A glaring gap in the U.S. health care system — the giving of care at home — is burgeoning into a costly chasm. Pretty much everybody involved needs to pay close attention and finally act to deal with the nation’s failure to support home caregiving for the sick, injured, debilitated, and aged. The consequences of….
Continue ReadingOutpatient Care
For Dept. of Veterans Affairs, an overhaul and time of reckoning on care
One of the largest, most important health care systems in the country has plans in the works for a huge revamp, including shutting down many of its big, aging hospitals or slashing services there, shifting to smaller clinics, and refocusing its caregiving to parts of the country where its patients live. Taxpayers will want to….
Continue ReadingLethal Colorado cop case shines disturbing light on emergency medical care
Manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and other felony charges filed against paramedics in a Denver suburb will provide the public with a queasy close up look at not only the stresses weighing on medical first responders but also how complacent too many people have become as a crucial part of health care frays under fiscal pressures…..
Continue ReadingCan U.S. billions keep seniors at home and out of problem nursing homes?
As the coronavirus pandemic’s most catastrophic effects recede in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, notably due to vaccinations and other public health measures, residents and their loved ones still face costly, confounding issues in safeguarding the aged, sick, and injured. The Biden Administration wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to help…..
Continue ReadingU.S. teeters between vaccines’ rising successes and pandemic’s fourth wave
The coronavirus vaccine has shown powerful protective qualities when medical scientists scrutinized its large-scale results in real life. It has demonstrated great potency in safeguarding kids ages 12-15, in early test results from the shots’ makers. The inoculation appears to be lasting, ensuring patients for at least six months after did not suffer serious infection….
Continue ReadingHospitals start to roll out newly required data on prices and confidential deals
A lot of people in health care across the country are firing up their computers to dig into long-sought, confidential information from hospitals about their prices and deals they cut on them with an array of parties. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the Trump Administration successfully battled with hospitals to get them to disclose….
Continue ReadingDetails build on authorities’ brutal use of ‘less lethal’ projectiles and tear gas
Just as law enforcement authorities find themselves under fire for instances of racist, excessive uses of force, police agencies across the country seem hell-bent on giving critics more and more evidence for their argument that major policing reforms are needed. The independent, nonpartisan Kaiser Health News Service and USA Today deserve credit for scrutinizing dozens….
Continue ReadingAs virus restrictions ease, MDs and hospitals urge patients to resume care
Doctors, clinics, urgent care facilities, and hospitals are laboring to get out an important message tied to the Covid-19 pandemic: Patients should not delay seeking their needed medical services, especially urgent or emergency treatment, due to fears of getting infected with the novel coronavirus. It made sense to postpone many types of medical services as….
Continue ReadingBookmark deep digs into what’s next with Covid-19 and its impact on medicine
For those who may have more time on their hands due to the pandemic and who may be seeking deeper digs into Covid-19, excellent long-form coverage is abounding. Consider, for example, taking time for the New Yorker article by Siddhartha Mukherjee, a cancer doctor, biologist, and best-selling nonfiction author who delves into the question of….
Continue ReadingLoneliness, debilitation, and depression blamed for seniors’ rising suicides
The nation’s rising suicide crisis torments seniors, too, with just under one out of five such deaths in 2017 occurring with individuals 65 and older. Men 65-plus, experts say, face the highest suicide risk, while seniors 85 and older, men and women, rank No. 2 in groups most likely to die by taking their own….
Continue Reading