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Boston Globe Examines Hospital's Attempt To Reduce Emergency Department Visits, Hospital Stays Among Elderly
Efforts by Massachusetts General Hospital to reduce health spending could be indicative of the difficulty the health industry faces in trying to reduce spending growth, the Boston Globe reports. Industry groups last week pledged to seek a 1.5% overall reduction in health care spending over the next 10 years.Massachusetts General"s program, which began in 2006, aims to reduce hospitalizations among the elderly by 15% to 20%, as well as to improve the quality of care the elderly receive. A study looking at 35 efforts to improve elderly care found that only six, including Massachusetts General"s program, saved money or covered their costs, the Globe reports. Massachusetts General"s program relies on nurses in primary care practices to be in regular contact with patients and provide assistance with nonmedical services. The program also uses electronic health records to coordinate care. The hospital spent $8 million to $9 million over the first three years of the program to provide enhanced services to patients. Hospital readmissions fell by 19%, admissions decreased by 17% and ED visits dropped by 15% between 2007 and 2008, according to preliminary research. The program saved enough by reducing hospital admissions and emergency department visits to cover its costs and also to generate savings of $7 million to $10 million. The overall cost for the program was about 5% less than for a group of other patients treated in a more traditional way.According to Harvard University health care economist David Cutler, improving care and reducing costs among the elderly is a necessary component of health reform. He said, "If we can"t do this, it doesn"t bode well for health reform." Eric Weil, a primary care physician and medical director of the program at Massachusetts General, said, "Medicare is looking for any and every way to save money," adding, "This is a population of patients who are sick and will get sicker over time. Any opportunity to demonstrate savings in this group of patients is good, and 5% is very good" (Kowalczyk, Boston Globe, 5/17).
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Breast MRI Shows It's Not The Size Of The Lymph Node That Signals Spread Of Cancer
Physicians treating breast cancer first look to lymph nodes in a patient"s armpit to see whether cancer is spreading elsewhere in the body - but they may not be evaluating the nodes in the most effective way.
News of the day
Yolo County, Calif., Approves Proposal To Cut Funding For Health Care Services To Undocumented Immigrants
Yolo County, Calif., Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a proposal to cut county funding for health care services for undocumented immigrants in an effort to save the county more than $1 million, the Sacramento Bee reports (Sangree, Sacramento Bee, 5/20).California counties have been taking such action amid the economic recession to reduce their budgets. In February, Sacramento County voted to prohibit undocumented immigrants from receiving care at county clinics to save an estimated $2.4 million. Contra Costa County last month cut services for undocumented adults, seeking to save an estimated $6 million. Yolo County is facing a $24 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2009-2010 (Kaiser Health Disparities Report, 5/7).Robin Affrime -- head of CommuniCare Health Centers, which provide treatment to low-income residents of Woodland, Davis and West Sacramento -- said the county spending cuts would shift costs to health care providers. Supervisor Jim Provenza said undocumented immigrants would delay care at clinics and eventually seek treatment in hospital emergency departments (Sacramento Bee, 5/20).
Public Health

New Hunger Platform Launched To Enlighten Youth

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced the first interactive web platform devoted to informing and educating students and teachers on hunger issues using a wealth of materials to encourage critical thinking. "Today"s youth are hungry to know more about the problems which are causing food shortages across the globe -- like conflict in Pakistan, high food prices, climate change and the global financial crisis," said Nancy Roman, WFP"s Director of Communications and Public Policy. She said that global hunger is on the rise, with 115 million people having joined the ranks of the hungry in the last two years alone. "Our web platform provides a gateway to enlighten and engage today"s youth who, in a few short years, will be responsible for making critical decisions about the many global challenges which will persist." The Students and Teachers section of WFP"s recently revamped website http://www.wfp.org) is designed to increase awareness and understanding of hunger-related problems among teachers, and allow them to easily integrate topics such as the Millennium Development Goals, of which the reduction of hunger is No.1, into the mainstream academic curriculum. The site provides creative lesson plans and activities for teachers in addition to links to user-friendly educational sites, educational res, blogs and interactive games for students. "This is a one-stop re shop for those who want to know everything they can about hunger - and what it will take to curb it," said Roman, adding that more than 25,000 people around the world die each day from hunger and related causes, 14,000 of them children. A number of educators around the world have contributed to the array of content - including Cape Breton University, Auburn University and 4-H Alabama. Students are encouraged to take action in their local communities through awareness-raising activities, and ideas on how to do this are offered. Among other youth outreach tools already developed by WFP are: FreeRice.com - the popular online word game where players help feed the world through click-based game, while improving their vocabulary. Food-force.com, now in 16 languages, continues to be a popular, fun video game which teaches children about the multitude of challenges of delivering life-saving food in a major humanitarian crisis. Through these initiatives, WFP aims to engage and motivate young people around the world to take action in the fight against hunger at a grassroots level. A prime example of this engagement is the WFP-supported "Universities Fighting World Hunger" - a coalition of 87 universities across the United States, which encourages students to get involved in hunger awareness-raising activities and on-the-ground activism. In the UK, WFP recently teamed up with the UK School Food Trust to launch The Really Good School Dinner campaign, raising over GBP 11,000 for WFP School Feeding Programmes. Over 550 schools participated resulting in more than 400,000 school children pledging to empty their plate to fill the plate of a child in the developing world. United Nations World Food Programme


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