|
FY 2012 GRHA Board of Directors
President
Sallie Barker
Immediate Past President
Nannette Turner
President Elect
Denise Kornegay
Vice President
Ann Addison
Treasurer
Sheila Freeman
Secretary
Deidre Howell
Board Members
Carla Belcher
Laura Bland Gillman
Sue Nieman
Charles Owens
Chris Parker
Rhett Partin
Caroline Holley Womack
Paula Guy
Monty M. Veazey
Matt Caseman
Meet our Board of Directors
|
The Pulse
Lifesaving heart program finds itself at risk
Lori Thornton knows the nurses at the Oglethorpe County health department want her to quit smoking. She has already lost weight and improved her diet through a state public health program that helps low-income and uninsured Georgians manage their high blood pressure.
"If it wasn't for the health department, I would not seek any help," Thornton says.
But the program that paid for Thornton's care, known as SHAPP, or Stroke and Heart Attack Prevention Program, ended Sept. 30. Now, more than two months later, only six of the state's 14 districts that originally offered the program have found ways to continue it. The districts, which each serve several counties, include those headquartered in Athens, Albany, Augusta, Dalton, Dublin and Savannah.
SHAPP provides patients with free or low-cost medication, weight loss counseling and care management. In some counties, consistent weight loss brings patients deeper discounts.
"The work will continue to be addressed in different budget streams around the state," says Connie Smith, spokeswoman for Georgia's Department of Public Health. So far, one state position has been cut due to the elimination of the program.
At its peak funding in 2006, SHAPP served more than 17,000 Georgians, but that number fell yearly due to steadily declining funds.
Read More
|
"This is Public Health"
Video Contest
|
Sebelius: Let's keep mobile health safe, secure, American
"We are talking about taking the biggest technology breakthrough of our time and using it to address our greatest national challenge," Kathleen Sebelius U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said during her keynote presentation at the mHealth Summit in Washington DC this morning. Sebelius envisioned a "remarkable future" where control over a patient's own health was always within their control. She listed off a number of potential use cases for mobile health, including remote diagnosis of skin conditions using smartphone cameras; scheduling lab tests without a physician or medical office staff "lifting one finger"; working with your doctor to manage your own health every day instead of just once a year, she said.
Sebelius said that few industries have grown as quickly as mobile health has in the past two years since the first mHealth Summit in 2009, which Sebelius also keynoted. Sebelius noted the rapid growth of smartphones - more than half of all phones sold in the US this past year were smartphones - and that we are "increasingly" using our phones to track and manage our health.
More
|
| Notice | |
GRHA circulates state and national news as an information service only. Inclusion of information is not intended as an endorsement.
|
|
|
|
Critical Access should not be the target of cuts for rural healthcare
By: Pete Reilly
I am a big fan of National Public Radio. I enjoy and rely on their news programs not only for information, but also for the perspective on many of the news items of the day. However sometimes in their effort to be brief, their news items miss the important aspects of a news story that cannot be ignored. Today NPR ran a story about Critical Access Hospitals. In my opinion, this story was one of those times. Jenny Gold of the NPR/Kaiser Health News Partnership reported on whether or not the federal program designating these facilities as such was effective or necessary. While the piece focused its attention on Hood memorial Hospital in Amite, LA and its operating loss of $700,000 last year, the essence of the story goes much deeper. Specifically, it raised the issue of the need for the enhanced Medicare reimbursements for these facilities in the current fiscal environment in which our nation finds itself.
I want to be clear in my response and reaction to this news story. We do need to carefully examine and demand greater efficiency from ALL of our government programs. This is true from our entitlement programs, our defense spending and all the way down to the most mundane of policies and regulations. Our federal spending is too high and needs to be cut. However, programs such as the Critical Access Hospital program are being made easy targets in an era when "sound-bites" too often influence, shape and dictate basic governmental policy.
