Health Beats: April 14, 2010
April 14, 2010 | Steph
Beats this week:
1) UnitedHealthcare is teaming up with the YMCA to create a program that will work to prevent at-risk individuals from developing diabetes. The program will focus on prevention and the improvement of health status in order to delay or completely prevent the onset of diabetes. UnitedHealthcare hopes that this program will help reduce many of the costs associated with diabetes.
2) The doctor shortage crisis continues to create discussion across the country. Here is the newest solution to the shortage: expand the role of nurse practitioners. Some are calling for fewer restrictions on nurse practitioners, such as barring them from prescribing controlled substances in order to make up for the shortage of doctors.
3) For the very first time Illinois has published hospital mortality rates for all Illinois hospitals. The data includes death rates for stroke, pneumonia, hip fractures and congestive heart failure.
4) Do you have allergies? If so, you are probably already feeling the pain of the pollen season. Experts are claiming that this year is going to be a ‘monster of an allergy season.’ This will be especially true for the Southeast, where an unusually cold winter delayed plants from blooming as early as they normally do.
5) A British medical journal – The Lancet – released a paper on Sunday stating that the number of women dying in childbirth across the globe has dropped by 35% in the last 28 years. These findings are in contention with a recent United Nations study that found the maternal death rate worldwide to still be alarmingly high.
Tags: allergies, diabetes, health research, maternal health, Physician Shortage
