How NASA came to work with a children’s hospital
Filed under: Children, Government, Hot Health Headline
Brian Ahier, writing for Government Health IT, tells the story of how NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories ended up collaborating with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles on a seven-year project focusing on the detection of pediatric cancer through a “a collaborative approach to the discovery and development of early detection biomarkers.” It sounds like a goofy match but, when Ahier breaks it down, it’s easier to see how and why these strange bedfellows ended up together.
Photo by nasa1fan/MSFC via Flickr1. JPL presents a paper on a software framework used for planetary science that functions as ” a kind of search engine that allows scientists working with data in one expression or format to find and compare their data with another.”
2. National Cancer Institute representatives involved with the Early Detection Research Network see the presentation, understand the framework’s potential and hire JPL to consult.
3. The project evolves and CHLA’s Virtual Pediatric Intenstive Care Unit joins the effort to “build a distributed data-sharing network to drive the next generation of clinical decision support for pediatric cancer treatment and research.”
Here’s Ahier’s explanation of why the NASA system makes a difference for the hospital:
The VPICU connects emergency rooms, community hospitals and intensive care units worldwide in a virtual network, extending consultations to even the most remote areas. Using (the JPL technology), clinicians can access data from a network of pediatric hospitals to build an evidence-based foundation for research into childhood cancers.
“The variability in patients in a pediatric ICU is enormous with regards to age, weight and other factors,” says David Kale, a research engineer in the VPICU. “So the question is can we build clinical decision support tools that will help clinicians by augmenting their experience by providing data.”
Butcher, Rosenthal win APEX Awards
Congratulations to AHCJ members Lola Butcher and Eric Rosenthal, who won APEX Awards for Publication Excellence for work that appeared in Oncology Times.
Butcher won in the category of “How-to Series Writing,” for her articles about Twitter and cancer care:
- “How Twitter Is Transforming the Cancer Care Community“
- “Oncologists Using Twitter to Advance Cancer Knowledge.”
Rosenthal was reconized in the News Series category for his “Economy Watch” series:
- As the Economy Turns, Cancer Centers Employ Watchful Waiting
- American Cancer Society Eliminates Exhibitions at Major Oncology Meetings
- Some of This Season’s Oncology Society Meetings May be Scaled Back
- Recessional Updates Reported from AACR’s Annual Meeting
More information about the awards and a complete list of winners is online (PDF).
Send us your latest news
Got a new job? Earned a promotion? Won an award or fellowship? Just published a book? AHCJ members are encouraged to share your news by sending it to info@healthjournalism.org. Member news items are posted on Covering Health and in HealthBeat, AHCJ’s newsletter.
Airplane food caterers cited for health violations
After finding critical health violations at airport restaurants last year, USA Today reporters are at it again. This time, Gary Stoller has reviewed FDA documents that show violations by the catering companies that prepare the food served on the planes themselves.
Photo by Mr. Mystery via Flickr
According to Stoller, “the inspections were at U.S. facilities of two of the world’s biggest airline caterers, LSG Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet, and another large caterer, Flying Food Group.” Between them, they provide 100 million meals to U.S. air travelers each year and run 91 separate kitchens.
The FDA reports say many facilities store food at improper temperatures, use unclean equipment and employ workers who practice poor hygiene. At some, there were cockroaches, flies, mice and other signs of inadequate pest control.
“In spite of best efforts by the FDA and industry, the situation with in-flight catered foods is disturbing, getting worse and now poses a real risk of illness and injury to tens of thousands of airline passengers on a daily basis,” says Roy Costa, a consultant and public health sanitarian.
ACCME reverses stand on industry presentations
The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education has released new guidance that will allow industry scientists to present “product-related research at for-credit talks” as long as “provider controls ensure they have zero control over the content.”
Covering Health readers might remember that John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported on policy changes that would not allow industry representatives to make presentations at the American Health Association’s annual meeting and would likely block them from presentations to other medical associations.
Fauber reports the changes come after the ACCME said that “some accredited providers have an intensive process of peer review that ensures importance, accuracy, and validity and, therefore, the restriction was not needed.”
