Latest California Healthline Stories
California Hospitals Taking Steps To Reduce Rates of Health Care-Associated Infections
Kim Delahanty of the UC-San Diego Health System, Kevin Reilly of the Department of Public Health and Debby Rogers of the California Hospital Association spoke with California Healthline about efforts to curb health care-associated infections.
For-Profit Colleges’ Health Care Training Examined
A new study suggests that for-profit universities produce too few graduates in the most needed health care professions, such as nursing and diagnostic technology, and too many in the support occupations, such as medical assistants and massage therapists.
Mandate Bills Merit Independent Review
Maternity care. Tobacco cessation. Mammograms. HPV vaccinations. Hearing aids for children.
These are just a few of the legislative attempts at mandates for health insurance coverage in California. Each of those proposals needs to be evaluated before it hits committee. The under-the-radar group that does those evaluations — the California Health Benefits Review Program — has issued 68 CHBRP reports since 2004.
The CHBRP held its annual legislative briefing yesterday in Sacramento. And, honestly, it was worth attending just to hear men in suits say the acronym “Cha-BURP” over and over again.
State Gathering Info on Hospital-Acquired Infections
The state Department of Public Health recently released its first report on “healthcare-associated infections” (HAI) — those infections patients actually get while they’re in the hospital, such as surgical site infections or the antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA. (The full name of MRSA is the methicillin-resistant staphyloccocus aureus infection).
HAIs prompted some public outrage, both nationally and in California, and public health was charged doing something about it.
A year from now, state officials expect to have enough consistently compiled data to provide valid comparisons, officials said.
Driver’s License Numbers Among Lost Records
The California Department of Public Health has never had the kind of loss of medical records that it had yesterday, according to Kevin Reilly, Chief Deputy for Policy and Programs at CDPH.
“We’ve had much smaller instances where a laptop was stolen,” Reilly said. “But nothing like this.”
A magnetic tape was mailed to the Capitol from West Covina (near Los Angeles), but when it arrived in Sacramento, it was just an empty envelope.
A Time of Adversity and Opportunity
It’s an unusual time to be Secretary of all things health care in California.
On the one hand, Diana Dooley will take over the Department of Health and Human Services at a time when budget cuts have already worn the public safety net down to spider-web thinness.
And she arrives with a new budget deficit looming that could gut many existing health care and service programs. In fact, outgoing Governor Schwarzenegger asked lawmakers to cut more than $1 billion from Medi-Cal and the Healthy Families programs, and to eliminate the $1.4 billion CalWORKS program altogether.
Earl Ferguson of the Southern Sierra Telehealth Network on Using Technology To Improve Care
Earl Ferguson, director of the Southern Sierra Telehealth Network, spoke with California Healthline about how telemedicine tools can help people in rural areas obtain access to primary care providers and specialists.
Innovative Plan To Keep Yosemite Clinic Open
In January, the venerable clinic in Yosemite National Park will become the first medical facility in a national park to be operated by the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Officials now are hammering out details of the transition.
Developmentally Disabled Centers Get a Hearing
A state audit raised some concerns about some of the financial steps taken by some of the state’s California Regional Centers. The centers are designed to help patients with developmental disabilities.
“Many changes have occurred recently, including losing about $500 million in funding,” oversight chair and Senate member Carol Liu (D-La Canada Flintridge) said. “Such changes make it imperative to look at how to provide these necessary services in a cost-effective way.”
“Over $4 billion goes through these centers,” Assembly member Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate) said. “So if something isn’t as efficient as it can be, we need to fix it. Our goal is to watch that money, because that’s a hell of a lot of money.”
Rural Health Clinics Getting Short-Changed?
There was an interesting moment at this week’s annual conference of the California State Rural Health Association. During one of the presentations, a sit-down with two state Assembly members — V. Manuel Perez (D-Coachella) and recently elected Linda Halderman (R-Fresno) — the conversation seemed to veer away from rural health issues.
After hearing about high unemployment, the icy regulatory climate, too much government and arsenic contamination of water supplies, host Steve Barrow gently redirected the conversation.
“You know, rural [medicine] gets lost a lot in the Capitol,” he said. “We care about clean water, and cultural issues, and economic issues — but if we’re talking about economics in rural California, 11 percent of the rural economy is health care. Health care is a big part of economics in rural areas.”