Pulse on Health by Jeff Hansel

Suntans are skin damage

Mayo Clinic offers a humorous touch to a serious subject at "Sunscreen:  Answers to Your Burning Questions" on MayoClinic.com.

Mayo cautions that, even if you wear sunscreen while outdoors, the product can lose effectiveness through:

• High humidity

• Sweating

• Drying or rubbing your skin with a towel

• Swimming, showering or other contact with water.

So to avoid the skin damage of sun tans and sun burns, Mayo recommends, try to avoid sun exposure between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when "the sun's rays are strongest."  Also, cover your skin with "tightly woven clothing that covers your arms and legs and a broad-brimmed hat, which provides more protection than does a baseball cap or golf visor."  The clinic also suggest wearing clothing or gear "specially designed to provide sun protection.  Lastly, the clinic advises, "apply sunscreen liberally 30 minutes before going outdoors and reapply about every two hours.  Use it even on cloudy or hazy days."  

You should pick sunscreens rated against both ultraviolet A and ultraviolet B (UVA and UVB) rays.  

"What's the harm in sunburn? A person's risk for melanoma — the most serious form of skin cancer — doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns," says the Skin Cancer Foundation.  

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

Missing and exploited children

Resources are available if you witness something that makes you question the safety of a child, and if your child disappears.  

Here is some advice from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children in case you can not find a child under your care:

"ACT IMMEDIATELY if you believe that your child is missing.
What to Do:

• If your child is missing from home, search the house checking closets, piles of laundry, in and under beds, inside large appliances, and inside vehicles, including trunks, wherever a child may crawl or hide.

• If you still cannot find your child, immediately call your local law enforcement agency.

• If your child disappears in a store, notify the store manager or security office. Then immediately call your local law-enforcement agency. Many stores have a Code Adam plan of action— if a child is missing in the store, employees immediately mobilize to look for the missing child.

• When you call law enforcement, provide your child's name, date of birth, height, weight, and any other unique identifiers such as eyeglasses and braces. Tell them when you noticed that your child was missing and what clothing he or she was wearing.

• Request that your child's name and identifying information be immediately entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Missing Person File.

• After you have reported your child missing to law enforcement, call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children on our toll-free telephone number: 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678)."

I want to emphasize that if you notice something out of the ordinary related to a child, that it's okay to intervene by calling law enforcement, offering support in whatever way you're able (in the case of suspected abuse) and making others take notice by simply asking a slightly-louder-than-normal question.  Witnesses are always good.

I remember when I was a young person — two Iowa children disappeared — they have never been found.  Years later, while working at an Iowa newspaper as an intern, I took a call from one of their mothers, who was still actively trying to keep the case in the headlines.  The call left my heart aching, because I knew her child, by then, would be an adult.

So it's worth a little embarrassment if you ever get a gut feeling that something's not quite right about the circumstances you see a child experiencing.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

 

Spaghetti

My trip health-conscious venture this weekend included a desire for spaghetti.  We're heading into fresh-tomato season at the farmers market.  So I latched onto one tomato and found some young carrots, too (the yellow kind).  Then I got a couple of yellow zucchini and some chives and leaf chervil.  Then, I stopped by for a pound of frozen ground bison (which I call buffalo — sorry to all those who try to get us to say the "correct" term).  

The vendor asked my meal plans and, when I told her, she pointed out that I would like it because there would not be a lot of fat.  I recognize that, for some people, the fat is the tasty part.  But I became enamored with buffalo meat while living in North Dakota.  It's a delicious, lean and healthy alternative.  And, although I have heard many, many health experts tell me to eat more fruits and vegetables and less red meat, variety is the name of the game for me.  So I think it's okay to eat a good filet once in a while.

But I confess I enjoyed my bison, buffalo or whatever you want to call it.  For a family of four, my mixture would have made a good meal.  But, for me, it lasted for four meals (yes I ate the same thing four different times in two days).  

