The Arthritis Foundation announces the publication of a new book for
parents of children with juvenile arthritis (JA). Released in conjunction with Juvenile Arthritis
Awareness Month in July, the all-new Raising a Child with Arthritis addresses many of the concerns
parents have about JA – from diagnosis and treatments to family and financial issues.

From the editors of the Arthritis Foundation’s Kids Get Arthritis Too award-winning national
newsletter, the book is written in easy to understand terms and offers solutions for the challenges
parents face when their child has arthritis. Raising a Child with Arthritis provides facts about various
types of JA and information about new treatments such as biologic drugs, while also providing
practical information on giving shots, navigating the education system, coping with flares and
managing daily activities without pain. In addition, parents and young adults who grew up with the
disease share their experiences and tips for success throughout the book.

“It is important for all parents of children with arthritis to gain knowledge about the disease
so it doesn’t overshadow their child’s life,” says Patience H. White, M.D., M.A., Arthritis
Foundation chief public health officer and a pediatric rheumatologist. “With one in 250 children
diagnosed with arthritis or related conditions, it is essential for parents to feel empowered to assist
their child. This book can help them understand more about their child’s disease and treatment
options to improve the quality of life for their child and family.”

With nearly 300,000 children and teenagers under the age of 18 affected by arthritis or other
rheumatologic conditions, JA is one of the most common childhood diseases in the U.S. A study
conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that children diagnosed
with JA and other rheumatologic conditions account for approximately 827,000 doctor visits each
year, including an average of 83,000 emergency department visits.

In an ongoing effort to help youth with JA and their families, the Arthritis Foundation
recognizes Juvenile Arthritis Awareness Month each July and works to promote programs and
projects that bring attention to this over-looked disease. In addition to the release of Raising a Child
with Arthritis, the following Arthritis Foundation activities will take place in July during Juvenile
Arthritis Awareness Month:

- National JA Conference – The Arthritis Foundation hosts the National JA
Conference each year to bring together children with arthritis and their families along
with health professionals who are knowledgeable about JA. The goal is to help
families understand their treatment options, better cope with JA and find strength
from others living with arthritis. This year’s conference will be held in Costa Mesa,
Calif. from July 10-13.

- Juvenile Arthritis Alliance Web Site Launch – In effort to provide more clear and
concise information to families living with JA, the Arthritis Foundation introduced
the Juvenile Arthritis Alliance Web site this month. The new site offers content
aimed at the entire community of people interested and involved in the lives of those
who have JA including parents, young adults, caregivers, teachers, health care
providers, researchers and advocates.

Raising a Child with Arthritis will be released on July 18. The Arthritis Foundation thanks
Amgen and Wyeth for underwriting the development of this book. Pre-order sales will begin on July
10. To order a copy of Raising a Child with Arthritis or for more information about Juvenile Arthritis
Awareness Month activities, visit arthritis/ja-information.

About the Arthritis Foundation

The Arthritis Foundation is the leading health organization addressing the needs of some 46
million Americans living with arthritis, the nation’s most common cause of disability. Founded in
1948, with headquarters in Atlanta, the Arthritis Foundation has multiple service points located
throughout the country.
The Arthritis Foundation is the largest private, not-for-profit contributor to arthritis research
in the world, funding more than $380 million in research grants since 1948. Celebrating its 60th
anniversary this year, the foundation helps individuals take control of arthritis by providing public
health education; pursuing public policy and legislation; and conducting evidence-based programs to
improve the quality of life for those living with arthritis. Information is available 24 hours a day,
seven days a week at 1-800-283-7800 or arthritis.

The Arthritis Foundation Continue reading →

The United Nations estimates that 1.1 billion people across the globe lack access to sustainable, clean drinking water and that 1.6 million children will die each year because of that lack of access. How can science help provide more drinkable water for a growing population on an Earth with limited fresh surface-water and groundwater resources?

Geoscientist David Kreamer of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, noting that at least 37% of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of a coastline, says that desalinization — removing salt from ocean water to create fresh water — is a practical way to meet the growing human need.

Desalinization is not a novel idea, says Kreamer. U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, for example, have had to generate fresh water to help sustain large crews while at sea for six months or more.

