Erie Family Health Center

Beats this week:

1) Next week is National Health Center Week and it is going to kick off with a bang! This Friday, Health and Human Service Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, is sitting down for a tele-town hall conference with the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) to discuss Health Center Program and the Affordable Care Act.

2) Still trying to decide what to do for National Health Center Week? Lucky for you NACHC is keeping a great list. Check out all the awesome events going on in Illinois next week.

3) Sad news for Illinoisans: more Illinois residents are using food stamps than ever before. An estimated 780,000 Illinois families are enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), up nearly 12% from the year prior.

4) Happy (kind of) Birthday ARRA funds!  After a year of having American Recovery and Reinvestment funds in our pockets, community health centers have provided care to approximately 2.1 million new patients! This is quite an accomplishment considering the goal was to provide care to 2.9 million new users over two years!

5) It is the news story that just keeps unfolding: Governor Quinn announced today the last of the planned cuts to the Illinois state budget. The new cuts include school transportation grants, operating funds for psychiatric hospitals and developmental centers, and a subsidy to Peoria’s Wildlife Prairie Park.

Erie Beats

Last week Northwestern University stopped by Erie West Town Health Center to learn more about our Electronic Health Records System and what it means to our centers. Check out the video below to learn more!

Beats this week: 

1) Great news for health centers around the country: late last week the House Labor-HHS Subcommittee on Appropriations proposed that the Health Centers program be funded at 2010 levels. So what exactly does all this fancy language mean? Well, when coupled with the funds from the Affordable Care Act, health centers will now be able to serve more patients than ever before – to the tune of 20 million more patients over the next five years!   

2) Have you ever heard of mystery patients? This phrase does not even have a Wikipedia page! So just think mystery shoppers – only they are medical patients! A recent study conducted by six Chicago-area research institutions utilized mystery patients who served as actors for a doctor visit in order to measure how often physicians were able to identify social factors that could impact a patient’s health or their treatment (such as homelessness). The results: these factors were often overlooked or missed.

3) Want to give yourself nightmares? Then check out this list of agencies that still need to be paid by the state of Illinois for services rendered in the last fiscal year.

4) This week Michelle Obama and Jill Biden teamed up to announce an important new health initiative. Starting in the Fall, health insurance plans will be required to cover preventive care, such as some cancer screenings, diabetes and blood pressure screenings and routine vaccines, without charging a deductible or co-payment.

5) You heard it first here at Health Beats: Erie is proud to celebrate National Health Center Week by inviting all to attend the Erie Helping Hands Health Fair on August 12 from 3:00-7:00pm. Come by to learn important health education and receive free blood pressure and glucose screenings!

Beats this week:

1) Happy Fiscal Year 2011 blogosphere! Unfortunately, for some in Illinois, this new fiscal year brings a great deal of unhappiness. On July 1, Governor Quinn held a press conference in which he laid out nearly $1.4 billion in cuts to the state budget.

2) This week President Obama made a key recess appointment, placing Dr. Donald Berwick in charge of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The appointment of this position is even more important than before because of health care reform’s impact on the Medicaid and Medicare programs.

3) Around 40 million doses the swine flu vaccine (around $260 million worth) are set to be destroyed in the United States because they have expired. And that’s not the end of it: another 30 million doses are still available but set to expire in the near future.

4) Starting out the summer with some pep in their step, the White House launched a new health care reform website for consumers on July 1. This new website is part of an overall strategy to use the internet and social media as a means to inform people about health care reform. Earlier this week, the White House used their YouTube page to solicit questions from constituents about health care reform, which were then answered by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius earlier today.

5) Twitter and the blogosphere have been abuzz lately with health care folks linking to and discussing the pros and cons of electronic medical records. Erie was even featured in one of the many news stories that came out within the last week. Check us out in the Chicago Sun-Times over the weekend!

Erie Beats

Good afternoon,

Today Erie Family Health Center has a real challenge for you. The underinsured and uninsured of Chicago have urgently requested your service.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to double the impact of your support to Erie Family Health Center. An anonymous funder will match your donation to Erie, dollar for dollar!

Join forces with Erie to impact the health and happiness of our patients and community. Donate now to make a difference in the lives of patients like:

PATIENT: Maria, pregnant
ISSUE: Gum disease
SOLUTION: Erie Dental Health Center

PATIENT: Juan, diabetic
ISSUE: Blurred vision
SOLUTION: Erie’s Optometry Services

PATIENT: Carolina, breast cancer survivor
ISSUE: Needed a mammogram and care
SOLUTION: Erie’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program

Erie needs YOU to achieve Mission:Possible! This email will not self-destruct, but the opportunity to double your gift won’t last long. Make your gift count twice today.

Good luck!

Beats this week:

1) In September you will begin to see health clinics in Targets throughout Chicago and the suburbs. This announcement follows the expansion of health clinics in CVS and Walgreens stores across the country. 

2) Earlier this week, community health centers received some exciting news: the Corporation for National and Community Service decided to fully fund the Community HealthCorps at the requested level for the very first time. With uninsured patient visits up by 21% at community health centers, the $6 million in funding for Community HealthCorps will help to meet this intense demand for care.

