Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
As the ink dries on President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform legislation, the nation is facing a physician shortage that will only worsen in coming years as 32 million Americans who previously lacked coverage obtain insurance coverage. A recent report predicts a shortfall of approximately 40,000 primary-care physicians over the next 10 years. A provision in the new law is intended to provide a boon to the profession, ranging from bonus payments to expanded community health centers that will pick up the slack.
For patients, one possible solution could be a medical home, which would improve access with a physician-led team of nurses, physician assistants and disease educators. “A lot of things can be done in the team fashion where you don’t need the patient to see the physician every three months,: according to Dr. Sam Jones of Fairfax Family Practice Centers in Virginia. “We think it’s the right thing to do. We were going to do this regardless of what happens with healthcare reform.”
Just 30 percent of American doctors are in primary care, with 65 million Americans living in areas designated as having a shortage of these physicians. More than 16,600 new physicians are needed to close this gap in these mostly rural regions, according to the federal government. One provision of the new healthcare bill is a 10 percent Medicare bonus for primary-care physicians who choose to practice in these underserved regions.
Tags: disease, healthcare reform, insurance coverage, medical, physician shortage, President Barack Obama, primary-care physician
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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) is on the verge of declaring swine flu a global pandemic. That’s Level 6, the highest possible.
With the disease now in 64 nations worldwide, dozens and even hundreds of cases have occurred in countries such as Great Britain, Spain, Japan, Chile and Australia. Right now, Southern Hemisphere countries are under the W.H.O.’s microscope because it’s the start of their winter and another strain of the H1N1 virus was widespread there last year and is resistant to Tamiflu, Roche AG’s flu pill, as are most common strains of flu.
Before raising the alert to Level 6, the W.H.O. will have to present evidence of extensive “community transmission”. This means that the flu is being diagnosed on two continents and in cases other than travelers, schools and immediate contacts. If swine flu is eventually declared a Level 6 pandemic, the W.H.O. may add a qualification that the disease is not especially deadly. Only 117 swine flu deaths have been reported worldwide. The flu has been diagnosed in all 50 of the United States.
Tags: alert, Australia, Chile, community transmission, disease, global pandemic, Great Britain, H1N1, Japan, Level 6, Roche AG flu pill, Southern Hemisphere, Spain, swine flu, Tamiflu, United States, virus, WHO, World Health Organiz, worldwide
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Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
In a 24/7 media world, virtually everyone has now heard of the H1N1 – or swine – flu that is popping up in countries as distant as Peru and Switzerland. If they haven’t, they now surely will. World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan has declared a phase 5 alert – which raises the warning to the level of advising nations to prepare for a pandemic — after consulting with international flu experts.
This alert might strike some people as alarmist, given that “regular” flu kills 36,000 Americans every year – compared with the single death so far we’ve seen in the United States and the 13 confirmed deaths worldwide so far in the current outbreak. But looking at it more closely, the WHO’s preemptive strike may be motivated more by historical fact than today’s news. The Spanish Influenza of 1918 – 1920, which arrived in a similar time frame, infected 28 percent of all Americans; an estimated 675,000 Americans died of the disease and about 50 million across the globe. Clearly, this was a different order of pandemic at a time when the global health system was recovering from WWI and ill-equipped to deal with the emergency. But where it bears some resemblance to swine flu is that the first wave of flu appeared early in the spring of 1918. It disappeared over the summer, with the second wave arriving in Boston in September of 1918. With the number of cases expected to grow into the thousands, according to the chief at Mexico City’s National Institute of Respiratory Diseases’ Center for the Investigation of Infectious Diseases in Mexico City, the WHO’s response is understandable and responsible.
The one concern is on behalf of our already burdened health system. Raising the alert level puts pressure on our emergency rooms especially as people are likely to interpret any flu-like symptoms as signs of H1N1 flu. This is when communication with the public is critical. Representatives of the CDC should be using the copious air time they’re being given not only to report on the level of the contagion but to educate the public about its symptoms and to calm fears.
Tags: Americans, Boston, CDC, disease, global health system, H1N1, H1N1 flu, international flu experts, Investigation of Infectious Diseases, Margaret Chan, Mexico City, National Institute of Respiratory Dieseases, pandemic, Peru, phase 5 alert, Spanish Influenza, swine flu, Switzerland, WHO, World Health Organization, WWI
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