Latest California Healthline Stories
Planners of a new congregate care facility in Santa Barbara who want to build an 18-bed facility needed a waiver from the state to go beyond the area’s 12-bed limit. The state denied the waiver.
Now comes SB 177 by Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark), which would reclassify the area so the new facility can have 18 beds rather than its current 12-bed allowance.
“This is a bill that lowers the population threshold from 500,000 to 400,000 that triggers the 12-bed limit,” Strickland said.
Research Geared to Real-World Results
Francis Collins is on the cusp of something big. Several somethings big.
Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told journalists about a number of possible breakthroughs in clinical and policy breakthroughs during the Association of Health Care Journalists annual conference in Philadelphia.
“This is a golden era in terms of understanding disease,” Collins said. “But there is still a daunting gap between fundamental knowledge and application of that knowledge.”
Experts Look to Mass. for Health Care Lessons
Massachusetts, a potential classroom for other states embarking on health care reforms, was the focus of a panel at the annual Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Philadelphia.
New Senior Home Worker Law: Protection or Intrusion?
A vast workforce in California has gone unregulated and unmonitored — and that could be a danger to the seniors they are supposed to help.
That’s the gist of a new law passed this week by the Senate Committee on Health. SB 411 by Curren Price (D-Inglewood), the Home Care Service Act of 2011, would require background checks and elementary care instruction for all workers who help out in seniors’ homes.
“Without background checks or training, anyone can be a home health worker,” Price said. “And that could leave some seniors vulnerable to fraud and abuse.”
Trying To Bridge Gap Between Direct Hiring, Access
It’s a bill that keeps coming up — by the same author three years in a row, and in three different forms in the previous legislative session. But this time around, Assembly member Sandré Swanson (D-Alameda) swears it will be different.
And for one day, at least, it was.
Swanson’s bill, AB 1360, on Monday passed out of the Assembly Committee on Business, Professions and Consumer Protection on a 5-3 vote. It now heads to the health committee. It’s a bill that attempts to address the shortage of physicians in underserved and rural areas by allowing some hospitals in those districts to hire them directly. The idea is medical facilities would be better able to attract physicians — particularly primary care doctors — if they were allowed to negotiate directly with them.
Cash, Credits, Peer Support Incentives To Alter Bad Health Habits
Paying workers to take care of themselves could seem like an odd notion, but California businesses are funding wellness incentive programs to encourage employees to live healthier lives and in turn miss less work, be more productive and cut medical costs.
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.
Taking Stock of Three Major Health Reform Laws on Their Birthdays
Last year’s federal health overhaul, the Massachusetts health reform law and the groundbreaking EMTALA all marked significant anniversaries in recent weeks. “Road to Reform” looks back on how the laws affected the nation’s health policy — and each other.
Southern California Hospitals Taking Action To Combat Spread of Drug-Resistant ‘Superbug’
Julia Hallisy of the Empowered Patient Coalition, Jim Lott of the Hospital Association of Southern California and Greg Moran of Olive View-UCLA Medical Center spoke with California Healthline about efforts to address carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae.
Four Is a Quorum — Exchange Board Gets To Work
Darrell Steinberg can take as long as he wants.
The Senate Rules Committee, headed by Steinberg, will appoint the fifth and final member of the California Health Benefit Exchange board, but the rest of the board has decided it needs to get started.
The exchange board’s first public meeting is scheduled Apr. 20, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Goldberg Auditorium at the Franchise Tax Board building on Butterfield Drive in Sacramento.