Yum.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

UK predicts 100,000 H1N1 cases per day

[The H1N1 virus. CDC photo.  Click to enlarge.]

Great Britain has predicted it will see 100,000 new cases of H1N1 pandemic influenza by the end of August if the current daily doubling in cases continues.

"Cases are doubling every week and on this trend we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August," Health Minister Andy Burnham was quoted as saying to the House of Commons on Thursday in an Associated Press article by Maria Cheng.

The article says "Britain has been reporting several hundred new swine flu cases daily for the last several weeks. If that surges to 100,000 cases a day by the end of August, there could be 6 million people infected by the fall, or 10 percent of Britain's 60 million population."

The World Health Organization has predicted that 2 billion people could eventually get infected with H1N1, Cheng writes.  

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that there have been more than 77,000 confirmed cases worldwide, with more than 300 deaths worldwide.  But health experts have been saying that the numbers are probably actually at multiple times that level. 

I've written this before, but if there are medications you can not live without, now is the time to stock up.  Imagine 100,000 people per day getting sick in the U.S. (if that were to happen).  Imagine how that would affect delivery of food to the grocery store, medication and medical supplies to the pharmacy and other basic services.  

I've noticed recently that convenience stores have severely curtailed their inventories of ice-cream, snack foods and beverages.  I presume that's because of the Great Recession.  But imagine if your favorite convenience store missed, say one or two — or three — deliveries.  What would be left?

I walk a fine line between Chicken Little and some hypothetical person who wouldn't head to the basement even if a tornado was headed right for the front door.  My purpose is to offer you information so you can make reasoned decisions.  

Of course, I should point out that Cheng quotes a scientist who thinks that the 100,000 H1N1 cases in Great Britain estimate came out of thin air.

Hopefully the illness will fizzle out.  But it sure doesn't look like that's what's going to happen.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

Patent claims and the biotech industry

LAW360, which bills itself as "the newswire for business lawyers" reports that patent-lawsuit counterclaims by the Alzheimer's Institute of America, Inc. against Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida have been "dismissed."

The LAW360 article written by Ryan Davis says Mayo and the Alzheimer's Institute have been filing claims and counterclaims since 2005 when Mayo and Myriad Pharmaceuticals sued the Alzheimer's Institute "seeking to compel arbitration of a licensing dispute." The Institute claims transgenic-mouse cell lines weren't covered by a license agreement and that Mayo and Myriad infringed on patents, "profited from the sale or licensing of them" and that the profits of Mayo and Myriad "included 'at least 100 million dollars.'"

The Alzheimer's Institute, interestingly, has little but an address on its Web site.

Myriad Pharmaceuticals says online that it is "a healthcare company focused on the development and marketing of novel molecular diagnostic products" with a goal "to introduce new molecular diagnostic products that provide life-saving information, improve the quality of life, and save the healthcare system money."  An August, 2005 news release says Myriad Genetics (from which Myriad Pharmaceuticals was spun off) says a drug developed as a result of research led by Mayo reduced Alzheimer's plaque better "than any other compound tested."

We can expect that more such legal wrangling over patents will come to roost in Minnesota in the coming years if biotechnology development proliferates here. 

The Minnesota Biobusiness Center and the headquarters of the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics are two Rochester, Minnesota examples of places where increasing numbers of patents will surely be filed.  

There's also the Hormel Institute in Austin, Minnesota.  And the planned $1 billion Elk Run biotechnology project in Pine Island, Minnesota.  Toss in IBM, Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota Rochester for good measure.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

HIV and President Obama

President Barack Obama Saturday asked Americans to get tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  

Here's a video from the White House showing President Obama (when he was a senator) and his wife Michelle getting tested in Kenya.

"If you know your status, then you can prevent illness. You can prevent passing it to your children, and to your families, and we can make everybody have happier, healthier lives," he told a crowd.

He said the same message he spoke in Kenya in 2006 is true now in the United States today. He asked that you get tested so you know your HIV status.  

