caring for his mother, who he said was diagnosed with stage 2 lung cancer just over a year ago. During the long, eight-hour chemo infusion in the hospital, he learned quite a lot about cancer and chemo from patients and professionals.
Clashing Views of Transition for Seniors, Disabled
Either the state’s transition to managed care is going great, or it’s a confusing mess.
That would depend on who’s talking. At a joint oversight hearing last week, convened by the Senate and the Assembly committees on health, government officials outlined a generally positive picture for the effort to move Medi-Cal seniors and people with disabilities (SPDs) from Medi-Cal fee-for-service to managed care.
“The transition of seniors and people with disabilities into managed care is part of the triple mandate from [the federal] HHS,” according to Jane Ogle, deputy director at the Department of Health Care Services. “Better health, better quality and more cost-effective care.”
Diabetes Project Tries To Reach Valley Hmong Community
Healthy House, a health and community services coalition in Merced, is using a $50,000 grant to launch a diabetes education and treatment project for the Central Valley’s large Hmong community.
Chronic Care Becoming a Chronic Problem
To lower costs and increase quality of care, policymakers in California need to address how to better treat the chronically ill — those patients at the center of health care spending in the state.
That was the conclusion of a health care panel discussion last week in the Capitol Building in Sacramento, put on by the Center for Health Improvement as part of the California Health Policy Forum.
“This is a huge worldwide epidemic,” according to panelist Sophia Chang. “About two in five Californians have at least one chronic condition — and half of these people have two or more of these conditions.”
Health 2.0 Conference Focuses on Patient-Centered Technology To Promote Wellness
Jonathan Attwood of Zamzee, Stephen Downs of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Chris Hewett of Mindbloom, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Farzad Mostashari and Christine Robins of BodyMedia spoke with California Healthline about new consumer-focused health innovations.
Groups Tap Funding for Mobile Health Efforts Targeting Seniors With Chronic Conditions
David Lindeman of the Center for Technology and Aging, Nancy Pratt of Sharp HealthCare, René Seidel of the SCAN Foundation and Steven Wallace of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research spoke with California Healthline about how mobile health technology could benefit seniors.