The Health Care Blog

A glimpse of what might have been: Palin announces Alaska health goals

By Sarah Arnquist Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced plans last week to improve Alaskans' health. Palin supports expanding Denali Health, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, to families earning twice the federal poverty level. Expanding the program would make an...
December 8, 2008 in Palin, Policy/Politics, Sarah Arnquist, SCHIP | Permalink | Comments (5)

Nudging the value glacier

By Sarah Arnquist In just two years, seniors will spend a quarter of their monthly Social Security checks on Medicare out-of-pocket expenses, including premiums, co-payments and deductibles. Meanwhile, Medicare bookkeepers predict total health spending in the U.S. to increase from...
December 4, 2008 in Conferences, Economics, evidenced-based medicine, Medical Devices, Policy/Politics, Quality, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (2)

Extracting more value from the health care dollar

By Sarah Arnquist Americans spend more money on health care than any other nation, but get far less in return, say multiple health care executives in Sunday's Washington Post. That's not news to readers of this blog, but probably is...
December 2, 2008 in Consumers, evidenced-based medicine, Policy, Sarah Arnquist, Technology, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (1)

Up in smoke

By Sarah Arnquist Taxing cigarettes is the single-most effective way to lower smoking rates, particularly among youth. And if we could lower smoking rates, we'd save hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year. Good Magazine demonstrates...
November 25, 2008 in public health, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (0)

Battling MRSA with transparency

By Sarah Arnquist Two weeks ago, I made an emergency trip home to Minnesota because my grandmother fell ill. She went to the emergency room on a Sunday night, complaining of fatigue and shortness of breath. The emergency physician diagnosed...
November 17, 2008 in Hospitals, Patient Safety, public health, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (3)

Is Joe the Plumber responsible for our health care mess?

By Sarah Arnquist The financial collapse in the United States and the long, deep recession the nation will likely endure may be the calamitous event needed to finally tip the country toward adopting a universal health insurance, according to Uwe...
November 2, 2008 in Economics, Policy/Politics, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (9)

Sick neighborhoods raise sick people

By Sarah Arnquist I live and study public health in Baltimore, a city in which one-third of its children live in poverty, another two-thirds live in single-parent families, and more than a third of students drop out of high school....
October 14, 2008 in public health, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (9)

The treadmill-desk mashup goes primetime

By Sarah Arnquist Could walking at a tortoise pace all day long in the office keep you thin or help you lose weight? Many people seem to think so and have built themselves treadmill desks -- basically a treadmill with...
September 18, 2008 in Obesity, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (12)

Wonder if your doctor is laughing at you?

By Sarah Arnquist That CNN headline grabbed my attention and got me to read a column that basically chastises the 17 percent of internal medicine residents who reported they had laughed at patient in a survey published in JAMA. The...
September 12, 2008 in Hospitals, Physicians, Quality, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Politics of Pet Food

By Sarah Arnquist In a new book "Pet Food Politics," Marion Nestle uses last year's pet food safety scare to highlight the importance of a sound food safety regulation system. As she puts it, “Advocacy for policies good enough to...
September 9, 2008 in public health, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global 2.0: A lesson from Indian pharmacies

By Sarah Arnquist MedPlus Pharmacies is arguably one of India's fastest growing health companies. Since its launch in 2006, the retail pharmacy chain has opened 500 stores in several Indian cities and serves roughly 25,000 customers daily. In a space...
September 6, 2008 in International, pharmaceuticals, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (4)

Health care lessons from the Titanic

By Sarah Arnquist The U.S. Health Care system is like the Titanic -- a big, fancy, expensive ship that unequally doles out limited resources depending on class status and is destined to hit an iceberg and sink. A professor used...
September 3, 2008 in Policy, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (4)

Stanford Med School rejects industry funding for continuing education

By Sarah Arnquist Stanford University's medical school announced this week new restrictions on educational contributions by drug and medical device companies, which turn out to be among the strictest in the nation. The rules are an effort to limit industry...
August 28, 2008 in Medical Devices, Pharma, Sarah Arnquist, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (4)

Reports on Gardasil study offer varying interprations

By Sarah Arnquist Merck's HPV vaccine, Gardasil, has received significant press in recent days, following a cost-effectiveness study published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Depending on where Americans get their news, they received different...
August 22, 2008 in Consumers, prevention, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (0)

Prescribing a dose of healthy skepticism

By Sarah Arnquist Headlines declare wine is good for your health. So is a small bit of dark chocolate. Then, they say it's not. One day coffee is bad for you and the next it's good. We're bombarded with health...
August 15, 2008 in Consumers, Quality, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finding the best balance in health reporting

