The nation's cities and states have made a strong effort to prepare for emergency health crises, but big challenges remain, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report looked at staffing, laboratory capability, and other resources of state, local, and territorial health departments for handling bioterrorism or other disasters.
The National Health Service was created 60 years ago as a cornerstone of the British welfare state, and is devoted to the principle of free medical care for everyone. But it has been wrestling with how to handle patients with complex illnesses who want to pay for parts of their treatment while receiving the rest free from the health service.
Two new studies have found that stroke patients who enter the hospital at night and on weekends are more likely to die in the hospital than those who have strokes at "regular" hours. Researchers found that the mortality rate for weekday admissions (7.9 percent) for all strokes was much lower than weekend admissions (10.1 percent). For ischemic stroke, mortality rates were 7.3 percent on weekdays versus 8.2 percent for nights and weekends.
States now are looking at adults between the ages of 19 and 29 as they seek to reduce the number of uninsured. In the past two years alone, 17 states have passed laws that let young adults stay covered under their family policy until their mid-20s. Age limits range from 24 in Delaware, Indiana and South Dakota, to 30 in New Jersey. Eleven states settled on age 25, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service. The pilot project will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google's new service. Each health profile will be protected by a password that's also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools.
Colorado is one of just five states that do not license home healthcare providers, and the state health department says the inability to set minimum standards of care and perform inspections is resulting in increasing instances of deficiencies. Abuses by home caregivers have been revealed in a new state report that is prodding lawmakers to seek more oversight of the industry. Recent legislation would require agencies providing nursing, physical therapy and basic caregiving in patients' homes to be licensed by the state.