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Nursing Homes Wield Pandemic Immunity Laws To Duck Wrongful Death Suits
More than 172,000 nursing home residents died of covid. In lawsuits, some families who lost loved ones say they were misled about safety measures or told that covid wasn鈥檛 a danger in their facilities. (Fred Schulte, )
Medicaid 鈥楿nwinding鈥 Decried as Biased Against Disabled People
People with disabilities say they are abruptly losing their Medicaid home health benefits and are being advised incorrectly when they call state offices for more information. 鈥淓very day the anxiety builds,鈥 one beneficiary told 蘑菇影院 Health News. (Daniel Chang, )
Here's today's health policy haiku:
THIS HARM IS AVOIDABLE
Hours or days may pass
Stuck on stretchers, declining 鈥
Elders in E.R.
- Kathleen K Walsh
If you have a health policy haiku to share, please Contact Us and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to an original story.
Opinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of 蘑菇影院 Health News or 蘑菇影院.
Summaries Of The News:
Despite Coverage Gains, Costs May Mask Biden's Health Care Efforts
A closer look at the numbers helps to explain the shift in political discourse from coverage to affordability. Also in the news: pressure to reduce drug prices, removing insurance perks for seniors, Medicaid unwinding, and more.
President Biden has come closer than any of his Democratic predecessors to reaching the party's long-standing goal of universal health coverage, but unaffordable care costs may overshadow the achievement. (Owens, 5/14)
Bernie Sanders urged Denmark to force its most valuable company, Novo Nordisk A/S, to lower its drug prices, in a letter submitted by the US senator to one of the Nordic country鈥檚 largest newspapers. Sanders, who chairs the Senate鈥檚 Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called on Danes to pressure Novo to 鈥渟ignificantly reduce the outrageously high prices for Ozempic and Wegovy in the US and other parts of the world,鈥 according to the letter, published by the Politiken newspaper on Monday. (Wienberg, 5/13)
Last year, looking to capitalize on a booming Medicare Advantage business, health insurer Aetna offered new perks for seniors. It would reimburse the purchase of hiking boots and national parks fees, for instance, it told clients. Now, Aetna is rolling back its promises. New instructions from federal regulators said insurers couldn鈥檛 reimburse for such items, the company said in memos issued to insurance brokers in recent weeks. (Merrilees, 5/13)
蘑菇影院 Health News:
Medicaid 鈥楿nwinding鈥 Decried As Biased Against Disabled People
Jacqueline Saa has a genetic condition that leaves her unable to stand and walk on her own or hold a job. Every weekday for four years, Saa, 43, has relied on a home health aide to help her cook, bathe and dress, go to the doctor, pick up medications, and accomplish other daily tasks. She received coverage through Florida鈥檚 Medicaid program until it abruptly stopped at the end of March, she said. (Chang, 5/14)
Rhode Island violated the civil rights of hundreds of children with mental health or developmental disabilities by routinely and unnecessarily segregating them at Bradley Hospital, an acute-care psychiatric hospital, federal prosecutors said Monday. Zachary Cunha, U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, said the multi-year investigation found that ... the state left them hospitalized at Bradley for months and in some cases for more than a year. (LeBlanc, 5/14)
In other news 鈥
The U.S. pot sector could see an influx of medical research funding from healthcare investors amid renewed interest from pharmaceutical firms, should a proposal to reclassify cannabis as a lower-risk substance be approved, industry experts said. The current classification as a Schedule I substance has limited research into cannabis due to restricted access to cannabis products, regulatory hurdles and funding limitations. (Roy, 5/14)
In a matter of months, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide whether the drug commonly known as ecstasy can be used as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. An approval by the agency would represent an enormous milestone for the movement to bring psychedelics into the mainstream of mental health care. An FDA rejection of MDMA, the abbreviation of the drug's chemical name, would deal a major setback to the effort. (Stone, 5/13)
Also 鈥
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal from California corrections officials who sought immunity from lawsuits claiming they acted with deliberate indifference when they caused a deadly COVID-19 outbreak at one of the world鈥檚 most famous prisons four years ago. The justices turned down the appeal without comment or dissent. (Weber, 5/14)
Roughly 2,300 people in the U.S. died due to extreme heat in 2023. That risk is likely not going away soon, as scientists say climate change is causing more intense and frequent heat waves. To address that, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released new tools to help people plan for higher temperatures across the country. (Thorp, 5/13)
