Policy

Does Chicago needs a rapid response to food sanitation and safety?

Janice Phillips, PhD, RN and John Mazzeo, PhD

Policy

April 21, 2022

As the momentum to mitigate food insecurity continues to unfold, we need a stronger emphasis on ensuring better food sanitation and safety in economically disadvantaged and under-resourced communities. For example, the closing of 400 Dollar General Stores in several states and a grocery store closure on Chicago’s West side due to rodent infestation are of concern, especially for communities who are already dealing with …

Take politics out of science and medicine

Anonymous

Policy

April 8, 2022

This month marks the 12th anniversary of Obamacare’s passing. Was it perfect? No. It was meant to be a starting block to cover a widening gap in the nation’s health equity. It became less effective because of direct attacks by politicians who then used the failures to point a finger back at President Obama for nothing other than party-line politics. The Affordable …

Will Biden’s State of the Union remarks revive prescription drug reform?

Hassaan Asif

Policy

April 7, 2022

My credit card hovered over the card reader at the pharmacy as I contemplated whether I should pay. Two hundred and eighty dollars and some change. For two EpiPens, each with 0.3 mg of epinephrine that could potentially save my life if I accidentally ate something with sesame seeds. At that moment, I realized that even I, as someone with good employer-based family health insurance, was being forced to make …

The path to gender-affirming care is closing: We need to open it

Anonymous

Policy

April 2, 2022

Imagine losing control of your child’s life-saving care. The mental anxiety is overwhelming enough – then suddenly, all the decisions that should be up to your child, you, and your child’s physician are snatched out of your hands by faceless institutions. This is the fate currently befalling the families of transgender youth in Texas.

The Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support Clinic (GENECIS) in Dallas, has been effectively …

Mental health issues and the African American community

Lashawnda Thornton, MSW

Policy

March 30, 2022

Death is a topic that most people try to avoid. Death by suicide is also something that that remains rarely discussed. This is probably because suicide is scary, particularly if we have thoughts of being the loved one left behind. People considering suicide don’t take the time to let people know that they are considering suicide; they tend to keep all these things bottled up to themselves.

As one writer Read more…

Mental health issues and the African American community

Understanding consent-to-settle in your malpractice insurance policy

Jennifer Wiggins

Policy

March 24, 2022

Arguably one of the most overlooked yet incredibly important aspects of your malpractice insurance policy is the Consent to Settle Provision. You’re paying thousands of dollars a year for your malpractice insurance; you should have a say in how your claims are handled, don’t you think? Today we’re going to talk about the consent to settle provision – why it’s important, how carriers can limit you, and what you can …

The nursing home staffing crisis will not be fixed through transparency

Harsh Moolani

Policy

March 17, 2022

Staffing shortages and turnover rates have recently become a pertinent topic for hospitals. However, these personnel challenges have haunted certified nursing facilities since the 1970s. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the turnover rate for total nursing staff in nursing homes was about 128 percent. While increasing transparency on these atrociously high turnover rates has been a commonly proposed solution, it has only recently been …

Tackling trial delays, social inflation, and skeptical jurors in a pandemic world

Marco Spadacenta, JD

Policy

March 14, 2022

More than one in three U.S. physicians will face a medical malpractice lawsuit in their careers. As the role of advanced practice clinicians such as nurse practitioners as primary caregivers continues to grow, so too will their exposure to medical malpractice litigation. Therefore, health care providers may benefit from staying versed in the following key shifts in medical malpractice litigation:

1. Demographic shifts change courtroom dynamics. Read more…

Tackling trial delays, social inflation, and skeptical jurors in a pandemic world

Governor Abbott’s decree: medically harmful, scientifically unfounded, and unethical

Michael Morse, MD and Christian Moser, MD

Policy

March 12, 2022

On February 22nd, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas turned essential medical treatments for transgender adolescents into a crime, ordering the state to investigate them as “child abuse.”

The following day, a patient came to one of us (Dr. Morse), and through sobs recounted the gender identity-related maltreatment that she had experienced throughout her youth. She had survived bullying at school, transphobic slurs in the streets, and multiple threats of physical assault. …

Want to improve telehealth? Ask people with disabilities.

Christina Khou, PhD and Colleen Stiles-Shields, PhD

Policy

March 4, 2022

Telehealth is the best option for millions of Americans, but more Americans need to be included.

Three-hundred-and-thirty U.S. health organizations have called on Congress to act swiftly in renewing waivers that allow for the provision of telehealth services and to consider permanently allowing virtual health services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has established that telehealth and technology-delivered services — like apps — are here to stay and benefit …

Please stop giving awards specifically to women in the workplace

Suzi Richards

Policy

March 1, 2022

Hear me out.