In fact, says Kreamer, such ships are ideal platforms for desalinization. And what better use for large, mothballed ocean vessels currently dry-docked or cluttering working harbors? The U.S. alone has a fairly large mothball fleet, including U.S. Navy inactive ships and the U.S. Merchant Marine reserve fleet. Kreamer’s work examines the practicality of recycling decommissioned U.S. Navy vessels, especially with an eye toward using old aircraft carriers, to become mobile desalinization plants.

When ships meet the end of their service life with the U.S. Navy, they are often quite serviceable. Kreamer notes that the decommissioning of the John F. Kennedy multipurpose aircraft carrier in August 2007 saved the Navy about 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, yet the vessel itself is still sea worthy and could be a good candidate for work as a desalinization plant. A change in purpose would save money in other areas as well. The John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier had a crew of about 5,200, but says Kreamer, “You wouldn’t have as many people working a desalinization plant.”

In his talk on 5 October at the 2008 Joint Meeting of The Geological Society of America, Soil Science Society of America, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, in Houston, Texas, USA, Kreamer will take a practical view of the advantages and disadvantages of using formerly mothballed ships to serve as mobile desalinization plants across the globe.

Kreamer will also address how voyaging desalinization plans can (1) help reach more people in need – “they could outrun a hurricane and steam within days to an area of natural or man-made disaster”; (2) harness wind, wave, and solar power to help sustain operations; and (3) meet cost, center of gravity, and environmental concerns.

WHEN & WHERE

Sunday, 5 October 2008, 3:50-4:05 PM

George R. Brown Convention Center, Room 320DE

###

View abstract:
“Feasibility of Using Large Retired and Mothballed Ocean Vessels as Mobile Desalinization Plants”

Source: Christa Stratton

Geological Society of America Continue reading →

In the first study of its kind, researchers led by The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine’s Ross Koppel, Ph.D. studied how hospital nurses actually use bar-coded technology that matches the right patient with the right dose of the right medication. The surprising result is that the design and implementation of the technology, which is often relied upon as a “cure-all” for medication administration errors, is flawed, and can increase the probabilities of certain errors.

Equally surprising is that the urgencies of care and the ingenuity of nurses to cope with these shortcomings have the unintended consequences of creating other medication errors. These findings appear in the July/August issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). The study also illustrates how adjustments to workflow and the technology can dramatically reduce the risk of these errors.

These barcode systems usually consist of handheld devices and computers that match machine-readable barcodes on patients and medications. If they match, and if they are consistent with the ordered medications, the medications are given. If not, usually a signal goes off telling the nurse of a discrepancy.

The study was conducted at 5 hospitals in the Midwest and on the East Coast, but not at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) because it does not yet have medication barcoding. Penn’s Ross Koppel, Ph.D. and his colleagues from other healthcare systems examined close to a half-million instances where nurses and other staff scanned patients and medications. The researchers found a remarkably high proportion of scans involved nurses overriding the technology with workarounds to compensate for difficulties with the barcode systems. These researchers found that nurses scanning the barcode on the medication or the patient’s ID bracelet overrode the technology for 4.2% of patients charted and for 10.3% of medications charted. In contrast, vendors of barcode medication administration (BCMA) systems report error rates that are a small fraction of this study’s numbers; but vendors focus primarily on the ability to physically affix and read barcodes, not on the totality of the many processes in actual use. In addition to examining the ?? million scans, Dr. Koppel and colleagues spent years shadowing nurses using the technology, participated in many BCMA implementation meetings, and conducted scores of interviews with pharmacists, nurses, and IT leaders.

Hospital patients, on average, are subject to one medication administration error a day, according to the Institute of Medicine, and in hospitals, medication administration accounts for 26% to 32% of adult patient medication errors. Thus, an automated system using barcodes to reconcile a patient’s medications and orders with the patient’s identity would be a great advance, helping to ensure the right patient receives the right dose at the right time.