On a bright June day in 2018, one of the nation鈥檚 top regulators waved groceries in the air, quizzing the secretary of agriculture on which agency is charged with monitoring different types of food. Scott Gottlieb, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration at the time, grinned widely as he held liquid egg whites and a carton of eggs. The former is under the U.S. Department of Agriculture鈥檚 food safety purview. The eggs, under the FDA鈥檚. The mood was jovial, winkingly acknowledging the complexity, and at times absurdity, in the way the government regulates food. (Zhang, Lawrence and Florko, 5/14)
A higher proportion of people who trekked through at least one country with endemic malaria on their way to three southern US border cities arrived with cases of the mosquito-borne illness鈥攏early a third of them with severe disease鈥攊n 2023 than in 2022, finds a聽study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local health departments conducted enhanced imported malaria case investigations from January to December 2023. (Van Beusekom, 5/13)
Weight Loss Drug's Effectiveness Is Good For Four Years, Study Finds
The popular drug Wegovy also is found to reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks in patients no matter how much they weighed, a new study concludes.
In a new paper, published in the journal Nature Medicine, a global team of researchers analyzed the impacts of semaglutide over four years of use. These studies were funded by Wegovy and Ozempic's manufacturer, Novo Nordisk. "This is an important study because it adds further evidence to the discussion on the decision to limit prescription to 2 years [...] because of questionable long term cost effectiveness," Simon Cork, Senior Lecturer in Physiology at Anglia Ruskin University in the UK, who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek. (Dewan, 5/13)
Patients taking Novo Nordisk's popular Wegovy obesity treatment maintained an average of 10% weight loss after four years on the treatment, the company said on Tuesday. ... "This is the longest study we've conducted so far of semaglutide for weight loss," Martin Holst Lange, Novo's head of development, said in an interview, referring to the active ingredient in Wegovy and the company's diabetes drug Ozempic. (Fick, 5/14)
Also 鈥
Novo Nordisk A/S鈥檚 blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes irrespective of how much patients weighed, a study found, results that doctors said could drive more prescriptions for the medicine. The heart benefit was seen across the board in the Wegovy patients, including people who were overweight but not obese, and in people who didn鈥檛 lose much weight, said John Deanfield, a professor of cardiology at University College London, who helped lead the trial. (Kresge, 5/13)
Arizona Supreme Court Rules To Pause Enforcement Of 1864 Abortion Ban
Although a repeal of the Civil War-era law has cleared the state, it won't take effect until 90 days after the state legislative session ends. In the interim, Arizona's attorney general asked the court to halt enforcement until late September. In other news: a new study confirms the safety of abortion pills; and more Americans support abortion access since Roe was overturned.
The Arizona Supreme Court has agreed to delay the enforcement of a 160-year-old abortion ban that mandates prison time for doctors, granting women and health care providers across the state a reprieve until September.聽In doing so, the court granted a request from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, who asked the justices to delay the implementation of the court鈥檚 April 9 ruling on the Civil War-era abortion ban so she could craft an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Gomez, 5/13)
Medication abortion pills 鈥 mifepristone and misoprostol 鈥 are effective and run a low risk of causing serious adverse events when mailed to patients, a new study shows.聽The study, published Monday in聽the peer-reviewed publication JAMA Internal Medicine, looks at the experiences of more than 500 people who wanted to end a pregnancy between January 2020 and May 2022. (O鈥機onnell-Domenech, 5/13)
Almost two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, most Americans still support abortion access.聽About 6 in 10 Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of 8,709 adults released Monday. The share of American adults who believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases has increased by 4 percentage points since 2021, according to Pew. (O鈥機onnell-Domenech, 5/13)
In other reproductive health news 鈥
Louisiana is moving to criminalize possession of two medications used to induce abortion without a prescription, with punishments including prison time. If approved, Louisiana would become the first state to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances, a class of drugs that includes medications that can be abused such as narcotics, steroids and depressants. (Habeshian, 5/13)
