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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
Health Care Reform
 

11
Mar 2010
Health care reform … it’s on everyone’s mind (at least a little)
Here in what is normally sunny, warm San Diego, hundreds of people from children’s hospitals across the country have gathered for their annual spring meeting. The topics at the NACHRI meeting are varied, from public relations and fund-raising tactics, to quality inprovement programs and how to partner with community agencies. And like with most professional
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Patient Safety
 

08
Mar 2010
Go ahead, ask. Patient safety comes first
“It’s OK to ask.” That’s the message of a Greater Cincinnati Health Council-backed campaign to promote patient safety. The idea is that health care providers want patients to be more proactive in their dealings with doctors, nurses and other caregivers. It’s OK to ask if we washed our hands. It’s OK to ask if that’s
By: Thomas McCormally | 4
Childhood Obesity
 

02
Mar 2010
Public health at risk with childhood obesity epidemic
“America is guilty of child abuse.”  Health Affairs Editor-In-Chief Susan Dentzer writes this in the March 2010 issue of the journal, a special issue devoted to combating child obesity. If Dentzer’s charge of abuse doesn’t grab attention, pair it with the First Lady’s initiative to drastically reduce child obesity, AND the contents of Health Affairs’
By: Lisa Simpson, MB. BCh, MPH | 0
Safety and Prevention
 

25
Feb 2010
We can end carnage we see in our ERs
The carnage we see in our emergency rooms has to stop, and I am convinced we have the ability to do it. We have been able to transform Haiti’s seemingly intractable epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis and AIDS and to get the indigenous population to take life-saving drugs, even though dominant ideology said it could not
By: Victor Garcia, MD | 0
Uncategorized
 

23
Feb 2010
Causes of Health Disparities are Socioeconomic and Structural
 Cincinnati has a violence problem. And clustered with violence are disproportionately high rates of infant mortality, low infant birth weights, asthma, obesity, unwed mothers, unintentional injuries, and domestic abuse. Conservatives point to individual failure to embrace mainstream cultural values; liberals blame systemic racism and say focusing on the individual is “blaming the victim.” The population-based
By: Victor Garcia, MD | 0
Research and Discoveries
 

19
Feb 2010
Closing in on prematurity one molecular-sized baby step at a time
Solving the puzzle of unacceptably high prematurity rates in the United States isn’t just a matter of finding the right pieces and fitting them together. It can also require doing something extraordinary before even knowing where to look. Experts say the compatible puzzle pieces are in data that detail the vital, delicate and symbiotic relationship
By: Blog Editorial Team | 0
Vaccines
 

10
Feb 2010
Encouraging news in global vaccine work
Stamping out disease may have seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream a few generations ago, but today we know the power of modern medicine: once common diseases like small pox and polio are now usually only mentioned in medical textbooks and documentaries on the History Channel. And we dare to dream of even
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Chronic Care Networks
 

09
Feb 2010
‘Follow your heart and you can’t go wrong’
It’s not every day a group of doctors sits quietly in a room and listens to patients, parents and peers tell them what they think is wrong about the way the care is provided. But that’s how a group of doctors that met at Cincinnati Children’s sat during a kickoff design meeting last month. They did it so they could
By: Peter Margolis, MD, PhD | 0
Chronic Care Networks
 

08
Feb 2010
‘Disruptive work’ could improve health care through sharing
Usually when we talk about something being disruptive, it’s a bad thing. The wreck on the highway “disrupts” the morning commute. The snowstorm “disrupts” air travel. People on laptops and cell phones “disrupt” meetings. But how about if we could disrupt something that’s just not working and make it better? Then, the disruption would be
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Childhood Obesity
 

05
Feb 2010
Children Spend Too Much Time With Electronics
A recent Denver Post article, about a Kaiser Family Foundation study, reveals that children ages eight to 18  spend about 7½ hours a day using electronic devices. We find that disburbing, even before you toss in the hour and a half they spend texting or the half-hour they talk on their cell phones. Long gone
By: Danielle Lewis | 1
Vaccines
 

