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Child Abuse Cases Challenge Doctors, Staff
The national statistics are mind numbing: 1 million children are physically abused each year and three children die every day from physical abuse.
In Arkansas the numbers are not dropping.
In statistics released by the Arkansas Children's Hospital, more than 5,000 children have been evaluated and treated since a child abuse facility opened in 1992. In 2005, more than 600 were seen, and that was an increase of 25 percent from 2004.
BY JEREMY PEPPAS |
Nation Needs Uniform Newborn Screening and Improved Information for Worried Parents
It's high time the United States established a broad, uniform panel of newborn screening tests, say pediatric experts, and the results of a study released in May by the Indiana University School of Medicine suggest such a program would save healthcare dollars as well as lives.
"It was surprising, certainly to me, anyway," says Dr. Stephen M. Downs, who conducted the research along with colleague Dr. Aaron E. Carroll.
BY SHARON H. FITZGERALD |
Asthma Studied in the Delta
The Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute and Dr. Tamara Perry are studying the impact of asthma on children under the age of 18.
What Perry and her team are doing is taking a hard look at the interaction between asthma and children in low income and minority populations who have not been diagnosed or are inadequately treated due to decreased access to healthcare.
The study will take place in the Delta region of Arkansas.
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Kale Still Controversial
In the world of Arkansas pain management, one of the most persistent newsmakers is a pain management physician who no longer even practices in the state. Dr. Bob Kale spent the past four years battling for what he calls the right to effectively treat patients suffering from chronic pain, a right he says the powers that be consistently try to thwart.
BY JENNIFER BOULDEN |
Physician Spotlight: Samiya Razzaq
As a pediatrician at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, Dr. Samiya Razzaq sees patients of all shapes and sizes — quite literally. Razzaq is one of the doctors who works in the Fitness Clinic, the pediatric obesity clinic.
"It [the clinic] has seen over 1,000 children in eight years," Razzaq said. "Right now, if someone wanted to have their child seen, it would be several months before they could get in. We have so many people who want their children seen."
BY JEREMY PEPPAS |
AMA Meeting Produces New Policy Shifts
In a break from its traditional forbearance on government insurance mandates, the AMA's House of Delegates has decided to swing the powerful physician group's lobbying efforts in back of federal and state provisions that would slap a tax penalty on anyone who can afford health insurance but doesn't buy it.
For individuals, the penalty would fall on anyone who makes more than $49,000 a year who fails to buy a catastrophic care policy. For families of four, the financial line would be drawn at $100,000. But the AMA was conspicuously silent on how big penalties should be.
BY TRACY STATON |
Nursing Schools Work to Meet State's Need
According to a 2002 report to the state Legislature, Arkansas needs 1,925 registered nurses to enter the workforce each year. The state's nursing schools are graduating 683 RNs, so the state is running at a deficit of 1,102 RNs every year.
According to Paul Cunningham, a spokesman for the Arkansas Hospital Association, the state has about 1,100 open, budgeted positions in Arkansas hospitals, according to the AHA's last survey.
BY JEREMY PEPPAS |
New Program Promises to Close a Wide Gap in Quality
For some doctors, the professional demands of keeping up with the best practices in the field of medicine may soon steer them in the direction of a personal tutor.
Using grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a group of specialist societies operating under the umbrella of the American Board of Medical Specialties Research and Education Foundation will concentrate on giving doctors the tools, systems and support they need to give their patients the kind of recommended therapy that has delivered the best outcomes for patients with diabetes and asthma.
BY JOHN CARROLL |
Top Hospitals Fine-Tune Their Approach to IT
Seven years ago, when Hospitals and Health Networks magazine first went looking for the 100 "most wired" hospitals and health systems in the country, the healthcare industry was focused on finding the hard dollars and cents that could be saved with cutting edge information technology. But these days, the emphasis has shifted to a scorecard approach that tries to balance an accountant's calculus on ROI (return on investment) with the improvements in quality and streamlined workflows that deliver important, if harder to measure, returns.
By John Carroll |
Wired
For the eighth year, Hospitals & Health Networks has named the 100 Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems in their July issue. Hospitals were asked to report on how they use information technology to address five key areas: safety and quality, customer service, business processes, workforce, and public health and safety.
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Healthcare Market a Crowded One in Hot Springs
Editor's note: The first in a regular series of articles looking at healthcare issues around the state.
Healthcare news doesn't just happen in Little Rock, it happens around the entire state.
A new hospital here or major expansion there, Arkansas healthcare is booming and one of the newest is HealthPark Hospital in Hot Springs.
BY JEREMY PEPPAS |
Is a Defined Benefit Plan Right for You?
If you're a physician in private practice, odds are that you have a retirement plan in place for you and your employees. But if you're closing in on retirement and need to give your retirement nest-egg a boost, a traditional 401(k) and profit sharing plan may leave you short of your goal.
New tax law changes now make it possible to dramatically cut your taxes and potentially put away as much as $100,000 a year or more in a defined benefit plan.
By Chad Carlson |
Children's Nurse Honored by Alma Mater
Arkansas Children's Hospital Specialty Nurse Nancy Tucker, RN, has been recognized by Baptist College of Health Sciences in Memphis as the 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient for outstanding achievement in the profession of nursing and commitment to community education.
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Smoke-free Policies are Best
The U.S. Surgeon General released a report on the dangers of secondhand smoke that draws new conclusions about the need for smoke-free workplaces. The report found that secondhand smoke is even more dangerous than previously thought. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Secondhand Smoke confirms that too many people are unwillingly exposed to secondhand smoke, most alarmingly, children.
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UAMS Mulls Second Campus in Arkansas
Representatives from UAMS and the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees recently visited the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, Kan., a satellite campus of the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Lawrence.
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Researcher Honored With Young Investigator Award
Abdallah Hayar, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences of the UAMS College of Medicine, received the Young Investigator Award for Research in Olfaction from the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (AChemS). The AChemS is an international association that advances understanding of the senses of taste and smell.
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Organ Donation Professionals to Convene at Little Rock Transplantation Summit
National leaders in organ donation, transplantation and federal policy, are headed to Little Rock in September to share their new vision of hope for the thousands waiting for a transplant.
The Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency (ARORA), UAMS, Arkansas Children's Hospital and Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, will jointly sponsor the "Arkansas Donation and Transplantation Summit" on Sept. 8 at the Embassy Suites Hotel.
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