Births continued a historic slide in all but two states last year, making it clear that a brief post-pandemic uptick in the nation鈥檚 birth numbers was all about planned pregnancies that had been delayed temporarily by COVID-19. Only Tennessee and North Dakota had small increases in births from 2022 to 2023, according to a Stateline analysis of provisional federal data on births. In California, births dropped by 5%, or nearly 20,000, for the year. And as is the case in most other states, there will be repercussions now and later for schools and the workforce, said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California who follows birth trends. (Henderson, 5/14)
The Texas Supreme Court is considering whether to take up a case that could have Alabama-esque impacts on in vitro fertilization in Texas. What began as a Denton divorce has grown into a larger battle over whether a frozen embryo can be defined as a person. The court has not yet said whether it will take up the case, which centers on three frozen embryos created by Caroline and Gaby Antoun. (Klibanoff, 5/13)
Kori Thompson had long wrestled with the idea of having a child. The 24-year-old worried about the world a kid would face as climate change overtook the globe, fearing the environmental devastation and economic strain that could follow. He had been thinking about getting a vasectomy ever since he learned about the sterilization procedure from a television show. (Reyes, 5/14)
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear鈥檚 upcoming trip to neighboring Tennessee to speak out against that state鈥檚 sweeping abortion ban is the latest sign that the Democrat known for defeating Donald Trump-backed rivals is looking to improve his party鈥檚 prospects in GOP territory and build up his own name recognition. Beshear 鈥 who campaigned against his state鈥檚 near-total abortion ban in winning reelection last year 鈥 will speak next month at an event called 鈥淐hampioning Reproductive Freedom.鈥 (Schreiner, 5/13)
Also 鈥
The Rape Victim Advocacy Program has provided support for survivors of sexual assault for more than 50 years. An IPR News investigation reveals how its abrupt closure came about and how that puts those services for 10% of the state鈥檚 population in jeopardy. (Smith, 5/13)
Providers Worry About Liability In Aftermath Of Change Healthcare Hack
Modern Healthcare reports on rising concern among health providers over what costs and what legal or regulatory consequences could follow the Change Healthcare hack. And Crain's Detroit Business covers how a digital forensics firm negotiates deals during cyberattacks.
It鈥檚 been two-and-a-half months since Change Healthcare鈥檚 systems went dark due to a cyberattack, and questions remain unanswered about when its customers will know the full extent of the damage. Meanwhile, providers are wondering what regulatory or legal consequences they could face 鈥 and whether they will bear costs associated with lawsuits and patient notifications for a breach that occurred outside their own systems. (Hudson, 5/13)
When a ransomware attack happens, companies and insurers seek out specialty operators, firms that are often clandestine but experts in dealing with these criminals.聽In Troy, Michigan, digital forensics firm N1 Discovery plays that role.聽Their teams are often only a degree removed from the hackers themselves. The cat to their mouse. Forensics for the digital age. (Walsh, 5/13)
Ascension鈥檚 hospitals, doctor鈥檚 offices and other care locations in Florida are open and operational as the health system continues to work on restoring its computer network following a ransomware attack. The St. Louis-based chain, which operates 140 hospitals in 19 states, on Monday said its electronic records system and MyChart online patient portal remained offline after last week鈥檚 cyber breech. Additionally, systems used to order certain tests, procedures and medications remain unavailable. (Mayer, 5/14)
In other industry news 鈥
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced Monday it is setting up a grants for two projects on AI and behavioral health. The first will focus on the development of ways to evaluate and improve the quality of healthcare data used by artificial intelligence technology. The second is aimed at accelerating the adoption of health information technology in behavioral health. (Turner, 5/13)
Companies racing to read the genome accurately, quickly, and affordably have hit a snag recently, with several firms reporting that their growth has slowed, stalled, or reversed. Upstart Element Biosciences is hoping it can succeed despite the challenging market conditions. (Wosen, 5/14)
Bayer (BAYGn.DE) beat first-quarter analyst forecasts as it reported a slight drop in adjusted earnings on Tuesday, providing a respite for the CEO's turnaround efforts.The group also lowered its full-year earnings outlook, citing negative currency effects, but retained its operating forecast. The company's quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), adjusted for one-off items, slipped 1.3% to 4.41 billion euros ($4.76 billion), above an average analyst estimate of 4.15 billion euros posted on the company's website. (Burger, 5/14)
