About healthcare quality
Preventable Hospitalizations in United States Values per 100,000 admissions: US Value: 2,770
Top State: Hawaii: 1,411 Bottom State: West Virginia: 4,041. Check out your state.
Philadelphia-area health organizations form Regional Coalition to Eliminate Race-Based Medicine “Today, the Regional Coalition to Eliminate Race-Based Medicine (Regional Coalition) launches. The Regional Coalition members will work together to remove race ‘adjustments’ from 15 commonly used clinical decision support tools that may adversely impact patients' outcomes.
The Regional Coalition includes Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Doylestown Health, Grand View Health, Independence Blue Cross, Jefferson Health, Main Line Health, Nemours Children's Health, Penn Medicine, Redeemer Health, St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Temple Health, Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, and Virtua Health. This group, convened by Independence Blue Cross, has committed to focus on 15 clinical decision support tools that adjust results based on a person's race, potentially causing delays and inequities in care.”
About Covid-19
Long COVID and Significant Activity Limitation Among Adults, by Age — United States, June 1–13, 2022, to June 7–19, 2023 Good news: “Prevalence of long COVID among noninstitutionalized U.S. adults aged ≥18 years decreased from 7.5% (95% CI = 7.1–7.9) during June 1–13, 2022 to 6.0% (95% CI = 5.7–6.3) during June 7–19, 2023 and from 18.9% (95% CI = 17.9–19.8) to 11.0% (95% CI = 10.4–11.6) among adults reporting previous COVID-19.”
About health insurance/insurers
Medical Billing and Collections Among Older Americans “[Some] Key findings:
In 2020, nearly four million adults ages 65 and older reported having unpaid medical bills, even though 98 percent of them had health insurance coverage. Nearly 70 percent of these older adults with unpaid medical bills also reported having medical insurance coverage from two or more sources.
The reported amount of unpaid medical bills among older adults increased by 20 percent between 2019 and 2020, from $44.8 billion to $53.8 billion. Yet older adults reported fewer doctor visits and lower out-of-pocket expenses in 2020 than in 2019.
Older adults face a complex billing system with a high likelihood of errors and inaccurate bills. Complaints submitted to the CFPB involving Medicare commonly cite inaccurate billing as a source of unpaid medical bills in collections. Consumers who reported having multiple sources of insurance were especially likely to note problems with inaccurate billing.”
About pharma
Nearly all hospital pharmacists say drug shortages are negatively impacting care; a third say impacts are ‘critical’ “As drug shortages near record levels in the United States, a new survey shows how widespread — and serious — the effects are.
About 99% of health care system pharmacists who were surveyed — the vast majority of whom work in hospitals — say that they are experiencing drug shortages, including nearly a third who say the current shortages are “critically impactful,” leading to rationing, delaying or canceling treatments or procedures.
There were 309 active drug shortages in the second quarter of the year, according to the latest data from the University of Utah Drug Information Service — the most there have been in nearly a decade, topped only by the third quarter of 2014 when there were 320 active shortages.”
Here are 25 Medicare Part D drugs that have skyrocketed in price “Medicare Part D drug prices have increased by an average of 226% since market entry. These 25 drugs are responsible for $80.9 billion in total Part D spending in 2021.
The new report from AARP’s Public Policy Institute shows that high pharmaceutical drug prices are placing an unwelcome burden on customers. Overall, lifetime price increases among 25 name-brand drugs have increased by 20% to 739%, with just one drug exceeding the annual rate of inflation over the same period of time.”
Comment: Look at the charts. The highest percentages are largely diabetes drugs.
Amgen's hyped Humira biosimilar fritters away its exclusivity advantage A great study about the introduction of a biogeneric into the marketplace.
About the public’s health
Suicide Data and Statistics “Overall, the number of deaths by suicide increased 2.6% from 2021 but decreased among American Indian/Alaskan Native people.”
More US counties have become maternity care deserts since 2020, March of Dimes finds “There has been a 2% rise in maternity care deserts since 2020—meaning 1,119 additional counties, a new analysis suggests…
It classified more than a third of all U.S. counties as maternity care deserts in the report. These were defined as counties with no hospitals or birth centers offering obstetric care and no obstetric providers.
Nationwide, 5% of counties have less maternity access than two years ago while 3% shifted to higher access. Florida had the most women impacted by improvements to maternity care access, while Ohio had the most women impacted by overall reductions in access to care.”
About healthcare personnel
HHS to invest $100M to train nurses, bolster clinician workforce “Officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday the investments will help address the increasing demand for registered nurses, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives and nurse faculty.
The funding, announced Thursday, will go toward increasing the number of nursing school faculty, supporting the career ladders for licensed practical nurses and vocational nurses to become registered nurses and training more nurses to become primary care providers to address mental health issues, substance use disorder issues and maternal health…”
About health technology
Henrietta Lacks' Family Sues Ultragenyx Over Stolen Cells “The family of the late Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were harvested without her knowledge to create the first immortalized human cell line, sued Ultragenyx in Maryland federal court Thursday, alleging the biopharmaceutical company "has made a fortune" using her stolen cells in developing gene therapy treatments.”