But what Penn’s Professor Koppel and his colleagues found in the five study hospitals were 31 “causes” of problems that engendered workarounds by the nurses. These causes included: unreadable medication-barcodes (crinkled, smudged, torn, missing, covered by another label); malfunctioning scanners; unreadable or missing patient-ID-wristbands (chewed, soaked, missing); non-barcoded-medications; medications in distant refrigerators, lost wireless connectivity; problems with patients in contact isolation, and emergencies. In some cases, if the pharmacy sent two 10mg tablets for a 20mg order, the scanners/computers would not accept the medications. Nurses devised workarounds to compensate for the awkward and inconvenient aspects of the barcode technology. These nonstandard procedures consisted of, for example, affixing extra copies of patient ID barcodes on desks, scanning machines, clipboards, supply room, and doorjambs, as well as carrying several pre-scanned patient’s medications on one tray. Ross Koppel, Ph.D., Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Sociology Department at the University of Pennsylvania, emphasized that “It’s not that staff are lazy or careless, it’s that the system does not work as well as it should. If the refrigerated medication is two floors and a long hallway away, you’re not going to wheel your 87 year old patient to the fridge. You make a copy of her barcode. And while you do that, you help another two patients who also need refrigerated medications.”

“Bar-coding is still under development,” says Koppel. “Administrators and vendors may expect it to be fool-proof, but users know it’s not. It’s a very promising technology that still requires constant refining and careful observation of on-the-floor workflow to get it right.”

The researchers found that in the pressurized, “can-do” culture of today’s hospital, nurses compensated for the imperfect technology and workflow by devising 15 types of workarounds. The study also presents typologies of workarounds, BCMA “causes,” and the kinds of errors associated with each.

Every day BCMAs save lives and stop errors, says Dr. Koppel, and the published study documents thousands of medication errors avoided via these systems. In addition, the article also lists many recommendations for identifying the problems and mitigating workarounds. Four of the study hospitals reduced the number of overrides dramatically by following these recommendations.

“The causes of workarounds are neither rare nor secret,” added Koppel. “They are hidden in plain sight, obscured by, among other things, a blind faith in technology and the urgent needs of patient care. Clever as they are, workarounds are the unintended consequence of a technology in need of continuing and in situ evaluation.”

Professor Ross Koppel’s research on healthcare information technology (HIT) came to national prominence a few years ago with a JAMA article on medication errors associated with computerized physician order entry systems (CPOE). But he has published widely on HIT, noting its many benefits as well as its problems. In the same July/August issue of JAMIA, in fact, he is also the first author on a paper that presents a way of using CPOE to detect and prevent medication errors – a decidedly pro-CPOE piece. Koppel remarked, “Many vendors and their supporters mistakenly believe I’m some sort of Luddite. That’s the exact opposite of my position. I view these technologies as vital; that’s why we must make them work to help clinicians and patients. Right now, the vendors and true believers focus on marketing HIT, and attack any criticisms as anti-technology. That’s the worst way to improve these essential tools.”

This study challenges assumptions of how these increasingly popular bar-coded medication administration systems are actually used in hospital practice. “It is not enough to tell the staff to “do it right”, concludes Koppel, “rather repeated examinations and corrections of the technologies in actual use will help optimize their roles in preventing medication error and enhancing patient safety.”

As noted, HUP does not use barcode medication administration systems, but requires staff to manually check identifiers to correctly match patient and medication. When HUP implements a medication barcode system, it will incorporate the findings from this research.

###

PENN Medicine is a $3.5 billion enterprise dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. PENN Medicine consists of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Penn’s School of Medicine is currently ranked #4 in the nation in U.S.News & World Report’s survey of top research-oriented medical schools; and, according to most recent data from the National Institutes of Health, received over $379 million in NIH research funds in the 2006 fiscal year. Supporting 1,400 fulltime faculty and 700 students, the School of Medicine is recognized worldwide for its superior education and training of the next generation of physician-scientists and leaders of academic medicine.

Source: Marc Kaplan

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Continue reading →

Women perform differently on math tests depending on whether they believe math-related gender differences are determined by genetic or social differences, according to University of British Columbia researchers.

In a paper to be published in the Oct. 19 issue of Science magazine, UBC investigators Ilan Dar-Nimrod and Steven Heine explore how women’s math performance is affected by stereotypes that link female underachievement to either genetic or experiential causes.

Women and math is a controversial topic that led to the 2006 resignation of Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard who speculated that one of the potential reasons why women are represented less in math and science professions is that fewer women than men have the intrinsic ability required by such jobs.