Philips (PHG.AS) has sued SoClean, a maker of ozone-based cleaning systems for breathing devices, in an effort to make it pay part of a $1.1 billion settlement Philips reached last month with people who say they were injured by Philips' recalled devices. In a complaint filed late Friday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, federal court, the Dutch conglomerate said that if any users were injured after using its machines for treating sleep apnea and other breathing problems, those injuries were caused "in whole or in part" by ozone in SoClean's products. (Pierson, 5/13)
Merck (MRK.N) said on Monday it had discontinued an experimental combination treatment testing a new type of immunotherapy in patients with a severe form of skin cancer after side effects led to high discontinuation. This is the latest setback for the experimental drug, vibostolimab, and the related promising new class of immunotherapies called anti-TIGIT. Merck was testing vibostolimab along with Keytruda, its top-selling cancer drug, in a late-stage study in patients with resected high-risk melanoma. (5/13)
蘑菇影院 Health News:
Nursing Homes Wield Pandemic Immunity Laws To Duck Wrongful Death Suits
In early 2020, with reports of covid-19 outbreaks making dire headlines, Trever Schapers worried about her father鈥檚 safety in a nursing home in Queens. She had delighted in watching her dad, John Schapers, blow out the candles on his 90th birthday cake that February at the West Lawrence Care Center in the New York City borough. Then the home went into lockdown. (Schulte, 5/14)
In an unusual move, Sandoz is no longer cooperating with a U.K. industry trade group following a dispute over allegations that the company inappropriately marketed a biosimilar medicine. (Silverman, 5/13)
Fentanyl Seizures Soared Between 2017 And 2023: Study
In fact, seizures more than quadrupled during that time period. Last year alone, over 115 million pills were seized by law enforcement. Also in the news: a warning about false results from Cue Health covid tests; cortisol and stress; "heart age" and health levels; and more.
The number of fentanyl seizures by law enforcement more than quadrupled between 2017 and 2023, with researchers finding the drug has continued to entrench itself in the country鈥檚 illicit drug supply. Seizures of fentanyl in the U.S. have followed an exponential upward trend since 2017, according to data from the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program. (Choi, 5/13)
The study was led by researchers who participate in the National Drug Early Warning System, a federal program that monitors drug seizures in 33 so-called High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas across the country. The data comes from a mix of federal, state and local law enforcement organizations. It does not include seizures made by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (Bowman, 5/13)
Also 鈥
The Food and Drug Administration warned consumers Monday to not use Cue Health鈥檚 at-home Covid-19 tests. This follows an FDA warning letter to the company last week that said Cue was not following the conditions stipulated in the emergency use authorizations for its tests. (Trang, 5/13)
If you鈥檝e noticed people talking about managing their cortisol lately, you鈥檙e not alone.聽Chatter about the stress hormone has surged. Doctors say patients are bringing it up more often, and Google searches for how to lower cortisol reached a high in April. Wellness influencers warn about having too much cortisol or too little, and some promote supplements that claim to help.聽(Reddy, 5/13)
Do you know how old your heart is? And does it even matter?聽More online calculators, wearable devices and medical tests are attempting to estimate your heart鈥檚 age. The companies and organizations behind the tools say that having insight into your heart health can prompt you to make lifestyle changes to help stave off cardiovascular disease down the road. (Janin, 5/13)
A larger proportion of Americans are worried about their mental health now than at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey from CVS Health. In March, the nation鈥檚 biggest pharmacy chain partnered with Morning Consult to poll 2,202 U.S. adults. In survey results released Thursday, about 65% of respondents said they鈥檝e experienced concerns about their own mental health or that of friends and family, compared to 59% in April 2022 and 50% in April 2020. (Leake, 5/14)
Deciding whether to withdraw life support after a severe traumatic brain injury is extremely difficult. Loved ones are faced with balancing their hopes for recovery with the desire not to prolong suffering, and clinician insight is essential. With the support of critical care physicians, most decisions on whether to end life support are made within 72 hours of hospitalization. But a new paper published Monday in the Journal of Neurotrauma suggests waiting a little longer 鈥 and gathering more data 鈥 may be beneficial. (Merelli, 5/14)
Large Study IDs New Breast Cancer Genes In Women Of African Ancestry
Twelve genes were identified in women with African ancestry in a study, which could help better predict some people's risk of the disease in the future. A separate study found people of West African ancestry have a higher risk of transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis.
