The government is cutting premiums and making changes that will make it easier for people with pre-existing medical conditions to get health insurance.

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He made his first appearance on “Good Morning! Arizona” in 2003. Now one of our favorite fitness experts, Chris Powell, is making it big on prime-time TV with “Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition.”

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It’s almost summertime and that means lots of cookouts, but that also means more cases of food poisoning.

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Trenton, NJ, United States (AHN) – Trenton Public Schools officials are working to continue bus service for students after transportation workers started a sick-out late in the week.

As state budget wrangling continues, the district is moving ahead with plans to privatize its school bus service, contending it could save about $2 million.

About half (15) of the district’s 29 transportation workers reportedly called in sick Thursday, though the number was reduced to about a third (9) Friday according to a school official. The 29 are a part of 196 school employees who recently learned they would lose their jobs to reduce the district’s school budget.

A report in the Trentonian stated 300 to 400 students missed school due to the school bus situation.

“So each of the (seven) drivers had to make three different runs, but that only covers 21 schools. There are 36 schools. Some students have to go to special schools as far out as Neptune. It’s a terrible mess. Kids are calling on the phones, left to stay at home, no way to get to school. Their parents have to take a bus to work, so they drop their child off, counting on a school bus to take them to school. Often they’re not picked up,” a source told the paper.

A school official admitted as much in a letter posted on the district’s website and sent home with students.

“We are experiencing a job action among our bus drivers,” interim superintendent Raymond Broach wrote. “This is causing delays in the pickup and delivery of our students and in some cases, (we’re) not picking up at all.”

With the drivers losing their jobs anyway, they will likely not be punished for their actions and the district will call upon drivers from other companies it has deals with — Rick Bus Co. and Delaware Valley Bus Line — to cover the gap in service, according to a report on nj.com.

Trenton Public Schools may get $12 million in additional school funding due to a recent action by the state legislature, but will still seek an outside vendor for its school bus service.

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – What’s worse: Losing face or losing money?

Under laws in more than two dozen states and new Medicare rules that went into effect earlier this year, hospitals are required to report infections, risking their reputations as sterile sanctuaries, or pay a penalty. That’s left hospital administrators weighing the cost of ‘fessing up against the cost of fines.

For Clark Todd, CEO of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, there’s only one way to go: “If we hide from the public then the tendency to keep the status quo is stronger than ever,” he said. “And that’s just not going to get the job done.”

It’s been more than a decade since a panel of top scientists declared hospital safety a national priority. Yet, about 90,000 patients still die each year from preventable infections resulting from routine surgeries and hospital care, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Examples include infections resulting from contaminated tubes that deliver food and medications, and catheters that remove urine. Staph infections, which can be deadly, are a particularly serious problem.

Many more patients are irreparably harmed. Dave Meyer of Fair Oaks, Calif., a Sacramento suburb, was a general contractor before he broke his ankle in a motorcycle accident. Records indicate he contracted an infection at a local hospital that prevented his ankle from healing. He endured several surgeries and excruciating wound cleanings.

“Imagine taking an ice cream scoop and just taking half of your foot off. It looked like just this gaping hole,” said Meyer, adding: “I know that it would have been so much better if they used the proper hygiene in the hospital.”

Dr. Alfonso Torress-Cook of Pacific Hospital couldn’t agree more. “Hospitals are dirty,” he said. An epidemiologist and head of the hospital’s infection control program, Torress-Cook came to this for-profit teaching hospital five years ago with a clear goal: to sharply reduce the hospital’s infection rate.