I am a first-generation, working female in my family. My mom was your typical 70s woman that stayed home with her kids and didn’t have, or even want, a career. Or so she said. The laws surrounding job discrimination and sex-based wage disparity of the mid and late 60s were still very fresh and, in many ways, working moms at that time, were not always held in the …

Family medicine and the fight for the soul of health care

Timothy Hoff, PhD

Policy

March 1, 2022

There is a fight going on for the soul of not only American health care but health care everywhere. Primary care and family medicine are at the center …

We need improved policies, not platitudes, for racialized and gendered frontline workers

Chidi Oguamanam, PhD

Policy

February 28, 2022

Since the spring of 2020, COVID-19 has disrupted our social and economic order. One of the unraveling consequences of the historic changes wrought by the pandemic is the grossly uneven gendered and racialized nature of those shouldering the burden. Across all labor and occupational sectors, frontline workers and essential service providers have become sacrificial beasts of burden. They range from retail store employees, waiters, transit providers, farmworkers, meat packers, delivery …

Inhaler nonadherence and social determinants of health

Tejas Sekhar

Policy

February 26, 2022

Cities and urban environments tend to have large gaps in health care accessibility and correspondent health care disparities. Despite the existence of localized public health infrastructure, such infrastructure tends to be fragmented and cannot fully encompass the level of nuance within its patient population as a result. As such, health care inequities are cyclically perpetuated in part through discontinuous health systems. Smarter, patient-centric approaches are needed to move the needle …

Are hospital CEOs responding to the realities of health care?

Ammura Hernandez, MD

Policy

February 24, 2022

On December 14th, 2021, hospital CEOs met under the guise of The Transformative CEO Healthcare Summit to brainstorm novel ideas in health care and to create “a new world ecosystem.” Themes included how to utilize medical data, how technology can transform health care and expanding at-home delivery systems of care.

Leaders in health care met just weeks before hospital admissions skyrocketed to an all-time high of Read more…

Are hospital CEOs responding to the realities of health care?

Nurses are in need of racial healing

Janice Phillips, PhD, RN and Katie Boston-Leary, PhD, MBA, RN

Policy

February 22, 2022

In a recent survey of nurses (n=5,600), 63% of respondents reported having experienced racism in the workplace. These racist acts were mainly done by peers (66%) or a manager or supervisor (60%). Such widespread racism should send shockwaves throughout a profession known for its caring and compassion. These findings outlined in a report from the National Commission to Address Racism in Nursing are a …

Read more…

Nurses are in need of racial healing

Are we opening everything too quickly?

Tejas Sekhar

Policy

February 21, 2022

In “Open Everything” published in The Atlantic on February 9th, 2022, Yascha Mounk discusses his arguments for lifting any remaining COVID-19 restrictions to “shake off the pandemic malaise.” He asserts that we are “in danger of prolonging the status quo more than is justifiable” and that “the time to end pandemic restrictions is now.” The broad strokes that Mounk makes are diametrically opposed to …

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Are we opening everything too quickly?

How inflation fueled health care costs

Ricardo Chujutalli, MD, MBA and Jessica Yoong

Policy

February 20, 2022

The 3-hour concert was over. On the way back to the car, the excitement of it all kept us singing the lyrical masterpiece. I turned on the ignition and typed in our address.

“You have 1 hour and 35 minutes to go,” the GPS alerted me. I glanced at the fuel gauge. The gas floater barely survived the red indicator.

Taking no risks, I drove us to the nearest gas station to …

Read more…

How inflation fueled health care costs

Better health care for less, version 2.0

Michael James Zema, MD

Policy

February 19, 2022

An excerpt from Modern Healthcare Delivery, Deliverance or Debacle: A Glimpse From the Inside Out.

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
– Albert Einstein

In my book, I outline some of the critical drivers of the high cost of medical care in the U.S. These include waste as …

Stand and deliver: Health care systems need to serve up health equity missions

Terry Gallagher, DNP, APRN, Christina Manheimer, DNP, APRN, and Angela Moss, PhD, APRN

Policy

February 13, 2022

One year after the White House instated an executive order focusing on health equity and support for underserved communities, changes are in progress. But even with the positive news that the Omicron surge has peaked with the seven-day case average dropping, gaping holes in health disparities are still unanswered.

Some hospitals and health care systems such as CoxHealth have hired diversity, equity, …