"Get tested. By knowing your HIV status you can take control not only of your own health, but the health of those around you," he said.

HIV testing is available at Olmsted County Public Health, 2100 Campus Drive S.E. (1-507-328-7500), at Planned Parenthood (1-507-288-5186) in the Northgate shopping center and through your doctor.

For more information, call the Minnesota AIDSLine at 1-800-248-AIDS.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

President Obama and Jeff Korsmo, in their own words

[Barack Obama as a candidate.  Click to enlarge.  Copyright.]

Here is a link to the full text of President Obama's online town hall meeting about health reform yesterday (July 1, 2009).

Also, here is a link to the video, in case you'd like to listen yourself.

Here, again, is what Obama said about Mayo Clinic (so you have the background):

"There are some places, like the Mayo Clinic, many of you have heard of, provides outstanding care, some of the best in the world.  People fly in from everywhere to go to Mayo Clinic to get treated.  Turns out Mayo provides care much more cheaply than a lot of other health systems, even though it's better care.  And part of the reason is they do some things that are commonsensical, but unfortunately we don't do in the health care system. 

For example, instead of you going to one -- your primary care physician, who has you do a bunch of tests, then refers you to a specialist who has you do a bunch of tests, then maybe you go to a third specialist, another bunch of tests; go to the hospital, they retest you.  What they do is, at Mayo Clinic, when you meet with the -- your primary physician, he calls in all the specialists all at the same time, and as a team they evaluate you, do all the tests right there, so you're not duplicating a whole bunch of stuff.  And that coordinated care drives down costs tremendously.

     That's the kind of common-sense approach that we're going to have to take.  And one of the things that we're going to need to do in the health reform that we're proposing is to incentivize those kinds of smart practices coordinating care, as opposed to what we do right now, which is we just pay you -- the more services you provide, the more we pay you, which gives doctors and hospitals a pretty strong incentive to test you five times instead of one time.  I'm not saying they do it consciously, but right now we're preventing them from coordinating in a smart fashion because of the ways that we reimburse.  That has to be part of the reform that we initiate."

Jeff Korsmo, executive director of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center, responded to Obama's comments for an article for today's Post-Bulletin.  Here, in his own words, are Korsmo's responses. 

Post-Bulletin: 1)  Anything else you wish President Obama would mention?

Jeff Korsmo: 1. President Obama is using Mayo Clinic as an example of coordinated care, and how better quality and value can be provided to patients -- we are very gratified by the recognition he has given to Mayo Clinic, which reflects support for the values and culture created by our founders and supported by all who have worked in this organization over many years. It will be important in the coming weeks to stay focused on providing, and paying for, better outcomes for patients. More care is not always better care, as the President has said, yet much of the current payment system in health care pays the most to those who provide more care, with no consideration given to providing better care. We hope that message will be applied to payment reform, especially for Medicare.

Post-Bulletin: 2)  How do you feel about getting mentioned in such a public way on a weekly basis?

Jeff Korsmo: 2. We are pleased the President has recognized Mayo Clinic, but it is important to note that there are many high quality,  moderate cost, coordinated health care providers -- both in Minnesota and across the country. There are pockets across the country where health care providers are doing a great job in innovation and working to drive waste out of the system. We are  fortunate to be in a state that is better than most. The challenge will be to see if we can realign the payment system to adequately compensate the high quality providers so they can continue to do the good work they have been doing all  along, and to provide the right incentives for those who are not achieving this level of performance to improve.

Post-Bulletin: 3)  Has the Health Policy Center invited President Obama to visit Mayo to see your cost-saving measures personally and to draw attention to them?

Jeff Korsmo: 3. We are working with many members of Congress and the Administration , as well as thought leaders from around the country.  Many have visited Mayo to gain a better understanding of how we have created a patient-centered, team-based, high value health care organization, and we would welcome others to visit if they have an interest in learning more about the Mayo Clinic culture and care model.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

Hormel Institute open houses

The University of Minnesota's Hormel Institute in Austin, Minnesota holds weekly open house from 1 to 4 p.m. every Thursday all summer long, the institute's communications director says.  