Back then, the medical staff viewed infections at the 184-acute care bed facility as largely unavoidable and treated them with antibiotics, he said. The approach was costly: An infection can add $42,000 to a patient’s bill in the intensive care unit, according to the Leapfrog Group, an advocacy group that represents large employers like General Motors, Chrysler and Sprint.Now, hand washing at Pacific Hospital, especially in the ICU, is so routine nurses complain their hands are chapped. That’s just one of many changes. Nurses here wash patients every day. Janitors are given enough time to properly clean rooms. Even those coming in for surgery are asked to take a shower before showing up.Torress-Cook opened a closet to show off another weapon in the hospital’s anti-infection arsenal: an ultraviolet light, hooked up to the hospital’s air ventilation system, that kills airborne germs.At first the employees were skeptical, said Todd. But California’s new public reporting law, which went into effect in 2010, and Medicare’s decision to start withholding two percent of payments from hospitals that keep their rates secret, have helped his cause.”I think that gives administrators like me even more reason to get involved in this matter,” said Todd. “And more clout with our medical staff to work against some of these traditional behaviors.”Pacific Hospital is working to bring down bloodstream infections that result from tubes that deliver medication and nutrients, and has virtually eliminated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and surgical infections.That has caught the attention of competitors and potential customers. And it’s become a source of pride for its employees.Indeed, researchers have found concern over a hospital’s public image is an even more powerful motivator than fear of losing market share.”Many hospitals will measure quality and voluntarily put it up, even without the government involved,” said Dr. Michael Rapp, director of the Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “But certainly once it’s required for all hospitals to do that there’s the peer pressure and they’re going to be looking at how they do compared to others.” The fear of losing millions of dollars isn’t an idle threat either. Starting this year, hospitals have to reveal their catheter-associated blood stream infections if they want their Medicare bills paid in full. Next year, they’ll have to report surgical-site infections. The list will grow longer in the coming years. Rapp anticipates that nearly all U.S. hospitals will comply. Now, only half volunteer their data, he said. Still, the stigma of unclean wards and fear of lawsuits can make hospitals reluctant to report. When the law went into effect in California,’ hospitals out of 400 didn’t send in any data. State regulators, who acknowledge the first year of data collection was riddled with errors, are not imposing penalties. There are other concerns: Competitors may undercount, making more honest players look bad, and some hospitals simply do more surgeries or have sicker patients, said Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association. “The measures aren’t perfect and don’t adequately account for the differences among patients,” said Foster.For hospitals in cities like Long Beach or quieter, rural areas like Ukiah, keeping track of the frenetic activity in their facilities can be daunting.Ukiah is a verdant and woodsy town north of San Francisco, in Mendocino County. At the small, 78-bed nonprofit hospital, patients and staff all seem to know each other, trading warm hellos on a warm spring day. It’s not hard to imagine how quickly word of even one infection can spread.That’s something Sue Mason, a half-time nurse at Ukiah Valley Medical Center, worries about. “We have nothing to hide,” she said.Mason has a big job and only 20 hours a week to do it: She’s charged with tracking and preventing infections. Every morning, she checks the computerized lab tests and tries to chase down new cases. In the nationwide push for greater transparency of hospital performance, though, Mason is an overwhelmed foot soldier. She has little time to eliminate the very infections she’s charged with reporting.”I’d like to be out on the floor more with the nurses. I could monitor their hand hygiene compliance and educate them as I see them doing their job,” Mason said. Instead, she spends most her day in front of the computer crunching data.Mason must report not just the infections that occur, which are rare here, she said, but details of every surgery, every patient who tests positive or negative for gruesome antibiotic-resistant bugs, like MRSA.Even at Pacific Hospital, where infection rates are some of the lowest in the nation, hospital chief Todd preaches constant vigilance, “These initiatives have to be felt with some passion and they have to be implemented with consistency and strong will.”It will take some time before patients can know the full risk of entering their local hospital. At present, most states and Medicare publish just a short list of infections.In the coming years, though, as the federal health law continues to take effect, the noose will tighten even more. Starting in 2012, Medicare will reduce payments to hospitals with poor infection rates in their intensive care units.There is great hope, among researchers and hospital chiefs, that this double-barreled approach of public reporting and financial sanctions may be the best cure for what has proven to be a chronic condition in hospitals.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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After 12 weeks of treatment certolizumab pegol (Cimzia ®) delivered rapid and consistent improvements in a broad range of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients regardless of whether or not they had received prior TNF inhibitors, concluded the latest analysis of the Phase III b REALISTIC trial. The study, presented at the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) meeting in London, May 25-28, also showed that the same result could be achieved regardless of whether or not RA patients had received concomitant DMARDs…

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A new research has suggested that omega-3 fatty acids combined with two blood-thinning drugs may prevent blood clotting and cut the risk of heart attacks.

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MN, United States (AHN) – Students who struggle with mathematics may be suffering from a neurocognitive disorder similar to people struggling with dyslexia.

University of Minnesota researchers say the condition is called dyscalculia. The disorder, they say, inhibits the acquisition of basic numerical and arithmetic concepts.

Dyscalculia affects about the same amount of people as dyslexia, but hasn’t received the same amount of attention or research funding, according to the researchers.

The researchers detail in their paper, “Dyscalculia, From Brain to Education,” how scientists worldwide have used magnetic resonance imaging to map the neural network that supports arithmetic. In people with dyscalculia, they have found abnormalities in the network.

The researchers are working on evidence-based interventions for the disorder.

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It reduces stresses, skin movement along incision that cause scar formation as wound heals

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Andover, MN, United States (AHN) – Two national civil rights groups are planning on suing the Anoka-Hennepin school district if school officials don’t properly address anti-gay harassment. The Southern Poverty Law Center and National Center for Lesbian Rights say they have proof that students in the district have faced harassment for being gay or perceived as gay and that harassment violates federal law.

Lawyers for the two civil rights groups which sued the district earlier this year in a separate case sent a letter Tuesday to Anoka-Hennepin superintendent Dennis Carlson warning of possible legal action.

According to the letter the two groups have had the district, the largest in the state under investigation for some time and found that students who are or perceived to be gay or lesbian are in jeopardy and in a hostile environment when they’re at school. They were originally contacted by students and alumni who sought help.

Sam Wolfe an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights group said Anoka-Hennepin is breaking federal law by allowing such a culture to exist.

“On a daily basis they’re going into the schools and into the hallways — other kids are calling them names, such as ‘faggot’ and other names about either their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity,” Wolfe said in an MPR report. “And it’s a continual thing.”

The letter goes on to list examples of harassment of at least three unnamed current or former students. It remains unknown how many other clients could be represented by the groups if a settlement can’t be reached.

Wolfe said his group will sue Anoka-Hennepin unless district officials compensate his clients and repeals a district policy that requires staff to be neutral in dealing with sexual orientation. The so called “neutrality policy” allows sexual orientation to be discussed but stipulates teachers to remain neutral.

“The policy ties the hands of these teachers,” Wolfe said. “Some of these kids are being relentlessly harassed.”

District spokeswoman Mary Olson said school district leaders believe their policy is legal.

In a Star Tribune report she said people have different view points on whether “homosexuality is appropriate.” She added, “I don’t think by eliminating the neutrality policy we’re going to eliminate bullying.

The board stance is they don’t see a connection between the two. However civil rights proponents hope with the threat of a lawsuit they will reevaluate their position and repeal the policy.

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