Latest California Healthline Stories
L.A. Care Health Plan’s Elaine Batchlor Talks About Efforts To Improve Safety-Net Care
Elaine Batchlor, chief medical officer at L.A. Care Health Plan, spoke with California Healthline about the challenges facing safety-net health programs and the opportunities to address such challenges through innovation.
Smokers, Politicians Struggle With Tobacco Habit
Smoking among adults is dropping in California, according to a recent report. Another kind of tobacco habit — money spent to influence California politicians and policy — could be on the rise in coming months in response to a statewide ballot initiative to increase the tobacco tax.
Time is Now To Reverse Hepatitis Trend, Experts Say
For years, advocates have been fighting hepatitis in relative quiet — but that may be changing, according to Rachel McLean.
“Last week the federal [Department of] Health and Human Services released its hepatitis action plan,” McLean said. “For HHS to say we’re going to do something, well, that’s a big deal.”
McLean is the hepatitis prevention coordinator for the state Department of Public Health, and she was part of a panel discussion yesterday in Sacramento. The event was part of the California Health Policy Forum, put on by the Center for Health Improvement and funded in part by the California HealthCare Foundation. CHCF is the publisher of California Healthline.
Riverside Hopes New Policies Will Help Curb Sprawl, Obesity
Riverside County’s Public Health and Planning departments have joined forces to develop a large-scale approach that will guide future community development. The new policies set the stage for communities that will be walkable and bikeable with convenient access to nutritious food.
Obesity, Diabetes Lead Latino Health Agenda
Greg Talavera said he’s never seen anything like it.
Talavera, vice president of clinical affairs at the San Ysidro Health Center in Southern California, was in Sacramento last week for a forum on health risks in the Latino community.
“From a public health perspective, I am alarmed,” Talavera said. “Child obesity is an epidemic. This is the biggest epidemic since the AIDS epidemic.”
Physicians Scarce for Latinos in California
There are two main hurdles to getting quality health care among the Latino population, according to David Hayes-Bautista, founding director of UCLA medical school’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture.
Access is the No. 1 issue and linguistic competency is No. 2, Hayes-Bautista said.
Hayes-Bautista was part of a forum convened last week in Sacramento by the Latino Community Development Foundation — a forum that included Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley and a number of state Senate and Assembly members.
Wireless Medicine’s Promise: Less Cost, Better Care
Starting at the cellular level, wireless devices could change the practice of medicine. But like any transformative technology, risks accompany the vast promise of mobile health. That was one take-home message from a national conference of health care journalists last week in Philadelphia.
Gay and Lesbian Health Bills in Committee
Recent research by UCLA and UCSF highlighted an area of study that has not received much attention — the health risks and challenges of the general lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Now the state Legislature is considering two bills that try to address those needs.
AB 673 by John Pérez (D-Los Angeles) would require the state’s Office of Multicultural Health to include LGBT patients in their duties. And SB 747 by Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego) would require medical providers to take a 2- to 5-hour course on gender issues.
Path Set for Dealing with Alzheimer’s in California
An official 10-year state plan is slated to be released today that could change the way California handles coordination of care for people with Alzheimer’s.
We’ll have details in Capitol Desk at 10 a.m. today when state Senator Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) is scheduled to release the document.
“This is the first state plan for Alzheimer’s since the 1980s,” according to Debra Cherry, executive vice president of the California Southland chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.
End-of-Life Expert Susan Tolle on Rolling Out Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment
Susan Tolle of the Oregon Health & Science University spoke with California Healthline about how California could learn from Oregon’s experience implementing Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment.