Health System Reform Posts
Confronting the Dental Health Crisis
It’s an unfortunate reality: many Americans see oral health as unnecessary or cosmetic. But oral health is critical to overall health. Though largely ignored in national health reform, oral health is important, and for some—like 12-year old Deamonte Driver who died from an untreated tooth infection—it’s a matter of life and death.
Confronting America’s Primary Care Shortage
The shortage of primary care providers is well-publicized. But, as studies in the May issue of the health policy journal Health Affairs point out, recruiting more primary care doctors, nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants to fill that void is only part of the solution.
A Discussion with National Health Information Technology Coordinator David Blumenthal
“We have to start seeing health information systems as a mainstream technology that is part and parcel of medical practice, not something that is appended to it as an afterthought, not something that’s imposed on it, but something that will very soon be integrated into it and indistinguishable from all the other work that physicians and other health professionals do every day.”
A National Epidemic—and a Presidential Priority
Our nation is burdening Americans needlessly with disease— Americans who could be healthy if we tackled the factors that cause obesity: neighborhoods without spaces for physical activity, deficient access to healthy foods, high-calorie school lunches. It’s for this reason that the 42nd President called childhood obesity the “number one public health problem in the country”.