Marc Iskowitz of Medical Marketing and Media reports that the “guidance means other accredited providers, many of whom have been struggling with the same issue when planning meetings, can include new science that mentions therapeutic options or interventions.”
Survey: Freelance writers leaving the business
Rebecca Rosen Lum, an independent journalist, writes in the California Progress Report that the pool of veteran freelancers – a group many publications have used to extend coverage despite shrinking budgets – is shrinking as experienced journalists transition to more lucrative (or at least more stable) careers.
“Most say they still love the news business and would love to keep reporting and editing,” Rosen writes. “But falling freelance rates, coupled with skyrocketing costs for health insurance and other basic living expenses, are making continued careers in journalism feel increasingly unrealistic.”
Her observations are based on a relatively small sample: The results of a survey of freelancers in northern California, most of them laid-off or bought-out veterans with more than 20 years in the business. The kind of folks who “are now feeling the heat as COBRA and unemployment benefits end, and are augmenting their earnings with work outside the field,” she writes.
GuildFreelancers, a unit of California Media Workers designed to support the self-employed, surveyed 116 independent writers and journalists throughout Northern California. While not a scientific sample, the responses offer a snapshot of a profession in flux, focusing on quality of life, the nature and pace of work, and the freelance marketplace. Respondents include writers, photographers, designers, filmmakers, authors, instructors and multi-media producers.
Respondents aired many gripes which have become depressingly commonplace in today’s freelance circles, including rapidly plunging rates, an explosion of ultra-low-cost content, and the constant struggle to find work and health insurance coverage.
“A dollar a word was the gold standard for three decades (no cost-of-living raises, of course),” writes one respondent. “Then online publishing came into the mix and the bottom dropped out. I’ve been asked to write for as little as a dime per word. Hourly rates offered for copywriting and editing services have dropped as low as $10 an hour. Most online outlets won’t go over 50 cents per word. How can anyone make a living this way? I’ve been in the biz for 30 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it.”
Lum does not address the freelance health writing market in depth, and we are interested in hearing from AHCJ freelancers (especially in the comment section below). Has the decline in health freelance rates been as severe as in other markets? Has increased competition come from laid-off professionals and desperate freelancers branching out from other specializations? How do you see the market evolving in the coming years? Will you be part of it, or are you already looking at alternate careers?
The California Progress Report is published by the Consumer Federation of California Education Foundation.
McKenna on A. baumanii, the latest resistant bug
On her Superbug blog, AHCJ board member Maryn McKenna works her explanatory magic on Acinetobacter baumanii, a drug-resistant bug whose profile (and incidence) is, in McKenna’s words, “rocketing.”
A. baumanii is a nasty bug, causing not just wound infections but pneumonia, urinary tract infections, meningitis and bacteremia. Even more nasty, it collects resistance factors like baseball cards, and is commonly resistant to at least 4 antibiotic classes.
To make the outlook even bleaker, the antibiotic development pipeline for A. baumanii’s class of bacteria has dried up and only super-toxic colistin can take out the nastiest strains of the bacteria. It looks like A. baumanii, whose resistant strains have spread explosively in the past decade, has a particular knack for spreading resistance.
The only real hope for containing A. baumanii, McKenna writes, may be cooperation between all the different local institutions in the fragmented American medical system.
Calif. finds 3,500 nurses were disciplined elsewhere
Filed under: Health data, Health journalism, Hospitals, Hot Health Headline, Nursing
California’s nursing board has confirmed what fans of Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber’s disciplined caregivers series for ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times already suspected, that about 3,500 California nurses had clean records there despite being disciplined in other states. You can find Ornstein and Weber’s report on these developments at ProPublica or the LA Times.
After last year’s report by ProPublica and The Times, California ran its list of 376,000 active and inactive nurses against a database maintained by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, to which nearly all states voluntarily report their disciplinary actions. Among the matches were nurses who had been disciplined by multiple states, sometimes for the same incident.
California officials said they couldn’t disclose the names of any nurses who turned up in the search until a formal disciplinary charge is filed. While those cases are pending, the nurses remain free to practice in California.
