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 Michigan Council for Maternal and Child Health
Friday Notes
Friday Notes is intended to share current information, resources and notices.
If you have information or announcements that you would like to have included in an upcoming issue, please forward them to MCMCH.
August 26, 2011
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Pew Center Releases Inventory of State Home Visiting Programs
Pew Center on the States released a report this week looking at home visiting programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In 2010, Pew surveyed state agency leaders in an effort to inventory state home visiting programs.
The resulting report, States and the New Federal Home Visiting Initiative: An Assessment from the Starting Line, along with the Pew Home Visiting Inventory, provides state leaders, agency administrators and program directors with individual state snapshots and a national overview of home visiting programs, models and funding.
With the new federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program beginning to make grants to states to improve and expand home visitation, these data and Pew's findings and recommendations give policy makers a much-needed account of home visiting investments and programs as well as strategies to maximize federal and state resources.
Together, the report and inventory will help state and federal policy makers evaluate current home visiting approaches, compare systems across states, prepare for the upcoming infusion of MIECHV grant dollars and make informed decisions to ensure the best results for families and strongest returns to taxpayers.
Learn more about the report here. Libby Doggett, Director of the Pew Home Visiting Campaign, will be interviewed by WGVU in Grand Rapids today. You can read a Q&A with her on the Pew website here.
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Medical Claims Tax Bills Head to Governor
One of the most significant components to the 2011-12 fiscal year budget, a 1 percent tax on all medical claims, was taken up and passed Wednesday in the House 65-42 with some crossover votes.
SB 347 and SB 348 would enable Michigan to continue collecting about $1.2 billion in state and federal money for Medicaid as the current 6 percent tax on the state's Medicaid health maintenance organizations and pre-paid inpatient health plans will likely be ruled invalid by the federal government later this year. The medical claims tax takes effect January 1.
While the House tightened the language on how much the new tax will actually generate, the Senate did concur on those changes Wednesday, allowing the bill to proceed to Governor Snyder who has indicated he will sign the bills.
The final version exempts federal Medicare, employee and veterans administration claims, as well as fee-for-service Medicaid claims. Out of pocket co-pays, deductibles and coinsurance for individuals, as well as casualty insurance payments, also would not be subject to the 1 percent tax.
The tax, which expires in 2014, can only generate $400 million for Medicaid, with credits issued to insurers above that amount. There would also be a $10,000 cap on the tax per individual.
A series of amendments offered on the House floor were defeated, including one to exempt schools and local governments from paying the new tax.
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Michigan Leads by Implementing Parent Consent Process for BioTrust Research
Newborn Screening is an important and successful population-based public health program that has prevented disabilities and saved the lives of over 4,000 Michigan babies since the program began in 1965.
The potential public health "good" of newborn screening has been expanded by making residual newborn screening dried blood spots available for population-based health research. On June 1, 2009, the Michigan Department of Community Health with university partners launched the Michigan BioTrust for Health, an initiative to make residual newborn screening dried blood spot specimens more useful for health research while ensuring better public understanding and transparency of policies and procedures that govern their use.
As of October 1, 2010, all Michigan birthing hospitals are now obtaining written permission from new parents who want to allow their newborn's residual dried blood spots to be made available for potential health research through the BioTrust.
MDCH worked diligently to prepare birthing hospital staff to implement the BioTrust consent process. Newborn screening kits were re-designed to contain a BioTrust consent form, and multiple educational materials were created to ensure parental understanding of newborn screening, the BioTrust, and consent process to allow use of residual dried blood spots in the BioTrust.
MDCH continues to emphasize community education about newborn screening and the BioTrust. To learn more visit michigan.gov/biotrust.
Please note that in the August 19 edition of Friday Notes the headline for this piece incorrectly indicated that the parent consent process is for newborn screening.
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Beaumont Resident Helps Kids Have Healthy Adventure at the Zoo Inside Beaumont News Day in and day out, Jennifer King, M.D., Pediatrics, sees children in the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic at MCMCH member William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak struggling with obesity.
Many of the children she treats come from families that struggle economically. Consequently, the neighborhoods they call home aren't always safe to go out for a walk, ride their bikes around the block or play at a nearby playground.
"Because of safety issues, these kids don't always have somewhere safe to play, which results in them
getting very little exercise," says Dr. King.
As she played with her son one day at the Detroit Zoo, inspiration struck. "I was at the zoo with my son and I thought about how much he loves it there," she says. "I thought what a shame it was that our clinic patients can't go because of the price. The zoo is such a great leaning and activity opportunity I decided to see if I could build a program." And she did.
