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First Edition: March 1, 2013

Kaiser Health News staff writer Mary Agnes Carey reports: "David P. Blom is one of thousands of hospital executives across the country who are bracing for a reduction in Medicare payments as part of a series of federal spending cuts that begin Friday. Blom, 58, is president and chief executive officer of OhioHealth, a Columbus, Ohio, based not-for-profit health care system that includes 18 hospitals, 23 health and surgery centers, home-health providers and other facilities."

1 Mar 2013

Haiti launches $2.2B, 10-year plan to eradicate cholera

"The Haitian government's $2.2 billion, 10-year plan to eradicate cholera was launched on Wednesday against the backdrop of the U.N.'s rejection of a legal claim from more than 5,000 victims" that sought compensation for the cholera epidemic, which "has killed more than 8,000 people and infected nearly 648,000" and is thought to have been started by a U.N. peacekeeping mission, the Guardian reports.

1 Mar 2013

Health law implementation pushes quality goals forward

The Washington Post reports on hospitals' efforts to reduce readmission rates, while KHN details how some states are working on insurance coverage quality ratings before the federal health law requires them to do so in 2016.

1 Mar 2013

GlaxoSmithKline's HIV/AIDS business joins Medicines Patent Pool

"GlaxoSmithKline's HIV/AIDS drugs business is to share intellectual property rights on children's medicine in a patent pool designed to make treatments more widely available in poor countries," Reuters reports.

1 Mar 2013

Arkansas, Michigan advance payment plans for health exchanges

Today's headlines include reports that Arkansas will use federal funds to pay for its state-based health exchange while action in Michigan suggests momentum might be building to pursue a partnership exchange that will be run by the federal government.

1 Mar 2013

Health law, Medicare benefit design draw congressional attention

House GOP doctors released a "health care state of the union" video that included health law criticisms, but no talk of repeal. Meanwhile, issues like Medicare copays and quality were discussed during a Ways and Means hearing earlier this week.

1 Mar 2013

Speculation continues over possible changes to U.S. food aid program

"The U.S. Food for Peace, a food aid program with an annual $2 billion price tag, is reportedly being considered to be replaced with a more direct cash donation system, angering [some] senators and grassroots organizations," Devex's "Pennsylvania Ave." blog reports.

1 Mar 2013

State lawmakers' positions on Medicaid expansion key to plans' future

Even after governors -- both Republican and Democrat -- express their interest in opting for the health law's Medicaid expansion, the action that follows in state legislatures is important to watch. News reports follow from states including California, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Virginia.

1 Mar 2013

Weekend reading: Navigating treatment; Can a robot replace your doctor?

Your pathology report indicates that you have stomach cancer. Hearing those words conveying yet another cancer-related diagnosis - my fourth since the age of 20 - I felt, at the age of 57, as though I had been airdropped into a foreign country.

1 Mar 2013

World Bank proposes agenda for improving status of women, addressing GBV

"The World Bank is ramping up its efforts for global policymakers to address gender-based violence [GBV], proposing an agenda for improving the status of women and directing more research toward the economic and social costs of violence," TrustLaw reports.

1 Mar 2013

Examining community health workers' value in saving lives, improving health

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog features "a Q&A between Julia Bluestone of Jhpiego and the Frontline Health Workers Coalition and Dr. Henry Perry of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on a recently released report examining community health workers' effectiveness in saving lives and improving health."

1 Mar 2013

Associated Press examines international aid to Afghanistan as troops withdraw

The Associated Press examines how the "impending withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign combat forces" from Afghanistan is affecting international aid to the country, which is "on the decline because of donor fatigue and fears of deteriorating security after nearly 12 years of war."

1 Mar 2013

Grand Challenges Brazil seeks innovation in preventing, managing preterm birth

Writing in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, Steven Buchsbaum, Gary Darmstadt, and Rachel Lenington of the foundation state, "Announced this week, the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have launched a call for proposals to promote innovation in health research to tackle some of the biggest challenges of maternal and child health."

1 Mar 2013

Report: Medicare paid $5.1B to nursing homes that provided substandard care

Medicare paid billions in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes nationwide that were not meeting basic requirements to look after their residents, government investigators have found.

1 Mar 2013

Loyola to reach more than 200 students on Mar.11 with classroom presentations on healthy snacks

Students at Proviso East High School will soon have the opportunity to learn about the importance of healthy snacking during National Nutrition Month in March. Loyola University Chicago dietetic intern, Sara Casey, will reach more than 200 students on Monday, March 11, with classroom presentations on healthy snacks to help students feel and perform their best.

1 Mar 2013

New York City Mayor Bloomberg pledges $100M to global polio eradication initiative

"New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pledged $100 million to help the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others to fight polio around the world," the Associated Press reports.

1 Mar 2013

U.N.'s assertion of immunity in cholera outbreak is morally, legally 'right' decision

"When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invoked diplomatic immunity last week for peacekeepers who unwittingly caused the cholera outbreak that killed nearly 8,000 Haitians, his decision looked cold-hearted," but "sympathy for Haitians should not mask the necessity of the secretary-general's decision," Boston Globe correspondent Juliette Kayyem writes in an opinion piece in the newspaper.

1 Mar 2013

States take up mental health care, stricter gun control as shooting fallout continues

Fallout from recent mass killings involving the mentally ill have states scrambling to figure out how to best treat these patients as well as considering stricter gun controls -- which, in turn, is drawing the ire of the National Rifle Association.

1 Mar 2013

Poor sanitation in Africa causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, WaterAid report says

"Poor sanitation is causing hundreds of thousands of deaths a year in Africa, where 600 million people -- about 70 percent of the population -- do not have a safe toilet," and that number is up from 210 million in 1990 and continues to increase as the population grows and people move into poor urban areas, according to a report from WaterAid, titled "Keeping promises: why African leaders need now to deliver on their past water and sanitation commitments," the Guardian reports.

1 Mar 2013

Thyroid hormone may help reduce heart damage in humans with cardiac diseases

Thyroid hormone treatment administered to rats at the time of a heart attack (myocardial infarction) led to significant reduction in the loss of heart muscle cells and improvement in heart function, according to a study published by a team of researchers led by A. Martin Gerdes and Yue-Feng Chen from New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine.

1 Mar 2013