03
Feb 2010
Lancet officially retracts study linking autism and MMR vaccine
The British medical journal Lancet yesterday announced its decision to officially retract Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 study linking autism and the MMR vaccine. The decision was the result of long standing scientific concerns about the article – more than a dozen studies have proven there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorders –
By: Bob Frenck MD | 0
Health Care Public Policy
 

02
Feb 2010
Global health efforts could use the boost from DC
We obviously haven’t read the fine print of the proposed federal budget released by the Obama Administration in Washington, D.C., yesterday, but we were encouraged to read about the prospect for new funding to broaden our approach to global health. According to a story in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, the new policy will retain HIV/AIDS
By: Thomas McCormally | 1
Health Care Reform
 

27
Jan 2010
Ten reasons health reform stalled
This caught our eye this afternoon and wanted to pass it along. From The Hill, the article begins: “President Barack Obama’s hope for healthcare reform is in peril, and it’s not all because of Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts.” Read on…
By: Thomas McCormally | 1
Health Care Reform
 

21
Jan 2010
Another benefit from health reform
While there has been a lot of attention about the “cost” of health care reform, one of the possible benefits that’s been overlooked in much of the debate is the loosening of something called “job lock.” That’s what happens when people stay in jobs, even jobs they don’t like or want, because they have health insurance benefits.
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Uncategorized
 

15
Jan 2010
Helping Haiti
The shockingly surreal images coming out of earthquake-stricken Haiti, and the almost unfathomable extent of human suffering, have triggered a massive outreach from people wanting to help the victims of this tragedy.  Never underestimate the depth of human kindness and the desire people have to help those in need – especially during a disaster.  Many
By: Blog Editorial Team | 0
Research and Discoveries
 

13
Jan 2010
Consistent funding the right prescription for biomedical research
The effectiveness of biomedical research in the United States is undermined by an inconsistent “bust-boom-bust” funding cycle, according to an editorial written by Thomas F. Boat, M.D., a physician in the Department of Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Appearing Jan. 13 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the editorial offers commentary on an
By: Blog Editorial Team | 0
Health Care Quality
 

11
Jan 2010
It’s Epic: Health Care IT and quality improvement
Something very significant happened early Sunday morning at Cincinnati Children’s. Something the patients and their families didn’t even notice. But something that was a major step toward making their care safer and more effective.The techies among us call it a giant “go live.”You may think of it as “flipping the switch.” The bottom line: we
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Health Care Quality
 

04
Jan 2010
A Quality New Year
The Ohio Department of Health started off the New Year on the right foot by launching a consumer-friendly website allowing people to compare quality (and eventually pricing) data of Ohio hospitals.  The ODH’s new Ohio Hospital Compare website went live January 1. While only four pediatric measures are included in this first go-round, significantly more
By: Jim Feuer | 0
Uncategorized
 

28
Dec 2009
‘Precious’ reminds us to reach out
What follows is an opinion piece written for the Cincinnati Enquirer published Dec. 21 by Judith Van Ginkel, professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and president of Every Child Succeeds, an $8M home visitation program she spearheaded with three founding partners: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, United Way of Greater Cincinnati, and the
By: Judith Van Ginkel | 0
Health Care Quality
 

18
Dec 2009
Who’s in charge? Family-centered care and reform
Are our politicians ignoring moms in the health care debate? According to a new survey from the blog “Why Moms Rule,” women at least feel that way. Women are responsible for most health care decisions (92 percent of their own; 65 percent of their children’s decisions and 59 percent of their spouse’s or partner’s) and
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Patient Flow
 

17
Dec 2009
Listen up! Patient flow radio program on line
In case you missed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Web-based radio program on Dec. 2, “All Hospitals in favor of saving money say ‘Patient Flow’,” it’s now on line at www.ihi.org. (There’s a link on the right-hand side of the page.) The program, which documents improvements to make sure the right patients are in the
By: Thomas McCormally | 0
Health Care Quality
 

15
Dec 2009
Safety and quality in a high reliability organization
In this space recently, Dr. Steve (our safety officer, Steve Muething, MD) wrote about our patient safety journey. He did so by reminding us at the Tuesday morning Grand Rounds that we are not perfect, but that we’re making progress and we’re always trying to improve. That’s something he and others try to engrain in
By: Thomas McCormally | 2
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