About the public’s health
America’s Health Rankings: The United health Foundation released its rankings of the health of individual states. Notice the geography of the healthiest versus least health states.
Top 10 health-related questions consumers asked Google in 2019: An interesting list…do the questions correlate with what professionals target? For example, # 3 is: “How to get rid of hiccups.”
Senate confirms oncologist Stephen Hahn as FDA commissioner: The headline speaks for itself.
Antibiotic prescribing without documented indication in ambulatory care clinics: national cross sectional study: “Antibiotics were prescribed during 13.2%… of the estimated 990.8 million ambulatory care visits in 2015. According to the criteria, 57% (52% to 62%) of the 130.5 million prescriptions were for appropriate indications, 25% (21% to 29%) were inappropriate, and 18% (15% to 22%) had no documented indication. This corresponds to an estimated 24 million prescriptions without a documented indication. Being an adult male, spending more time with the provider, and seeing a non-primary care specialist were significantly positively associated with antibiotic prescribing without an indication. Sulfonamides and urinary anti-infective agents were the antibiotic classes most likely to be prescribed without documentation.”
Home is now the most common place of death in the U.S.: Not really a public health issue for patients, but certainly affects those caring for them. Knowing preferences can help our health system structure appropriate supportive resources.
About healthcare professionals
2019 Fall Applicant, Matriculant, and Enrollment Data Tables: The American Association of Medical Colleges published its 2019 data on medical schools. Matriculation is up 1.1% and for the third year in a row, women comprise the majority of matriculants. Those three years have added up- for the first time, women are now the majority of all medical students.
Military Health System in the Crosshairs: The military healthcare system will now be divided between taking care of battlefield casualties and all other healthcare needs (including the Tricare system for families of active service and retirees.)
US Geographical Variation in Rates of Shoulder and Knee Arthroscopy and Association With Orthopedist Density: Unlike treatment of some other conditions, the differences in rates of performance of these orthopedic procedures are not explained by density of those professionals.
Primary Care Physicians’ Role In Coordinating Medical And Health-Related Social Needs In Eleven Countries (Health Affairs, subscription required for entire article): “Compared to physicians in other countries, substantial proportions of US physicians did not routinely receive timely notification or the information needed for managing ongoing care from specialists, after-hours care centers, emergency departments, or hospitals. Primary care practices in a handful of countries, including the US, are not routinely exchanging information electronically outside the practice. Top-performing countries demonstrate the feasibility of improving two-way communication between primary care and other sites of care.”
About pharma
Walmart will continue accepting paper prescriptions in 2020, but for how long?: The message in the headline updates a previous blog post.
About health insurance
New IRS rule will help lower drug costs for those with chronic conditions: In order for someone to enroll in a Health Savings Account plan, they must be subject to an IRS-determined deductible. Recognizing the financial burdens of chronic diseases, the “IRS recently released formal guidance that allows insurers who sponsor high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) linked to health savings accounts (HSAs) to cover 14 essential services used to treat chronic diseases like diabetes and asthma before patients hit their deductibles.” Notice that the guidance “allow insurers.” We will need to see if they structure the benefits to help out these members.