By Sarah Arnquist Starting with the first article they write, journalists learn to seek balance, objectivity and facts in their reporting. Balance often is translated into giving various viewpoints equal weight in an article. But do journalists always have to...
August 15, 2008 in Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (5)

Healthy Howard coverage expansion could inform future reforms

By Sarah Arnquist Howard County, Maryland is set to launch an ambitious universal health coverage, and the county's top health officials says the effort will provide valuable lessons for future reformers. Starting next month, 2,200 of Howard County's 20,000 uninsured...
August 11, 2008 in Policy, Policy/Politics, primary care, public health, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (3)

Hospital offers a window to the world

By Sarah Arnquist A hospital brings together the best and worst of people often in chaotic, traumatic scenarios that for some are everyday events, and for others are life changing moments. In her latest book, Hospital, journalist Julie Salamon uses...
August 4, 2008 in Hospitals, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (1)

Herd immunity -- vaccinations protect us all

By Sarah Arnquist I'm currently in the masters in public health program at Johns Hopkins University and am taking my first course in epidemiology. I have my first midterm tomorrow and among the many concepts the professors want me to...
July 29, 2008 in prevention, public health, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (3)

California kids may face triple whammy, leading to more uninsured

By Sarah Arnquist After years of seeing decreasing numbers of uninsured children, California is poised to go the other direction. For years, child enrollment in private health insurance plans decreased as companies scaled back on health care costs by increasing...
July 24, 2008 in California, Policy, Sarah Arnquist, SCHIP | Permalink | Comments (2)

Investigative journalism is good for the nation's health

By Sarah Arnquist Despite seemingly never-ending reports of layoffs in American newsrooms, a new model of investigative journalism has emerged and health care falls squarely into its areas worthy of significant scrutiny. ProPublica is a nonprofit, investigative journalism organization that...
July 18, 2008 in Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hospital rankings for positive press or for real?

By Sarah Arnquist Hospital & Health Networks magazine announced America's "100 Most Wired" hospitals for 2008 this week. You can compare this list to the list of "top hospitals," as recently ranked by U.S. News and World Report. Hospital &...
July 17, 2008 in Electronic Medical Records, Hospitals, Marketplace, Sarah Arnquist, Technology, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (2)

Comparative what? Translating policy lingo into something meaningful

By Sarah Arnquist Barack Obama's health reform proposal includes creating a center for comparative effectiveness research. John McCain also has expressed support for this research. And the American College of Physicians would like patients and doctors to use comparative effectiveness...
July 11, 2008 in Economics, McCain, Obama, Policy, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (12)

Overcoming the challenges facing rural health care

By Sarah Arnquist Kensington, Minn. is barely a dot on the map. This small grid of concrete, where fewer than 300 people live, is a brief interruption amid the sprawling acres of green corn, soybean and wheat fields that cover...
July 8, 2008 in Nursing, Policy, Sarah Arnquist, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (18)

Hyping health stories: journalists need to do better

By Sarah Arnquist Health care journalists got some bad press last week following the release of a study that showed more often than not they fail to provide the necessary information to make health stories complete, meaningful and tell them...
June 7, 2008 in Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (1)

In Indian hospital care, the past and future co-exist

By Sarah Arnquist Walking through the government-run Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad, India feels like stepping back 50 years in time. The nurses wear white dresses with those funny paper napkin hats. Exhausted people overflow the stuffy waiting rooms. Family members...
June 3, 2008 in Announcements, Hospitals, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (6)

Bitter doc wants more respect for primary care

By Sarah Arnquist A primary doctor ranted anonymously this weekend on Kevin MD's blog about the lack of appreciation for primary care in his small Midwestern town and predicted its future demise. The doctor practices in a medical shortage area,...
May 16, 2008 in Physicians, Policy, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (16)

POST-MORTEM: California health reform

By Sarah Arnquist The debate over why health reform failed in California sparked up again following the release of a Field Poll in late April that found that nearly three-quarters of California respondents supported Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan. Following the...
May 14, 2008 in Policy, Policy/Politics, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (6)

Stealth marketing: doctors and public radio

By Sarah Arnquist Over at Slate, veteran health care journalists Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer raise tough questions about the lack of disclosure regarging four doctors' ties to the makers of antidepressants, while they told audiences of public radio stations...
May 11, 2008 in pharmaceuticals, Physicians, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (3)

Indian docs endorse O.J. and oatmeal

By Sarah Arnquist PepsiCo maneuvered marketing genius this week by convincing the Indian Medical Association to endorse the health benefits of Tropicana fruit juice and Quaker Oats for three years. Now, when Indians reach for these products, they'll see a...
May 8, 2008 in Physicians, Sarah Arnquist | Permalink | Comments (3)