Twelve breast cancer genes identified in women of African ancestry in a large study published on Monday may one day help better predict their risk for the disease and highlights potential risk differences from women of European descent. Studies to identify genetic mutations linked with breast cancer have previously mainly focused on women of European ancestry. (Lapid, 5/13)
Among cardiologists, it鈥檚 known that transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis, a type of heart disease, is caused by the misfolding of a protein called transthyretin, which builds up in the walls of the heart, causing the muscle to get thicker and stiffer. One reason this can happen is because of a genetic mutation caused by the gene variant V142I, which is commonly found in people of West African descent. (Balthazar, 5/13)
Even if your genetics put you at greater risk for early death, a healthy lifestyle could help you significantly combat it, according to a new study. That risk could be mitigated by about 62% in people with a genetic predisposition, said lead author Dr. Xifeng Wu, dean of the School of Public Health at Zhejiang Univeristy School of Medicine in China. (Holcombe, 5/13)
Late-stage results of Cytokinetics鈥 drug for a rare heart disease suggest it can compete with a similar treatment sold by Bristol Myers Squibb on efficacy and safety, and can also be dosed more conveniently, potentially making it a more attractive option for doctors if approved. (Chen, 5/13)
The first study of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in a large population of adult heart-failure patients suggests that vaccinated participants are 82% more likely to live longer than their unvaccinated peers, according to an聽analysis presented over the weekend at the Heart Failure 2024 scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in Lisbon, Portugal. (Van Beusekom, 5/13)
Scientists might be able to predict whether you will gain or lose weight from the size of your fat cells. It has long been known that the size and number of our fat cells determine how much body fat we have. But exactly how they impact long-term changes in body weight has been less well understood. To explore these associations, researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden measured the size and number of fat cells in the abdominal fat of 260 volunteers with an average BMI of 32. (Dewan, 5/13)
Not all sugar is created equal. Indeed, when it comes to childhood obesity, the source of sugar is much more important than the total amount consumed, new research suggests. Roughly 1 in 5 children and teenagers in the United States live with obesity, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Childhood obesity is associated with an increased risk of various health conditions, including high blood pressure and heart disease, diabetes and breathing problems, as well as psychological problems. (Dewan, 5/13)
The voice Alexis 鈥淟exi鈥 Bogan had before last summer was exuberant. ... Then that voice was gone. Doctors in August removed a life-threatening tumor lodged near the back of her brain. ... Months of rehabilitation aided her recovery, but her speech is still impaired. Friends, strangers and her own family members struggle to understand what she is trying to tell them. In April, the 21-year-old got her old voice back. Not the real one, but a voice clone generated by artificial intelligence that she can summon from a phone app. (O鈥橞rien, 5/14)
Also 鈥
The Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA) last week issued a聽report calling on G7 countries to commit to funding pull incentives and making other investments in antibiotic innovation. The report, which summarizes a GCOA-convened April meeting that included experts and government officials, ... asserts that the lack of new antibiotics and rising resistance to current antibiotics is having a severe impact on those most at risk of infection and that the current antibiotic pipeline is inadequate and must be prioritized. (Dall, 5/13)
A聽study of patients at the end of life in South Korea found high rates of exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics, particularly among those with cancer, researchers reported today in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology. ... "Our findings suggest that patients at EOL, particularly those with cancer, are increasingly and heavily exposed to broad-spectrum antibiotics, which, although likely a consequence of increased AMR [antimicrobial resistance] over time, poses a great threat for further AMR emergence and spread," the study authors wrote. (Dall, 5/13)
Wastewater In 9 Texas Cities Tests Positive For H5N1 Avian Flu
Ten cities were part of a research effort: Nine had H5N1 bird flu virus levels in wastewater, sometimes at concentrations matching seasonal flu. Also in the news: probation for a West Virginia health official in a covid testing scandal; gas stove warnings in California; and more.
