Latest California Healthline Stories
Think the wheels of Sacramento politics move slowly? Think again.
On Monday, when the California Legislature returns from its summer recess, the Senate Committee on Appropriations plans to conduct a session that is expected to last 12 hours — and possibly longer — when it takes up and either approves or denies 203 new laws.
If you do the math, that’s just 3 minutes and 31 seconds for each bill — to introduce, argue both sides, have questions answered and vote on each piece of legislation.
Quality Index Points Out Where California Lags
California provides poor quality health care in several categories such as respiratory care and immunization rates, according to a just-released national evaluation, which compares health quality markers from state to state.
California had high scores in home health care and maternal care. Overall, the state rating was smack in the middle of the average range.
“We are mandated to do national reports on health care quality,” spokesperson Karen Migdail of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) said. “Given the local nature of health care, states wanted to know what’s particular for their area. This provides a good snapshot of health care quality in a particular state.”
How To Build Medi-Cal Waiver Bridge to Health Care Reform
We asked stakeholders how California can design a new Medi-Cal waiver to create the best environment for health care reform to take root in California.
Judges Order Sacramento County to Pay Up
The showdown in court is over for now, and Sacramento County will need to come up with a better way to fund and manage its responsibility to care for the indigent and mentally ill.
That’s the word from three recent court decisions. At the end of last week, Sacramento County, which had already been hit with a temporary restraining order, accepted a longer-binding preliminary injunction to halt cuts and closures at its three public clinics, until a new plan can be worked out — one that offers better care to the county’s indigent patients.
That legal move came just one day after a U.S. District Court judge ruled last week against the county in a different court case, ordering Sacramento County to stop its plan to scale back some mental health services.
How Reform Could Affect Four Key Populations
A health policy expert explores how the national health reform would affect four groups of U.S. residents. While younger workers are poised to benefit, Medicare beneficiaries may feel cuts.
Do Hospice Facilities Need Own Rules?
There are separate requirements for all kinds of health-related places — nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, congregate living health facilities — so should there be separate definitions and requirements for hospice facilities? Since end-of-life care differs from extending-of-life care, should separate facilities be built just for hospice?
Those are some of the questions taken on last week in a Senate appropriations committee special hearing on AB 950 by Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), and the legislative answers are not simple.
“The basic question is: Is there a need for a specific hospice license category?” hearing chair Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) said.
Research Targets Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s
Last week, Laurel Beckett of UC-Davis was just back from Honolulu, where she had been presenting her work at the annual Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease. It created quite a buzz in that segment of the research world.
“We have not had a lot of success in treatment, and usually by the time doctors have a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, there’s already a lot of damage to the brain,” Beckett said, adding, “Anytime we can move the time of diagnosis up, that gives researchers and physicians a better chance to treat it.”
Therefore, one of the goals of research has been to diagnose Alzheimer’s at a much earlier stage.
Plan To Shift State-County Services Still a Work in Progress
Two relatively low-budget health care programs are included in the Democrats’ proposal to restructure California government by moving some social services programs from state to county control. More could be added as stakeholders and the Legislature weigh in.
Information Exchanges Show Signs of Progress
The national effort to establish a network of health information exchanges could streamline health care costs and provide medical professionals with more timely and accurate patient information, by electronically merging information between physicians, laboratories, pharmacies and hospitals.
The goal is to have less paperwork, less duplication of services, better patient outcomes and to lower costs for everyone.
Health information exchanges have received a lot of media attention recently, but exchanges have been operating around the country for the past seven years. And the number of those information exchanges has been steadily rising every year, both nationally and in California.
Judge To Decide Sacramento Clinics’ Fate
Times are tough for Sacramento County — both for the indigent population and for the local lawmakers who have no money to care for them.
A preliminary injunction hearing will be held tomorrow (Friday) in Sacramento Superior Court to decide whether or not to lift a temporary restraining order that has kept the doors open at three public clinics in Sacramento County.
Feeling the pressure from budget cuts, the county earlier this month moved to shut down two clinics that had been open one day a week, and trim hours and operating expenses at the county’s only full-time clinic. That comes on top of the closures of two other clinics last year and another clinic in 2008.