The Hormel Institute, 801 16th Ave. N.E. in Austin, is not the same as Hormel Foods.  Check out this Post-Bulletin archive story for more details.  The institute is developing the new International Center of Research Technology, which "is open to scientists around the world" to provide researchers "the latest in cutting edge technology, tools and instruments."  It's taking donations toward the center's development.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

 

Obama again touts Mayo Clinic

[President Barack Obama at a campaign event before his election to the presidency.  Click to enlarge.  Copyright.]

President Barack Obama has again held Mayo Clinic aloft as an example of the best health care in the country at the lowest cost.  He spoke this afternoon (July 1, 2009) at a town hall-type meeting in Virginia.

This time, he even described Mayo's process, which suggests he has kept abreast of recent coverage of Mayo's cost-saving measures.

The President, in his own words (from WhiteHouse.gov):

"There are some places, like the Mayo Clinic, many of you have heard of, provides outstanding care, some of the best in the world.  People fly in from everywhere to go to Mayo Clinic to get treated.  Turns out Mayo provides care much more cheaply than a lot of other health systems, even though it's better care.  And part of the reason is they do some things that are commonsensical, but unfortunately we don't do in the health care system. 
For example, instead of you going to one [doctor] -- your primary care physician, who has you do a bunch of tests, then refers you to a specialist who has you do a bunch of tests, then maybe you go to a third specialist, another bunch of tests; go to the hospital, they retest you.  What they do is, at Mayo Clinic, when you meet with … your primary physician, he calls in all the specialists all at the same time, and as a team they evaluate you, do all the tests right there, so you're not duplicating a whole bunch of stuff.  And that coordinated care drives down costs tremendously.
     That's the kind of common-sense approach that we're going to have to take.  And one of the things that we're going to need to do in the health reform that we're proposing is to incentivize those kinds of smart practices coordinating care, as opposed to what we do right now, which is we just pay you -- the more services you provide, the more we pay you, which gives doctors and hospitals a pretty strong incentive to test you five times instead of one time.  I'm not saying they do it consciously, but right now we're preventing them from coordinating in a smart fashion because of the ways that we reimburse.  That has to be part of the reform that we initiate."

So it sounds like Obama not only likes the way Mayo Clinic does things.  He seems to want to model the nation's health-care system after Mayo's methods.  I have asked representatives of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center, which has been beating the health-reform drum, whether they have invited Obama to visit Mayo and see the cost-saving measures for himself.  We'll see what we hear Thursday morning.

Obama hasn't mentioned, of course, that Mayo Clinic broke even in 2008 — and wouldn't have broken even if it hadn't sold St. Luke's Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.  That, I suspect, would be used as another example that the nation's health system is not paying for value, but instead paying for high-volumes of repetitive tests.  

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904

Obama health-reform letter

Compliments of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center, here's a copy of a letter President Barack Obama wrote to Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and Montana Sen. Max Baucus about health reform.  

"In 2009, health care reform is not a luxury. It's a necessity we cannot defer. Soaring health care costs make our current course unsustainable," Obama writes. "It is unsustainable for our families, whose spiraling premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are pushing them into bankruptcy and forcing them to go without the checkups and prescriptions they need. It is unsustainable for businesses, forcing more and more of them to choose between keeping their doors open or covering their workers. And the ever-increasing cost of Medicare and Medicaid are among the main drivers of enormous budget deficits that are threatening our economic future."

He goes on to highlight Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic.

"We should ask why places like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and other institutions can offer the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm," he says. "We need to learn from their successes and replicate those best practices across our country. That's how we can achieve reform that preserves and strengthens what's best about our health care system, while fixing what is broken."

Read the full letter here, thanks to the Policy Center's files.

Pulse on Health

By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists

Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904