New Program Seeks to Shield 50 Former Foster Youth from Homelessness in San Diego
Local leaders hope a new effort, called the Foster Futures Program, can similarly assist up to 50 people who recently left the foster care system. The nonprofit Promises2Kids will offer participants direct financial aid for everything from apartment deposits to car repairs, and proponents believe covering those one-off expenses, combined with support services like therapy, can reduce the staggering number of residents who become homeless every month in the county. (Nelson, 10/24)
Insurance Crisis Threatens the Stability of California's Foster Family System: The company that insures 90% of foster family agencies in California issued letters of non-renewals in August. Some agencies have closed and others are scrambling to find coverage to prevent up to 9,000 foster youth from being displaced. Read more from EdSource.
Hospital Diagnostic Errors May Harm One in 14 American Patients, Study Finds
Harmful diagnostic errors may occur for as many as one in every 14 hospital patients receiving medical care, a new study based on a single medical center in the U.S. has found. As many as 85 percent of these errors may be preventable, highlighting the need for improved surveillance in hospital settings. ... In their study, published in the journal BMJ Quality and Safety, Dalal and colleagues concluded that, based on this sample from a single medical center, harmful diagnostic errors occurred in 7 percent of patients, or one in 14, receiving general medical care. They added that the majority of these errors were preventable. (Dewan, 10/24)
EPA Enforces Tougher Standards to Shield Children from Lead Paint Exposure
Two weeks after setting a nationwide deadline for removal of lead pipes, the Biden administration is imposing strict new limits on dust from lead-based paint in older homes and child-care facilities. A final rule announced Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency sets limits on lead dust on floors and window sills in pre-1978 residences and child-care facilities to levels so low they cannot be detected. (Daly, 10/24)
Study Finds Young Children at Higher Risk of COVID-19 Hospitalization Compared to Older Kids
Today a Kaiser Permanente Northern California study of children during the COVID-19 pandemic finds children too young to be vaccinated had the highest hospitalization rate, while adolescents had the highest rate of intensive care unit (ICU) admission. The findings are published in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses. (Soucheray, 10/22)
Las Vegas to Welcome Nevada's First Dedicated Children’s Hospital
Nevada’s first stand-alone children’s hospital is coming to the Las Vegas Valley. Intermountain Health unveiled the site of its future stand-alone children’s hospital on Wednesday at UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park in the southwest valley, according to a news release. (Lane, 10/22)
GAO Report Reveals How U.S. Schools Used Pandemic Relief Funds, Including Investments in Improved Ventilation
A new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) concludes that, by the end of the 2021-22 school year, US school districts had spent about $60 billion in federal COVID-19 emergency aid through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund. Eighty percent of this money was used to address students' social-emotional needs and to keep schools running, while 20% went to addressing health concerns, including improving ventilation, enhanced cleaning and disinfection, and hiring school psychologists. (Soucheray, 10/24)
6 Key Details on Hospital’s New Partnership with 'Sesame Street'
A California hospital's work with "Sesame Street" is helping advance digital health. ... Children's Hospital Los Angeles recently connected Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces "Sesame Street," with Augment Therapy, a digital health startup the hospital helped develop through its KidsX Accelerator program. (Bruce, 10/23)
Doctor Claims Politics Blocked Publication of U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers
An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment. The doctor, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, began the study in 2015 as part of a broader, multimillion-dollar federal project on transgender youth. ... The researchers followed the children for two years to see if the treatments improved their mental health. An older Dutch study had found that puberty blockers improved well-being, results that inspired clinics around the world to regularly prescribe the medications as part of what is now called gender-affirming care. But the American trial did not find a similar trend, Dr. Olson-Kennedy said in a wide-ranging interview. (Ghorayshi, 10/23)
Lawsuit Claims Ghost Networks Are Blocking Americans from Accessing Mental Health Care
The push for more transparency in the health system is increasingly taking aim at "ghost networks" — the inaccurate health provider directories that critics say are keeping Americans from getting mental health care. A lawsuit filed against Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield this week comes as Congress and the White House are stepping up efforts to require insurers to accurately account for which providers are in network. (Reed, 10/24)
Thousands of KP Mental Health Workers Go on Strike: Nearly 2,400 Kaiser mental health workers went on strike today after management rejected proposals that union workers say would stanch employee turnover and improve care. Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
In L.A., Street Psychiatrists Provide a Bold New Approach to Supporting the Homeless
In a downtown Los Angeles parking lot, a stretch of asphalt tucked between gleaming hotels and the 110 freeway, a psychiatrist named Shayan Rab was seeing his third patient of the day, a man he knew only as Yoh. Yoh lived in the underpass, his back pressed against the wall, a few feet from the rush of cars exiting the freeway. He made little effort to fend for himself, even to find food or water. When outreach workers dropped off supplies, he often let people walk away with them. He could barely converse, absorbed by an inner world that he described in fragments: a journey to Eden, a supersonic train, a slab of concrete hanging in space. (Barry, 10/20)
Mental Illness Increases the Risk of Severe COVID-19: What’s the Reason?
It’s been clear since the early days of the pandemic: People with mental illness are more likely to have severe outcomes from Covid. Compared to the general population, they’re at higher risk of being hospitalized, developing long Covid or dying from an infection. That fact puts mental illness on the same list as better-known Covid risk factors like cardiovascular issues, chronic kidney disease and asthma. (Blum, 10/21)
Study Examining the Impact of Physicians' Race on Black Babies' Health Faces Scrutiny
New research calls into question the high-profile conclusion of the first major study to show that the race of physicians influences health outcomes. In August of 2020, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science made headlines with its finding that Black infants were half as likely to survive to their first birthday when they were cared for by white doctors instead of Black ones. (McFarling, 10/23)
Study Reveals Women Experience Longer Wait Times than Men for Pain Relief in ERs
Women seeking treatment for pain can wait 30 minutes longer in emergency departments than men, according to a recent study published in PNAS. The study was conducted by researchers in the United States and Israel and assessed emergency department datasets from both countries. According to the study, which analyzed nearly 22,000 emergency department discharge notes of patients with a pain complaint, there are major disparities between the treatment of male and female patients. (Docter-Loeb, 10/21)
Hospitals Facing IV Fluid Shortage That Could Disrupt Surgeries for Weeks
Surgery schedules around the country may be washed out for several more weeks while a crucial IV and sterile fluids factory remains shut down for hurricane-related damage. People often plan non-emergency surgeries in the fall and early-winter months when their insurance coverage will pick up more of the bill, but they may have to wait while health systems preserve supplies for emergencies. (Murphy, 10/22)
Study Finds Few Trans Youths Regret Receiving Gender-Affirming Care
Transgender and nonbinary youths who received gender-affirming medical care, such as puberty blockers and hormones, were largely satisfied with the treatments they received, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. The data analyzed survey responses from more than 200 people who are part of the TransYouth Project, one of the largest and longest community-based studies on the experiences of transgender youths. The majority of respondents expressed satisfaction with the gender-affirming care they received, with only 4 percent — nine respondents — expressing some form of regret. (Ortega, 10/21)