About the public’s health
Health workers may not use hand sanitizer properly: “Healthcare workers may not be using the right amount of hand sanitizer or letting it dry on their hands long enough to achieve maximum protection against the spread of germs… dispenser volume to achieve 20-30 seconds of drying time as per WHO recommendations is required for effective hand hygiene.”
Quality of Meals Consumed by US Adults at Full-Service [FS] and Fast-Food [FF] Restaurants, 2003–2016: Persistent Low Quality and Widening Disparities: Eating out is frequently bad for your health (duh!). “Between 2003 and 2016, FF and FS meals provided 1 in 5 calories for US adults. Modest improvements occurred in nutritional quality of FF, but not FS, meals consumed, and the average quality for both remained low with persistent or widening disparities. These findings highlight the need for strategies to improve the nutritional quality of US restaurant meals.”
EXCLUSIVE-OxyContin maker Purdue is 'Pharma Co X' in U.S. opioid kickback probe -sources: Practice Fusion [ a unit of Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc's MDRX.O ] is alleged to have solicited payments from Pharma Co. X [which the article identifies as Purdue Pharma] in late 2013 in exchange for creating an physician alert designed to boost opioid prescriptions by suggesting doctors focus on assessing and treating a patient's pain symptoms with opioid medication as a preferred option.
Practice Fusion pitched the software as a way to influence doctors and counter the unnamed company's declining opioid sales, stemming from heightened public awareness of addiction risks, according to court documents.
The goals of the alerts was to create new opioid patients and convert current users from immediate-release opioid medications to highly addictive extended-release drugs, according to court documents.
The alert on the Practice Fusion platform, used by tens of thousands of healthcare providers, was triggered 230 million times from July 2016 until the spring of 2019, according to court documents.”
UPDATE, replaces previous post: Data from the National Vital Statistics System
● Life expectancy for the U.S. population in 2018 was 78.7 years, an increase of 0.1 year from 2017, largely because of decreases in mortality from cancer, unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and heart disease.
● The age-adjusted death rate decreased by 1.1% from 731.9 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2017 to 723.6 in 2018.
● The 10 leading causes of death in 2018 remained the same as in 2017. From 2017 to 2018, age-adjusted death rates decreased for 6 of 10 leading causes of death and increased for 2.
● Age-specific death rates decreased from 2017 to 2018 for age groups 15–24, 25–34, 45–54, 65–74, 75–84, and 85 and over.
● The infant mortality rate decreased 2.3% from 579.3 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017 to 566.2 in 2018.
● The 10 leading causes of infant death in 2018 remained the same as in 2017.
Update on the Corona virus: Coronavirus case count nears 10K; WHO declares public emergency; and China marks deadliest day as WHO declares global health emergency in fight against Wuhan coronavirus
About healthcare quality
Several 'Best' U.S. Hospitals Penalized Over Too-High Rates Of Infection, Injury: This story highlights at least a couple issues. First, what is “best?” The way it is measured clearly uses a composition score. If you want to know how good a hospital is at treating your condition, you need to look at data for that condition; you cannot generalize from the quality of other treatments. Second, one response raises the quality defensive statement of poorer scores resulting from higher vigilance (see Chapter 9 in the book):
”Only UCSF commented to Kaiser Health News on the penalties, blaming its high HAC [Hospital Acquired Conditions] rates on its thoroughness in identifying infections and reporting them to the government.”
About pharma
Not a kickback: Novartis’ Kymriah travel assistance program gets a green light from HHS: “Normally, a pharma company paying a patient to take its drug looks suspicious—like a kickback—and it’s considered so under federal law. But HHS has just made a special ruling for a novel therapy.
The federal health agency now allows Novartis to pay for travel, lodging, meals and other out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare and Medicaid patients taking its CAR-T therapy Kymriah…
The so-called Kymriah Travel Assistance Program assists “eligible low-income patients” with expenses incurred during their travel to receive the drug—and the ensuing post-infusion monitoring phase—at one of some 100 designated treatment centers across the U.S. under an FDA-required safety program.”
About health insurance
Insurers: Price transparency rule puts 'staggering,' expensive burden on us: “The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), which represents 36 Blues plans, said that an economic analysis from the firm Bates White found that the total setup and maintenance cost for an insurer to comply with the rule was $13.63 million. That is 26 times higher than the administration’s estimate of $510,000…
The rule would require plans to publish machine-readable files with their payment amounts for all health services and items. Insurers would also be required to post a tool that can help consumers get an estimate on out-of-pocket costs for any item or service before they get care.”
The Trump administration calls it 'Healthy Adult Opportunity.' Critics call it less Medicaid: This deeper dig by the Washington Post comments on the Medicaid funding waivers announced yesterday. Most of the criticisms are unfounded. For examples, the new program must address the essential health benefits of Medicaid and the ACA and the limit on available drugs is already widespread with traditional Medicaid and managed care Medicaid formularies. The very important difference is a state’s ability to cap the number of eligible enrollees. This ability raises the question of how the state will make those determinations, e.g., lottery, income criteria, etc. The program fact sheet does say the waiver must comply with “all federal disability and civil rights laws.”
