New health professional roles emerge within the marketplace

This pair of stories from Kaiser Health News reports on new kinds of health professionals and the role they have within the health care continuum.

Kaiser Health News: 'Child Life Specialists' Help Sick Kids Be Kids
Yoselyn Gaitan, an eight-year-old with a shy smile, sits quietly in an exam room at Children's National Medical Center in Washington D.C., wearing a tiny hospital gown. She looks a little uneasy as she waits to be brought back to the operating room for the final surgery on her cleft palate. Kelly Schraf spots her through the curtain, and tiptoes into her room (Gold, 7/23). 

Kaiser Health News: Meet A New Breed Of Medical Professional: The Health Coach
Health coaches are a new kind of health professional, and it's their job to help people make those easy-to-say, hard-to-do behavioral changes that promote good health -- getting enough exercise, eating a balanced diet, managing stress (Feidt, 7/23).