Researchers who sequenced viruses from wastewater samples from 10 Texas cities found H5N1 avian flu virus in 9 of them, sometimes at levels that rivaled seasonal flu. In other developments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in updates on its response to H5N1 outbreaks in cattle said experiments in ferrets began last week. (Schnirring, 5/13)
A former West Virginia state health official was sentenced Monday to one year of probation for lying about whether or not he verified vendor invoices from a company claiming to have conducted COVID-19 tests for the state. Timothy Priddy was sentenced in federal court for his guilty plea to making a false statement to investigators. (Raby, 5/13)
California could require all new gas stoves sold in the state to carry a label warning users about pollutants they can release that have been linked to respiratory illnesses. The state Assembly approved a proposal Monday that would require the label on gas stoves or ranges made or sold online after 2024, or sold in a store after 2025. The bill now heads to the state Senate. (Austin, 5/14)
Utility companies, contractors, construction crews, plumbers and homeowners are working together to map the locations of every lead water service line in Colorado in an effort to help ensure the safety of the state鈥檚 approximately 900 community drinking water systems. (Flowers, 5/13)
The tables set up near the entrance of the Big Night Live concert venue looked like a typical merch spread. But instead of band T-shirts and buttons, there were plastic models of human noses and a handful of naloxone nasal sprays. This unusual display was part of a medical training for bar and restaurant workers 鈥 who are often the first to encounter people experiencing a drug overdose. (Hogan, 5/14)
In other news from across the country 鈥
An initiative to help Philadelphia residents manage their chronic illnesses has received a $5.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Carmen Alvarez, a nursing professor at the University of Pennsylvania, helps lead the program, which is a partnership between Penn Nursing, Philadelphia鈥檚 Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity, and grassroots organizations. (Gutman, 5/13)
Philadelphia-area hospitals are rolling carts outfitted with video screens and virtual cameras into patient rooms with the hope that remote nurses can reduce their risk of falling, pulling out tubes, or hurting themselves another way. One remote nurse can do the work of up to a dozen in-person staffers by watching a bank of cameras stationed in patient rooms, and sometimes interacting with patients via video. (Gantz, 5/14)
About 73% of Illinois鈥 Medicaid recipients remain on the rolls after the first redetermination cycle following the COVID-19 pandemic, while approximately 660,000 recipients have been disenrolled. (Raju, 5/14)
Editorial writers discuss mental health awareness, accessing health care, developmental milestones, and more.
Amid an enormous societal push to destigmatize mental illness and encourage more conversation about emotions, young people have been flooded with mental health information on social media and elsewhere. But much of it is unreliable and counterproductive. (Amanda Su and Adam Westbrook, 5/14)
Behavioral health care and primary care are among the most important medical specialties to keep patients healthy and avoid exacerbating illnesses. Yet both are in crisis. It is difficult to find a primary care doctor. According to data from Massachusetts Health Quality Partners and the Center for Health Information and Analysis鈥檚 primary care survey, in 2021 more than one-third of residents reported difficulty obtaining necessary health care in the prior 12 months. (5/12)
One study of children with achondroplasia found that 100 percent of them commando crawled when they first started crawling. As a parent, I didn鈥檛 know what to think. I felt more than a little scared, and I had no idea what to do. Developmental milestones, like crawling, seemed so straightforward鈥攂ut only as long as my son was passing them. Did my son absolutely have achondroplasia? (Chris Sheldrick, 5/13)
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the long-awaited final rule on nursing home staffing standards last month. There is good news: nursing homes are now required to have a registered nurse on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is a significant improvement providing clinical and leadership expertise around the clock. (Elizabeth Halifax and Lori Smetanka, 5/13)
Until recently, getting an MRI meant traveling to the hospital. But a new generation of more affordable and highly portable MRI (pMRI) devices are rapidly reshaping neuroimaging research and clinical care. The scanner will now come to you. That means the time is ripe for a related innovation: neuroimaging counseling. (Nancy Lu, Sumita Strander and Francis X. Shen, 5/14)