Addressing Colorado's Primary Care Provider Shortage

Outlines projected shortages of physicians, physician assistants, and advance practice nurses in family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics and potential impact on health, healthcare access, and the economy. Recommends policy interventions

An overview of the research evidence on ethnicity and communication in healthcare

• The aim of the present study was to identify and review the available research evidence on 'ethnicity and communication' in areas relevant to ensuring effective provision of mainstream services (e.g. via interpreter, advocacy and translation services); provision of services targeted on communication (e.g. speech and language therapy, counselling, psychotherapy); consensual/ participatory activities (e.g. consent to interventions), and; procedures for managing and planning for linguistic diversity

The Prescription Opioid Epidemic: an Evidence-Based Approach

A group of experts, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, issued this report aimed at stemming the prescription opioid epidemic, a crisis that kills an average of 44 people a day in the U.S. The report calls for changes to the way medical students and physicians are trained, prescriptions are dispensed and monitored, first responders are equipped to treat overdoses, and those with addiction are identified and treated. The report grew out of discussions that began last year at a town hall co-hosted by the Bloomberg School and the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation. The recommendations were developed by professionals from medicine, pharmacy, injury prevention and law. Patient representatives, insurers and drug manufacturers also participated in developing the recommendations. The report breaks its recommendations into seven categories:Prescribing GuidelinesPrescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs)Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and PharmaciesEngineering Strategies (i.e., packaging)Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution ProgramsAddiction TreatmentCommunity-Based Prevention Strategie

Visions and Challenges in Managing and Preserving Data to Measure Quality of Life

Health-related data analysis plays an important role in self-knowledge, disease prevention, diagnosis, and quality of life assessment. With the advent of data-driven solutions, a myriad of apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices (wearables, home-medical sensors, etc) facilitates data collection and provide cloud storage with a central administration. More recently, blockchain and other distributed ledgers became available as alternative storage options based on decentralised organisation systems. We bring attention to the human data bleeding problem and argue that neither centralised nor decentralised system organisations are a magic bullet for data-driven innovation if individual, community and societal values are ignored. The motivation for this position paper is to elaborate on strategies to protect privacy as well as to encourage data sharing and support open data without requiring a complex access protocol for researchers. Our main contribution is to outline the design of a self-regulated Open Health Archive (OHA) system with focus on quality of life (QoL) data.Comment: DSS 2018: Data-Driven Self-Regulating System

Compendium of Cultural Competence Initiatives in Health Care

Public and private sector organizations are involved in a number of activities that seek to reduce cultural and communication barriers to health care. These activities are often described as cultural competency and/or cross-cultural education. A recent Institute of Medicine report recommended that the health care system pursue several of these techniques as part of a multi-level strategy to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in medical care. To address this need, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has developed a compendium, as a first attempt to describe these activities in a single document. The compendium was prepared in response to the many requests from the media and others to define cultural competency and identify efforts underway in this emerging field. The initiatives included in the compendium are from 1990 to the present and it is divided into two categories: Public Sector Initiatives (Federal/state/local) and Private Sector Initiatives (health care institutions or professional organizations, foundations, academic institutions/policy research organizations, and other). This resource also includes brief definitions for the major terms, organizational descriptions of initiatives and a list of experts in the field

Health Concerns in Cambodia Compounded by Historical and Rural Setbacks

Cambodia is a country in the Greater Mekong Subregion of Southeast Asia. The Khmer Rouge genocide in the mid 1970s produced significant setbacks in the nation’s healthcare system. While much progress has been made, rural areas still lack access to medical professionals, facilities, and equipment. Three of the most problematic diseases in Cambodia have been malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis. Due to the inadequacies of rural healthcare, treatment-resistant varieties of malaria and tuberculosis have become a serious concern for both the nation and Southeast Asia as a whole. The question of how to best provide aid to these isolated communities is characterized by complex and multifaceted discussions that seek to bring Cambodia to a place of greater health