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Vaccines
 

10
Aug 2010
Whooping cough epidemic linked to people who refuse vaccines
California’s whooping cough epidemic could be the worst in 50 years. As of late July, the state reported nearly 2,200 cases of the bacterial infection, including seven deaths — all infants younger than two months. And now whooping cough is on the rise in other states, too. Why? Because people aren’t getting vaccinated. It happened
By: Bob Frenck MD | 0
Health Care Public Policy
 

04
Aug 2010
Health care improvement needs more doctors
The headline here seems to make intrinsic sense. After all, health care is a doctor’s world and therefore doctors would be heavily involved in the process to make it better, safer and more efficient. Right? Not always, says Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, the Director of Hospital Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s. Dr. Conway just finished a
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Research and Discoveries
 

26
Jul 2010
Parental Job Loss Leads to Kids Losing Health Coverage
Take a moment to imagine a large quantity of something – it can be anything. Got it? Ok, so how much of “something” did you imagine? One hundred? One-hundred thousand? These are both considered large quantities, yet both values pale in comparison to 15.3 million currently unemployed Americans. Now consider that the majority of these
By: Gerry Fairbrother, Ph.D. | 0
Health Care Public Policy
 

23
Jul 2010
Senator Brown says efforts are “woefully short”
In pediatric medical circles, we take any opportunity to remind anyone who will listen that “children are not small adults.” We make the distinction because treating children takes special care. You can’t just take adult medicine and “cut it down to size” for children. Unfortunately, when it comes to disease and treatment research, children take
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Rare and Complex Conditions
 

20
Jul 2010
“A ‘Best’ Hospital for Cystic Fibrosis Kids”
Fifty years ago, most children with cystic fibrosis died before they were 10.  Many did not live long enough to see the inside of a classroom.  But according to the most recent numbers available from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the median age of survival is now 37.4 years – clearly much better, but experts at
By: Jim Feuer | 0
Fitness and Nutrition
 

12
Jul 2010
HealthWorks! first summer camp a hit
Luring kids away from their video games for an entire week to learn healthier lifestyle habits can be a challenge — unless they’re going to a fun-filled camp with their peers.Summer camp is a new twist for HealthWorks!, which provides innovative programs to help overweight young people and their families improve their eating habits  and
By: Shelley Kirk PhD RD LD | 1
Health Care Quality
 

07
Jul 2010
‘Best choice’ Berwick named head of CMS
We’re pleased to write that today the right person has been appointed head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and will be thrust into the middle of the efforts to reshape health care in the United States. Pediatrician Donald Berwick, MD, a leading advocate of patient safety and quality improvement in health care, became
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Health Care Quality
 

30
Jun 2010
Ohio Perinatal Quality Collaborative Improves Infant Health, Controls Costs
Statewide Program Significantly Reduces Inappropriate Scheduling of Births before 39 Weeks Cincinnati Children’s News Release A statewide Ohio program significantly reduced the monthly rate of inappropriately scheduled births before 39 weeks gestation, helping to avoid expensive neonatal intensive care unit admissions and decrease the risk of infant deaths, according to two studies by the Ohio
By: Blog Editorial Team | 0
Patient Safety
 

29
Jun 2010
Creating the Safest OR
Health care is risky business.  And while checklists, as advocated by Dr. Atul Gawande in his book The Checklist Manifesto, are a good start in reducing medical errors, they aren’t enough. The overall mortality rate in pediatric cardiac surgery nationally remains around 3 to 4 percent – even after implementing checklists. We need to do
By: Pirooz Eghtesady MD PhD | 0
Health Care Quality
 

24
Jun 2010
Overcoming Unstable Insurance Coverage for Ohio Kids with Special Health Care Needs
A third of Ohio children with special health care needs have unstable or inadequate insurance coverage despite the fact that they may qualify for government health programs.Our Child Policy Research Center has analyzed data about Ohio children with special health care needs (CSHCN).  Some 445,200 children, or 16.2 percent of all Ohio children, meet the
By: Gerry Fairbrother, Ph.D. | 1
Safety and Prevention
 

16
Jun 2010
Teen pregnancy rates encouraging but still need work
Three out of every 10 girls becomes pregnant by the age of 20, in the United States. Even more sobering, the United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy and births of any industrialized country: birth rates here are 1.5 times higher than the United Kingdom which has the highest rate in Europe; three times
By: Paula Braverman MD | 3
Safety and Prevention
 