3) Celebrity chefs recently took on a challenge: they ate lunch at public schools in the DC area. Through this experience they all came to the same conclusion: schools lunches lacked nutrition, variety and taste. Now months later, these chefs are taking action by teaching cooking classes to students and parents and getting on the front lines for the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative.

4) We are a little late to the news on this one but last month Australian researchers released a study that found a link between diabetes and family history. The study was fairly basic: they took families with and without history of diabetes and overfed them. The results were very interesting, with those with a family history gaining more weight on average and demonstrating a greater resistance to insulin.

5) This week Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of $83.9 million in grants to support the expansion of health information technology. Erie was thrilled to be among the list of grant recipients, accepting on behalf of the Alliance of Chicago Community Health Services.

Beats this week:

1) A report released today from the American Heart Association analyzed the amount of physical education required in schools across the United States. The report, which was released in partnership with the National Association for Sport and Physical Education found that while more states are requiring students to take physical education, few actually require students to exercise for a specific amount of time.

2) Attention all community health data enthusiasts: this week Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius revealed further details about the new Community Health Data Initiative. Under this initiative HHS health data will be made freely available so that software developers can create innovative applications and make the data more useful for consumers and communities.

3) The Illinois legislature has spoken: budget cuts for Illinois will be decided by Governor Quinn. As such, Quinn is now facing the tough challenge of determining what gets slashed in the FY2011 budget for Illinois. On the chopping block: social services, education and health care. Quinn is keeping mum on what he plans to cut but stated that he hoped to release further details within the month and through the summer. Again, stay tuned!

4) This week, the Chicago Dental Society’s blog, Open Wide, wrote about two Illinois programs that provide orthodontia care to patients whose parents are unable to afford the expensive care. Way to go to the Illinois Society of Orthodontists and Smiles Change Lives for their amazing work!

5) The Swiss company, Novartis, announced disappointing news this week: its new ovarian cancer drug will not be moving to the market. The company had hoped the medication, called patupilone, would be more effective than other drugs for advanced cervical cancer patients, however, the late-stage trial proved that it did not.

We’ve heard the chants of “Yes, we can!”  We watched health care reform pass through the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Above all, we’ve had a magic number tattooed in our minds since the first whisper of health care reform came out of Washington.  32 million.  32 million people that, once the health care reform package comes to fruition in 2014, would be able to enter into a physician’s office without financial fear.

The idea of just handing out health insurance to those in need of it seems wonderful.  Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.  In a way, it’s like giving everyone in Chicago a free CTA pass for one day.   You may have the means to ride the El, but if the train is full, you’re not going anywhere.   The same idea goes for health care.  In April, Dr. Francis blogged on Beats Per Minute about the shortage of primary care doctors available to care for this surge of now-insured patients and how community health centers could be the new training ground for upcoming generations of primary care doctors.  Also back in April, Health Beats blogged about the upcoming physician shortage, as well as the possibility of reducing some of the restrictions on nurse practitioners to help lessen the blow of incoming health care demand surge.

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This month is National STD Awareness Month. According the CDC, this month is ‘an annual observance to raise awareness about the impact of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) on the health of Americans and the importance of individuals discussing sexual health with their healthcare providers and, if sexually active, their partners.’ As mentioned yesterday by Beats Per Minute, STDs are on the rise in Illinois (and around the country).

To promote the importance of initiating open dialogue and to promote testing for STDs, Erie Teen Health Center and Erie Clemente Wildcats Student Health Center participated in the national campaign, Get Yourself Talking, Get Yourself Tested (GYT). GYT is the result of an ongoing partnership of MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation to help young people make responsible decisions about their sexual health. For over a week, both Erie health centers have been providing special education on the importance of getting tested and even wore GYT t-shirts to remind our patients to talk to their medical providers about getting tested for STDs. For more resources on GYT and how to initiate a conversation with your medical provider about getting tested, check out these sites.

Let’s give it up for the Erie staff who worked hard this month to increase awareness about the importance of getting tested!

Beats this week:

1) Did you know that this week is National Infant Immunization Week? Well, it is! Illinois public health officials took this week to remind everyone to get their infants vaccinated. In Illinois, approximately 80% of children receive the recommended vaccinations by age two.

2) Reports and sex education experts have drawn one conclusion about the sexual health of Illinois residents: sexual transmitted infections remain high (and have increased) while sexual health knowledge continues to decrease. For example, Illinois currently ranks 8th out of 50 states for highest rate of gonorrhea infections. A 2009 survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy seeks to explain these alarming rates of STIs and points to a variety of misconceptions people have about sex, pregnancy and preventing STIs.

3) A  free clinic in Los Angeles treated 1,200 people on the opening day of the clinic. The clinic, which is a temporary clinic set up for one week in the Memorial Sports Arena, utilized around 300 medical volunteers to provide health, dental and eye care.

4) A study released this week reported that parental involvement is key in maintaining the health status of adolescents with Type I diabetes. The study found that when parents did not closely follow their child’s condition, the child often experienced complications related to their disease.

5) Governor Quinn and other Illinois legislators are working to move thousands of people with mental illnesses out of nursing homes and into community settings in order to provide them with better quality of care. This move would provide these individuals with the intensive counseling and other treatment they need in order to lead more independent lives.