Category: Health Care Public Policy

Cincinnati Children’s has been advocating along with 27 other children’s hospitals for the National Pediatric Research Network Act to increase funding for pediatric research within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The bill – H.R. 6163 – passed unanimously in the U.S. House of Representatives last month and now needs only to clear the Senate

Ohio has the best statewide network of children’s hospitals in the country. Thanks to the high quality, cost effective care at six freestanding children’s hospitals across the state — in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Akron, Toledo and Cleveland — no child in Ohio is more than a two-hour drive from a flagship hospital. Today, however, we

The 2012 federal budget, offered to Congress on Monday Feb. 14, would eliminate the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program. As Dr. Tom DeWitt discussed here last week, since the program’s inception in 1999, this funding has helped ensure children receive care from pediatric specialists trained to meet their unique health care needs. “The

A vital national program helping to ensure that children receive care from pediatric specialists trained to meet children’s unique health care needs is up for renewal this year at the federal level. Since 1999, the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program has provided funding to children’s hospitals to train the next generation of pediatric

Another year come and gone. For some, this is a time to say “good riddance.” For others, there’s sorrow in watching 2010 pass into the history books.For those involved in health care, the year just past is one of monumental change. Health care took center stage for much of the past two years. In March,

Comparative effectiveness research is all the rage in medical and political circles these days. It’s the simple-sounding concept of comparing treatments and interventions to figure out which one is best for which patients. It’s not something we’ve done a lot of in medicine, but that’s about the change.As part of this year’s health care reform

It’s no secret that we measure just about everything at Cincinnati Children’s. We do it so we can tell how we’re doing in our quest to be the leader in improving child health. We also share the information because we believe the more people who have the knowledge, the greater the advancements we can make.

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

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

The Healthy Choices for Healthy Children legislation we discussed a couple of months back (here, and here) passed in the Ohio Senate yesterday afternoon. Cincinnati Children’s and the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association have strongly supported this bill from its infancy and we are pleased it has passed this crucial vote. A companion bill is expected to

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

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

Somewhere I read that excuses are like noses. Everybody’s got one, so go ahead and pick one.Efforts to improve health care are kind of like that: seems everyone has a reason not to tackle this tough issue. Some of the excuses are legitimate enough. Some are just excuses.As the nation’s leaders in health care improvement

A lot has been happening in the child health public policy arena. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of it all.To help, the Child Policy Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s, part of the Division of Health Policy and Clinical Effectiveness, publishes a newsletter. The fall edition just hit the newsstands this week. (Well, OK, no

The headline of this post is something I heard my grandmother say over and over. Or maybe it was my mother. Anyway, it’s something those who lived through the Great Depression learned and it became a part of their being. There have been reports that suggest as we learn to live with less through this

The room that is housing the Department of Federal Affairs for the American Academy of Pediatrics this weekend at its National Conference and Exhibition is a busy place. Doctors and other interested people are stopping by to talk about various health care proposals and learn what they can do to help. As I visited with