24
May 2010
Child mortality rates declining
A new study in the Lancet offers good news in showing that death rates in children under 5 are dropping in many countries, according to data from 187 nations from 1970 to 2010.  The study notes that 7.7 million children are expected to die this year around the world. That number is still huge, but
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Safety and Prevention
 

10
May 2010
CDC chief says war on tobacco must continue
Science has managed to document tens of thousands of things that can go wrong with the human body. Some of them cause minor discomfort – think heartburn. Others are more serious, or even deadly. Sometimes we don’t have a clue how to fix it and all we can do is sit back and watch (and
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Health Care Quality
 

06
May 2010
Berwick II: Health reform not for the faint of heart
Don Berwick, President Obama’s choice to lead the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, faces many challenges. Transformation of health care is not for the faint of heart. But there is very good evidence that the reduction in cost and the simultaneous improvement in quality can, and should be, tackled at the same time. Uma
By: Uma Kotagal, MBBS | 1
Health Care Quality
 

05
May 2010
Don Berwick: Just the thinking health care needs
It’s been a pleasure these past few weeks to see all the praise being heaped on our friend Don Berwick, who is President Obama’s choice to lead the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Sometimes it’s hard to argue with the President of the United States! I’ve had the pleasure of working with Don over
By: Uma Kotagal, MBBS | 0
Health Care Reform
 

23
Apr 2010
HHS chief continues to trumpet health care I-T
Continuing a refrain she used during her visit to Cincinnati Children’s a couple weeks ago, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of  Health and Human Services, told a group of reporters from across the country that making improvement in health care information technology is what the future of medicine is all about.“The investment we make in health care
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Safety and Prevention
 

16
Apr 2010
No kind of alcohol is safe
(Blogmeister’s note: This information was first published in the Cincinnati Enquirer on April 11) Alcohol use among adolescents affects all socioeconomic groups, and represents a tremendous financial and social cost. It can affect every organ system in the body. In adolescents, early onset of drinking and alcohol misuse over several years is associated with changes
By: Sarah E. Oerther, MSN, M.Ed, RN, CSPI | 0
Health Care Quality
 

14
Apr 2010
Time to work on real quality in health care reform
There was a time that when the feds talked about quality in terms of Medicare and Medicaid, they were referring to fraud. If you weren’t stealing, you ran a quality program. Times have changed, thankfully. It’s still wrong to steal, of course, but today when quality health care is on the table, we’re talking about
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Health Care Public Policy
 

08
Apr 2010
Every Child Succeeds Curbs Infant Mortality with Targeted Pregnancy and Post Care
The Global Report on Preterm and Stillbirth was published in February by the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS). The report shows that newborn deaths account for 42 percent of mortality in children under the age of five. Forty-two percent equals nearly six million deaths annually from stillbirth or preterm birth complications. Despite
By: Judith Van Ginkel | 0
Health Care Reform
 

05
Apr 2010
The future of health care is here (in time and space)
Sometimes it’s nice to hear what you already know. One of those times was this morning when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius came to Cincinnati Children’s to learn about some of our work and to talk about what’s next for health care reform. “This is the future,” she said after touring our clinics
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Childhood Obesity
 

30
Mar 2010
When is it too late in the battle against obesity?
Political tension continues to swirl in Washington as the recently passed health care bill has many stakeholders on both sides of the aisle – including many general consumers – pleading for concrete, “real” reform. Not “insurance reform” that addressed in the bill and not simply for immediate health concerns, but the legislation is being critically
By: Thomas McCormally | 2
Chronic Care Networks
 

29
Mar 2010
Social media and health care catching on
Since last fall, we’ve been talking about ways to improve health care by harnessing the collective intelligence of doctors, nurses and patients through social networking. Seems this idea is catching on. See this latest story from MarketWatch. The story is mostly about Jesse Dylan, who happens to be among those working with Cincinnati Children’s doctors
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Health Care Reform
 

23
Mar 2010
Health Care reform and kids — still lots of work to do
We’ve been waiting for the dust to settle a bit over the health care reform debate, but that doesn’t appear too likely any time soon. Here are two bits of information from The Advisory Group just in today:Law of the LandPresident Obama on Tuesday is expected to sign the Senate health reform bill into law
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Health Care Quality
 

12
Mar 2010
Quality, safety, health reform: what’s best for the kids
Dozens of speakers at the NACHRI spring meeting, Creating Connections, are engaging representatives from children’s hospitals and related institutions in a vigorous dialogue this week on topics from quality and safety to health care reform, transparency, working in partnership and, in essence, doing what’s right for the kids.Here are links to some slides from the
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
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