By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon An experiment to ensure that complex Medicaid patients have a regular doctor and care coordinators who can help them stay healthy has saved Colorado an estimated $20 million in its first year, according to a new report from Colorados Medicaid managers. Were very happy that its moving in the right direction, said Laurel Karabatsos, director of health programs for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF). So far, about 20 percent of Colorados more than 600,000 Medicaid clients are enrolled in the program called the Accountable Care Collaborative (ACC). Our goal over the…
Category: Featured - Part 13
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon An MRI on your knee in Colorado could cost as little as $297 or as much as $1,261 depending on where you get it, according to the first release of health data from a powerful new tool aimed at improving health, bringing down costs and improving the quality of care. On Thursday, Colorado became the 12th state in the nation to unveil an All Payer Claims Database (APCD) with the debut of www.cohealthdata.org managed by the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC). So far, the database includes about 40 percent of health data from…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Despite a sea of pink draping Colorado in October, fundraising for Komen breast cancer affiliates is down by as much as 30 percent, a drop that will hit local nonprofits across the state. Employees at Komen affiliates in Colorado risked their jobs in February when they publicly opposed the national move of Susan G. Komen for the Cure to cut funding to Planned Parenthood. The political spat between the two womens health groups erupted after Komen officials withdrew $680,000 from Planned Parenthood, which along with abortions and contraceptives, provides breast cancer screening to the poor. The…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The woman is missing most of her teeth, but grins like a 6-year-old at a birthday party. Unsteady on her feet, the 48-year-old homeless woman nonetheless proudly describes the meaning of the famous Emanuel Martinez mural outside Denvers La Alma Recreation Center. The young Chicano man is the future. The Indian is our past, says Gina Marie Crespin, who grew up in the Lincoln Park area and now spends her days in the neighborhood park. The eagle is power, Crespin says, pointing to the center of the mural where the soaring birds wings spread to form…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Frequent flyers at hospital ERs sought emergency care at least four times a year and accounted for anywhere from 11 to 40 percent of total emergency room visits around the U.S., according to seven new studies unveiled this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians in Denver. In one of the studies, researchers in San Diego identified a group of super users, each of whom visited an ER 21 or more times in a single year. These patients bounced from hospital to hospital. While they represented just .2 percent of all…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Policy makers who want to simultaneously boost high school graduation rates and reverse health epidemics from diabetes to obesity should focus intently on helping the youngest children and their families, according to one of the nations leading experts on early child development. Dr. Jack P. Shonkoff, director of Harvard Universitys Center on the Developing Childmet with Colorado policymakers on Thursday and spoke to childrens advocates at the annual luncheon for the Colorado Childrens Campaign. His message was clear. Intervene early. Intervene now. And pool your resources. Early experiences shape the development of the brain and affect…
By Mary Winter DENVER Holli Wiseman remembers when nurses were expected to be seen, not heard. In the late 1970s, shortly after shed graduated nursing school and was working at Porter Hospital, Wiseman says a doctor screamed at her: Dont give the patient any information unless the doctor says to! Wisemans faux pas? Shed taken time to explain blood pressure readings to a man in her care. Wiseman laughs at the memory. Today, of course, doctors depend on you to give patients information, says Wiseman, a clinical nurse specialist with the Visiting Nurse Association in Denver. Teaching is a major…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The MacArthur Foundation has honored a Colorado doctor with a $500,000 genius grant for his work to help chronically ill older adults stay well. University of Colorado School of Medicine geriatrician, Dr. Eric Coleman, has won the prestigious MacArthur fellowshipfor creating the concept of low cost transition coaches. The coaches provide relatively simple support to chronically ill older adults and their caregivers for a month after hospitals release the patient. His program is called Care Transitions Intervention. The issue is critically important because hospital readmissions are costing taxpayers an estimated $17.5 billion dollars a year. Studies…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon COLORADO SPRINGS The relationship is on the rocks. Long divided into opposing cultures, doctors, who focus on the body, are trying to work side-by-side with behavioral health experts who try to heal patients minds. In a grand Colorado experiment called Advancing Care Together, 11 pilot sites are participating in a $4 million four-year experiment to bring these disparate worlds together. And some are pining for a divorce. Or at least they want a proper wedding that includes electronic medical records that actually talk to each other. If we want it, weve got a put a ring…
By Diane Carman Ezekiel Zeke Emanuel told an audience Thursday morning that the United States will be guaranteed a much better health care system by 2020 because of the Affordable Care Act, while his debate opponent Linda Gorman countered that the objective of Emanuel and other architects of Obamacare was really to limit our freedom. The debate, sponsored by the University of Denver and the Denver Post, revealed yet again how far apart Americans remain on the issue of health care reform two years after its passage. Emanuel, a University of Pennsylvania professor who served as special advisor to the…