By Michele Lueck In college basketball, being No. 1 means winning the Final Four. In cinema, it means taking home an Oscar. But when it comes to Colorados health, being No. 1 could improve hundreds of thousands of lives and greatly benefit the local economy and business environment. Though Colorado already is No. 1 in certain measures (we have the leanest and most-active adult population of any state), the 2012 Colorado Health Report Card shows theres plenty of room for improvements. For example, were No. 31 among other states in prenatal care and No. 38 in childrens preventative dental care….
Monthly Archives: April 2013 - Part 2
By Edie Sonn Measuring outcomes in meaningful and consistent ways; giving providers incentives to improve; holding them accountable for their results. Comparing providers against their peers as well as against their own historical trend. Rewarding low-performers who improve, without penalizing high-performers that dont have as far to go. Making sense of a bewildering tangle of expectations and requirements. Thats the landscape of health care accountability, right? Yes, and its also the landscape of school accountability. Every single balancing act described above that lies at the heart of every discussion we have about paying for value in health care echoes the…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Wellness and weight loss programs that target adults may come decades too late. Secrets to curbing the obesity epidemic and reversing skyrocketing diabetes rates may be hidden in the womb. Ironically, babies starved of nutrients for a variety of reasons in utero may grow up to have defective metabolic and organ systems that crave calories and can cause obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Researchers have found that a striking 25 to 63 percent of adult diabetes, hypertension and coronary heart disease (cases) can be attributed to the effects of low birth weight. (Click here to…
By Emily King What comes to mind when you think of the term Young Invincible? You might picture a twenty-something, perhaps unemployed or underemployed. Maybe living in a parents basement, consuming an above-average amount of Ramen noodles. This twenty-something chooses not to purchase health insurance, the thinking goes, because getting sick is not something he or she can even picture a perceived invincibility and there are plenty of more fun things to buy. Findings from the 2011 Colorado Health Access Survey (CHAS) suggest that last sentence isnt true for most young adults between the ages of 19 and 29 in…