Dar-Nimrod and Heine’s research suggests that women tend to perceive gender differences in math to be innate or genetic, but when women consider such differences to be based on theories of nurture rather than nature, they can improve their performance.

“Our study doesn’t explore whether innate sex differences exist,” says Dar-Nimrod, a Psychology doctoral student. “Instead, we investigated how the perceived source of stereotypes can influence women’s math performance.”

“The findings suggest that people tend to accept genetic explanations as if they’re more powerful or irrevocable, which can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies,” says Assoc. Prof. Heine, who teaches in the Dept. of Psychology.

“But experiential theories may allow a woman to say this stereotype doesn’t apply to me,” says Heine.

Between 2003 and 2006, Dar-Nimrod and Heine conducted their research with more than 220 female participants. Their study provided participants with bogus scientific explanations for alleged sex differences in math.

Some women received a genetic account of inborn traits to explain the difference while others received an experiential account – such as math teachers treating boys preferentially during the first years of math education. Other participants were reminded of the stereotype about female math underachievement, or were told that there are no sex differences in math.

Heine and Dar-Nimrod found the worse math performances belonged to women who received a genetic explanation for female underachievement in math or those who were reminded of the stereotype about female math underachievement. Women who received the experiential explanation performed better – on par with those who were led to believe there are no sex differences in math.

The researchers say the media should report on genetic research with greater care.

“We should be mindful of how science is interpreted, especially genetic explanations where you often see grossly simplified media stories that report on genes for homosexuality, genes for obesity or genes for thrill seeking,” says Dar-Nimrod.

“The reports themselves have the potential to undermine people’s motivations. If I believe that genes have a deterministic influence on my weight, will I still struggle to keep up with my diet and exercise routine?”

###

Contact: Lorraine Chan

University of British Columbia Continue reading →

Quality of care is not linked to the cost of care, according to a study published last week on the Web site of the journal Health Affairs, CQ HealthBeat reports.

For the study, researchers from Dartmouth College and Harvard University analyzed the health care bills of chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries in their last two years of life who received end-of-life care from 2,172 unidentified hospitals. The patients had one of three common conditions: heart attack, pneumonia or congestive heart failure.

The study — sponsored by the National Institute on Aging — looked at common quality indicators at a hospital-by-hospital level instead of regional level (Norman, CQ HealthBeat, 5/22). Researchers compared the data with some of the quality measures reported on the HHS Hospital Compare Web site (Goldstein, “Health Blog,” Wall Street Journal, 5/21). The study found that among the one-fifth of hospitals that spent the least, the cost of end-of-life care was $16,059 on average. In comparison, the cost of end-of-life care at the top 20% of highest-spending hospitals was $34,742 on average. The study also found no link — or even evidence against a link — between spending and the quality indicators.

The researchers noted that the results might be skewed because the quality indicators they used might penalize hospitals that treat sicker patients. In addition, the study used process-of-care measures instead of patient outcomes. According to CQ HealthBeat, the findings of the study could have an effect on the debate over health care reform legislation because lawmakers and President Obama both have said that a reform plan must be able to control costs and expand access to high-quality, affordable health care (CQ HealthBeat, 5/22).

An abstract of the study is available online.

Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

The AMA congratulated its former President, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the Australia Day Honours.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said that Dr Haikerwal was one of many medical professionals whose dedication to their profession, their patients, and their communities was acknowledged on Australia Day.

“Doctors from many diverse backgrounds have been recognised and honoured this year,” Dr Pesce said.

“We have pioneering surgeons and researchers, public health advocates, researchers, mental health and chronic disease experts, disability advocates, and GPs and family doctors who have devoted their lives to serving their local communities.

“It is a very proud day for the medical profession. The AMA congratulates all the doctors and other health advocates whose work has been acknowledged on this special day.

“The AMA is especially proud of Dr Haikerwal. Throughout his time as AMA Victoria President, Federal AMA President, and as a member of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC), he was a strong and forceful advocate for GPs and their patients.

“Mukesh has a gentle nature, a disarming smile, and a very quick wit, but he was always a tough negotiator with politicians and health bureaucrats. He got results.

