About 1,500 people have made their way to an Inglewood, CA, sports arena where dozens of volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses, and other healthcare professionals are providing free medical services. Remote Area Medical Foundation is a trailer-equipped service that has staged health clinics in rural parts of the United States, Mexico, and South America. It brought its health camp to urban Los Angeles County to begin an eight-day stint that the group's officials described as its first foray into a major urban setting.
President Obama touched on hospital readmissions at a healthcare town meeting, saying "too often we're not seeing the best practices in some of these hospitals to prevent people from being readmitted. That costs a lot of money. So those are the kinds of changes we’re talking about." Some federal healthcare bills aim to change that by providing lower Medicare payments for hospitals with high risk-adjusted readmission rates, notes the Wall Street Journal Health Blog.
Many hospitals haven't adopted computerized provider order entry systems and other technologies designed to prevent medication errors, due in part to their high costs. A recent survey suggests that only 17% of U.S. hospitals use CPOE, and other surveys have found even fewer hospitals use bar coding.
Digital games are one of the latest tools being used to improve health outcomes, according to Carleen Hawn, co-founder and editor of Healthspottr.com. Virtual realities, computer simulations, and online play are among the games gaining traction, Hawn says, adding that health-related digital games have an "immense" potential for growth in the digital game market. According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the worldwide market for game hardware and software generated $42 billion in revenues in 2007 and will grow to an estimated $68 billion by 2012. Currently, digital health games generate an estimated $6.6 billion.
During a webcast on health reform, David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health IT, said that health information technology can improve healthcare quality and lower costs by preventing adverse drug interactions and eliminating duplicative tests. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius added that telemedicine services provide people in rural areas with remote access to physicians and medical experts.
The White House has started a new Web site to fight charges that President Obama's proposed overhaul of the nation's healthcare system would inevitably lead to socialized medicine, rationed care and even forced euthanasia for the elderly. Speaking at a summit of North American leaders in Mexico, Obama predicted that "the American people are going to be glad that we acted to change an unsustainable system so that more people have coverage."