Of the 3,500 nurses whose records matched, “as many as 2,000 … will face discipline in California, officials estimate,” Ornstein and Weber write. “That’s more registered nurses than the state has sanctioned in the last four years combined.”
Healthcare.gov coming July 1
Filed under: Government, Health care reform, Health journalism
KHN’s Phil Galewitz previews the July 1 launch of a federal website he says “will give consumers a list of all private and government health care plans for individuals and small businesses in their areas,” a service required by the reform bill, and one that has never before been part of the modern system.
The initial site will just provide basic information on each plan, but a planned October upgrade will include what Galewitz called “detailed cost and benefits information,” the precise nature of which is still being negotiated. Insurance groups, predictably, say that sharing all the information HHS plans to provide will just lead to confusion and higher costs. Consumer groups disagree.
Insurers including UnitedHealthcare and Aetna say HHS is going too far in planning to list certain data, such as the percent of claims that health plans deny, the rate at which they cancel policies after customers get sick and the number of times patients appeal coverage decisions. They say the data would mislead potential customers.
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The site can “be the great equalizer so consumers can have equal access to information and be on the same playing field as insurance companies,” says Elisabeth Benjamin, co-founder of Health Care for All New York, a consumer health care coalition. “The government needs to make the information as open as possible.”
Until 2014, when stricter provisions of the reform bill go into effect and such practices are no longer permitted, the site will list only the “sticker prices” of the plans, and insurers will still be allowed to charge sicker patients more.
Analysis of billing record data reveals hospital quality issues in Las Vegas
Using data from hospital billing records, Marshall Allen and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun have been able to identify “hospital-acquired patient harm,” that is, events in which patients are harmed while in the hospital.
Medicare does not pay for these “never events” and so they are reflected in hospital billing codes. Such events include things like leaving foreign objects in a patient, bed sores, falls, infections related to catheters or surgical sites, blood clots and poor glycemic control.
Nevada – and 40 other states – collect such data for analysis, Allen and Richards report. In Nevada, the state had not yet analyzed the data so the reporters requested it and did the analysis.
The pair requested and received records for “every Nevada hospital inpatient visit going back a decade — 2.9 million in all. The information, coupled with interviews with more than 150 patients and health care insiders, has yielded a sweeping and detailed portrait of hospital care in Las Vegas.”
The project includes stories about patients who were harmed while hospitalized, the documents behind the reporting, data tables, interactive graphics and more.
In major leagues, mental illness losing its stigma
Calling Major League Baseball a “longtime fortress against psychiatry” Sports Illustrated’s Pablo S. Torre profiles the organization’s recent efforts to go from an organization notorious for its lack of crying to one which takes the mental health of its players very seriously.
Photo by Sister72 via Flickr
… baseball has led the way in supporting a growing number of players who have been brave enough to seek assistance for such problems and speak out about them. “Baseball’s older generations like to say, ‘Guys these days just aren’t as tough,’” says Ray Karesky, a licensed psychologist who has directed the Oakland A’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) since 1984. “But what’s different is just that guys have come out and actually admitted their problems.”
Baseball, with its high failure rates (a great hitter still fails two out of every three at-bats), spotlight on individual performance, substantial downtime and long nights on the road, is loaded with mental health stressors. But it’s only now, thanks to the “cover” provided by those few major leaguers bold enough to come forward with their problems, that players at all levels are comfortable enough to address mental health. The revolution began last year, when an unprecedented five big leaguers went on the disabled list for mental health problems — so-called “mental DLs.”
This number isn’t anywhere close to those reported for the general population—the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 26.2% of Americans ages 18 and older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year—but for baseball it represents a sea change: Between 1972 and ‘91 the grand total of mental DLs in the major leagues was zero.
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Awards for Excellence in Health Care JournalismDeadline: Feb. 3
- How I did it: Falsified charts in nursing homes linked to patient care
- Access Denied: Looking at a lack of health care availability
- Transparency & medical errors: Public reporting of patient harm is a potent force
- Focus on freelancing: Tips for buying liability insurance
- Why do some patients get stuck in hospitals for weeks, months?
- Investigate health professionals and the boards that regulate them
- Presidents of AHCJ, SPJ call for more openness from Obama administration