Our nation's healthcare is the finest in the world. The quality of care available in this country is second to none. However, our spending and the related ancillary costs associated with our healthcare system are growing at a rate well beyond other economic sectors. This reality is a result of many complicated and interrelated factors. These include the dramatic lengthening our life expectancies, the types and availability of new and remarkably effective treatments and medicines, the physical demands of sophisticated and modern treatment facilities as well as our "expectation" of universal access to care. But these realities raise serious and potentially dangerous trends for a significant number of Americans living in our rural communities.
Read more>>>
Pete Reilly is the Healthcare Practice Leader at WGA with extensive knowledge in healthcare systems, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, and medical practice groups of all sizes.
|
|
Record Broken!
Back in October, the First Lady joined students, teachers, and parents from all over the country to reach for a big goal: breaking the world record for the number of people doing jumping jacks in a 24-hour period. The old record was over 20,000 people, so trying to break it was no small feat.
Today, we're proud to announce that with your help, 300,265 people jumped that day! Breaking the record is a huge accomplishment. But we still have a lot of work left to do to meet an even bigger goal: ending childhood obesity within a generation so all children have a chance to grow up healthy and strong.
To reach that goal, we need to make sure that all kids are getting the nutrition they need, have a chance to be active each day and get support from our schools, families and communities. That's what the Let's Move! initiative is all about.
|
Health Law May Accelerate Growth In Urgent Care Centers
By Phil Galewitz
KHN Staff Writer
This story was produced in collaboration with USA Today
After Dwayne Duckenfield banged his right elbow working around the house on a recent Saturday, he grew worried when the swelling didn't go down and the pain worsened.
Concerned he may have broken a bone, the project manager who lives in Washington, D.C., didn't go to the nearest emergency room or wait until Monday to call his physician for an appointment. Like an increasing number of Americans looking for fast and affordable health care, he went to an urgent care facility.
Duckenfield, 41, visited Concentra Urgent Care just inside the Washington Beltway, a center that's part of the nation's largest urgent care chain. Within 75 minutes, he was examined by a physician's assistant, had an X-ray that came back negative, and was prescribed a pain medication. "This was so convenient and now I have peace of mind," he said, after paying his $25 insurance co-pay.
Across the country, an estimated 3 million patients visit these centers each week, according to the Urgent Care Association of America, a trade group based in Chicago. To meet increased demand, the number of facilities has steadily increased from 8,000 in 2008 to more than 9,200 this year, the association said. About 600 new urgent centers opened this year.
Fueling that rise are two longstanding trends - crowded emergency rooms and a lack of primary care doctors. Urgent care operators also say another factor is helping to propel business: the drive to lower costs.
Urgent care centers' fees are at least half those charged at a hospital emergency department for the same condition, although they are similar to what physicians charge for office visits. Still the savings in ER costs are a big draw for patients without insurance, as well as insured patients facing higher out-of- pocket costs because of rising deductibles. Those lower fees have also drawn the attention of hospitals and insurers -- both of which increasingly see the facilities as a way to hold down costs and boost their bottom lines.
Read On
|
|
|
|
|
Mark Your Calendar
CY2011 Uniform Data System (UDS) Traning
January 19, 2012
Double Tree by Hilton Atlanta Airport
The UDS training is a full day program covering the preparation of the 2011 UDS Report
Georgia Rural Health Association
Rural Health Day at the Capitol
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Georgia State Capitol, South Wing
8:00 am - 12:00 pm
Georgia Partnership for TeleHealth
2012 Annual Conference
March 14th-16 Ritz-Carlton, Reynold Plantation
Lake Oconee, GA
Society of Trauma Nurses
STN 15th Annual Conference
April 11-14, 2012
Going Coastal: Reset your Trauma Compass
Hyatt Regency Savannah
Savannah, GA
NRHA 2012 Policy Institute
Jan 30 - Feb 1, 2012
|
For those of you who want to stay up to date through social networks, please like the Georgia Rural Health Association Facebook page and follow us on Twitter!
  By joining our social media sites, you have the ability to stay updated on the latest rural health information in Georgia. Please help us spread the word! Thank you for your support and feel free to contact us with any questions.
|
|
|