“In recent times, he has become a leader in the implementation of e-health initiatives in the Australian health system through his work with the National E-health Transition Authority (NEHTA). E-health has long been a passion for Mukesh and, again, he is getting results.

“Throughout all his national leadership roles with the AMA and other organisations, Mukesh has maintained his general practice in Altona North, Melbourne.

“Mukesh’s achievements are all the more remarkable given his long recovery and rehabilitation from a savage bashing in Melbourne in 2008, at the time he was a Commissioner with the NHHRC.

“Dr Mukesh Haikerwal is an outstanding doctor and an inspiring Australian,” Dr Pesce said.

Source:

Australian Medical Association Continue reading →

Black professionals make extra efforts in the workplace to fulfill what they believe are the expectations of their white colleagues, according to research to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

Sociologists Marlese Durr of Wright State University and her co-author Adia Harvey Wingfield of Georgia State University argue that black professionals engage in two types of “emotional performance” in the workplace: General etiquette and racialized emotion maintenance.

“Our analysis of these aspects of workplace behavior reveals that women and men co-mingle etiquette and emotion maintenance to be accepted in the workplace and to fit white expectations,” said Durr. “This emotional overtime in the workplace strengthens race/ethnic group solidarity.”

Whether it’s stressful, inauthentic or downright draining, Durr claims that emotional labor is “a crucial part of black women’s self-presentation in work and social public spaces.” These efforts to fit in can, in effect, make African American women feel isolated, alienated, and frustrated.

Durr and Wingfield illustrate emotional labor as performance with a quote from an African American woman who says of her workplace peers, “They??¦are careful to remember??¦’that’s not professional. Remember they got the s[hit] that’ll get you bit! Keep your Negro in check! Don’t let it jump up and show anger, disapproval, or difference of opinion. They have to like you and think that you are as close to them as possible in thought, ideas, dress and behavior.’”

Marlese Durr, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology at Wright State University, in Dayton, Ohio, where she has taught for 14 years. Durr’s research focuses on the area of organizations, work and occupations, and race and gender. She received her PhD in 1993 from the University at Albany, State University of New York, and is the author of The New Politics of Race: From Du Bois to the 21st Century (Praeger Press, 2002) and Work and Family, African Americans in the Lives of African Americans with Shirley A. Hill (Rowman & Litttlefield, 2006).

Adia Harvey Wingfield is assistant professor of sociology at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she has taught for two years. Her research focuses on the ways race, gender and class intersect to affect various groups in different occupations and workplaces. She received her PhD in 2004 from The Johns Hopkins University, and is the author of Doing Business with Beauty: Black Women, Hair Salons, and the Racial Enclave Economy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), a study of working-class black women entrepreneurs.

###

The paper, “Keep Your ‘N’ In Check: African American Women and the Interactive Effects of Etiquette and Emotional Labor,” was presented on Sunday, Aug. 3, at 2:30 p.m. at the Sheraton Boston at the American Sociological Association’s 103rd annual meeting.

About the American Sociological Association

The American Sociological Association (www.asanet), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.

Source:
Jackie Cooper
American Sociological Association Continue reading →

As health care facilities today seek the best value in imaging and customer service, Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.’s Service organization strives to deliver top-tier service and customer satisfaction. The result of this dedication was once again confirmed by IMV, Ltd., which provides independent analysis of service trends in the imaging industry. In IMV’s 2009 ServiceTrak™ Imaging report on cardiovascular X-ray system service, Toshiba received more top rankings than any other imaging vendor. Toshiba’s cardiovascular X-ray service received the top ranking in 18 out of 36 attributes, including overall service performance, overall satisfaction with a manufacturer, reliability of hardware and reliability of software.

“Today’s health care facilities look for an imaging partner with reliable equipment and quality customer service,” said Ted Nemetz, vice president, Service, Toshiba. “Toshiba has a history of delivering both quality imaging products and timely, excellent service support, which continues to be validated by third parties like IMV ServiceTrak.”

Toshiba’s cardiovascular X-ray customers rated categories on a scale of 1 to 6, giving service for Toshiba’s cardiovascular X-ray systems the industry’s highest scores, including 17 average ratings better than 5.0 (“very good”).