Healthy Kids Zoo Adventure launched in July. In the first week, more than 60 clinic families signed up for the program. "The family members of the peds clinic get a zoo pass to go as often as they want for three months," she says. "The program also includes tips for parents to engage their kids at the zoo and a scavenger hunt to promote literacy. They even learn map-reading skills."
Dr. King started getting the program together in April by applying for a grant from Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and the Beaumont Healthy Kids Program. Through the funding, 145 passes were made available.
"We're targeting our patients in the pediatric clinic who come from low-income homes," says Dr. King. "At the end of the program, parents provide a photo of the family at the zoo and the kids draw a picture or write an essay about their adventures. It's a great way to promote physical activity as well as learning and reading skills."
As a third-year pediatric resident, Dr. King hopes the program is successful and continues to offer families these opportunities. "Eventually, I'd like to expand the program to be able to offer more families the chance to be active together."
To help with the literacy portion of the program, Beaumont Royal Oak will host a book drive for new
or gently used children's books Sept. 12-23. If you'd like to send books to the Healthy Kids Zoo Adventure program, contact Dr. King at Jennifer.King@beaumont.edu.
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Task Force on Nursing Practice Forum Reports Available
The Michigan Department of Community Health-Task Force on Nursing Practice has prepared reports from the first two TFNP Regional Forums in Marquette and Gaylord. You can read the reports here (Marquette) and here (Gaylord).
Upcoming forums will be held:
August 30 from 4-6pm at the Southfield Parks and Recreation in Southfield
September 2 from 8-10am at the Hope Network Education Center in Grand Rapids
October 20 from 4-6pm at the Lexington Hotel in Lansing
The Task Force on Nursing Practice has been charged to examine nursing practice issues in Michigan with the goal of modernizing the nursing practice environment and thereby protecting the health and safety of the public. To identify current nursing practice issues, the Task Force is hosting a series of five forums around the State to hear from nurses, other healthcare professionals, consumers and stakeholders. Please join us for one of the Regional Forums and share practice issues you experience. The information collected at the Regional Forums will help shape the Task Force recommendations.
For more information, visit the Center for Nursing Workforce and Policy's website at micnwp.org.
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Contributors to this Issue
AHIP HI-Wire
Gongwer News Service
HealthDay
Pew Center on the States
William Beaumont Hospitals
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Quick Links . . .
Michigan Bullying Prevention Summit: September 30
Michigan's Children; along with 25 local, regional, and state level organizations; have partnered with the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association to form a coalition to address school safety. The coalition is hosting the Michigan Bullying Prevention Summit on September 30, 2011. The Summit will feature nationally recognized speakers sharing what works in bullying prevention and will conclude with a town hall meeting aimed at identifying next steps. All concerned citizens are encouraged to participate. For more information about bullying policies, read Michigan's Children's Issues publication Bullying and School Safety: Encouraging a Model Policy Through Comprehensive Legislation.
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Relatively Speaking 2011: October 7-9, Grand Rapids
The Relatively Speaking 2011 conference--an event for siblings and other family members of children with special needs--will be held October 7-9 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids. Siblings age six through teens share their unique
concerns in fun, recreational groups led by specially trained adults. Family scholarships are available. Learn more here.
___________________________________________________________________________________________ Annual Parenting Awareness Michigan Conferences: Save the Dates
Prevention Network will hold two Parenting Awareness Conferences: October 19 at Northern Michigan University in Marquette and November 18 at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing. On October 19, Wendy Shepherd will provide the keynote, "Opting for Optimism: Focusing on the Positives with Parent Engagement." On November 18, Pat Crum-Lubben will provide the keynote, "His Brain/Her Brain: What's the Difference?" Learn more here.
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U.S.-Mandated Report Finds Vaccines Safe for Kids
An exhaustive new report from experts at the Institute of Medicine finds that children's vaccines are typically safe, with bad reactions occurring only rarely and then not causing any lasting medical problems.
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HPV Vaccination Rates Low Among Teen Girls, CDC Reports Teen vaccination rates for human papillomavirus (HPV) are lagging behind rates for two other important vaccines in the United States, federal researchers say.
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Risk of Autism in Siblings Higher Than Thought Younger siblings of a child with an autism spectrum disorder have a nearly one in five chance of being diagnosed with autism, much higher than previous estimates, a new study finds.
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The Michigan Council for Maternal and Child Health is made up of
member organizations who share a commitment to the health of
Michigan's women, children and families.
To learn more go to http://www.mcmch.org or email info@mcmch.org.
Amy Zaagman - Executive Director - azaagman@mcmch.org
Jennifer Gorchow - Communications Manager - jgorchow@mcmch.org
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