In the area of Service Performance, Toshiba received the highest score in four out of five categories, including overall service performance, service follow-up, availability of replacement parts, and service performance relative to amount charged. In Phone Support Personnel Performance, Toshiba received the highest score in three out of four categories, including effectiveness of telephone troubleshooting by phone support personnel, degree to which commitments are met by phone support personnel, and percent of the time problem is solved by phone support personnel. In OEM Service Engineer Performance, Toshiba received the highest score in four out of six categories, including timeliness of service engineer arrival on-site, degree to which commitments are met by the service engineer, service engineer competence and service engineer attitude.

Source
Toshiba Continue reading →

Published reports on the usefulness of CT scans for complicated H1N1 cases have spurred use of these procedures in U.S. hospitals. According to healthcare market research publisher Kalorama Information, this opens up a pathway of diagnostics for physicians and overall is a positive sign not only for the technology but also for companies making chemical agents for procedures. In the recent report “Medical Imaging Markets: Contrast Agents,” Kalorama estimates the sale of CT contrast agents in the U.S. at $880 million in 2009.

Computed tomography (CT) uses energy waves to image the human body and renders an image in 3D from a series of two-dimensional x-rays. Although it is not completely novel for a CT scan to be ordered for flu cases where pain is reported, a new study suggests the technology is preferable to x-rays. The study, conducted in coordination with the University of Michigan Health Service and published in the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, has given new support to the modality’s usage in the most severe cases of the H1N1 flu virus.

The study, which consisted of a review of thousands of patient records, offered several important findings: that H1N1 flu can cause pulmonary embolism, that PE may be responsible for H1N1 deaths, and that physician evaluation of patients diagnosed with respiratory complications via contrast-enhanced CT scan is recommended. The study did not establish the technology as a test for detecting the virus itself. The primary test for H1N1 is an immunoassay that can detect antigens for specific strains of flu. But the study supports using the CT scan as an adjunctive tool after other tests are performed, to determine if the patient’s flu is a major case.

“This is one of many areas where the agent-enhanced CT scan is playing a supporting role in diagnosis,” said Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information. “Physicians are increasingly comfortable with computed tomography when a diagnosis is not clear from other modalities.”

Trauma, pediatric health, vascular imaging and cardiac imaging are among the areas where CT scans are employed, and other areas are being investigated. Kalorama estimates that over 54.5 million imaging procedures were performed in the U.S. in 2009, most requiring some kind of contrast agent. GE Healthcare, Covidien, Bayer, and Guerbet are among the large manufacturers of contrast agents used for computed tomography.

Kalorama Information’s “Medical Imaging Markets: Contrast Agents” analyzes the world market for contrast media used with medical imaging diagnostic systems and for radiopharmaceuticals used in molecular imaging. The report includes market estimates, forecasts and company profiles. For more information, please visit here.

Source
Kalorama Information Continue reading →

“The yawning disparity in the effectiveness of health care between racial minorities and whites is a stubborn, deadly problem,” a Long Island Newsday editorial states, adding that Nassau Health Care Corp. “deserves kudos for stepping up to the plate” and addressing the problem (Long Island Newsday, 11/20).

Nassau County, N.Y., Executive Thomas Suozzi and NHCC officials last week announced the development of a $6 million Institute for Health Care Disparities, which will aim to reduce health care disparities between minority and white residents. Arthur Gianelli, president and CEO of NHCC, said the institute — which will be the first in the state to specifically target underserved populations — will focus primarily on cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, pediatric asthma and obesity. The institute will aim to aid access to screening, medical treatment and follow-up care (Kaiser Health Disparities Report, 11/16).

While Nassau County is “one of the wealthiest” areas of the country, it is also among the “most segregated” and is “home to 33 medically underserved communities,” the editorial says.

“The challenge now is to implement all those good intentions in a way that will earn the trust and cooperation of the people the corporation hopes to serve,” the editorial states, adding, “That won’t be easy. The history of medical experimentation on blacks and substandard treatment for minorities is shameful and has made many minorities wary of initiatives that target them. Winning them over is essential.”

The editorial concludes, “If successful, the institute would be a model for effectively serving the medical needs of black, Hispanic and [Asian-American] patients. But for that to happen, divides of language, culture and experience have to be bridged. It’s a big job, and a critical one” (Long Island Newsday, 11/20).

Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →