healths

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Cigarette smoking rates have hit their lowest level ever, but 47 million Americans still use some type of tobacco-based product, prompting government officials to say there's more work to do. Smoking rates among adults dropped to about 14 percent in 2017 from 15.5 percent in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the Food and Drug Administration and the National Cancer Institute . That's a drop of two-thirds from 42 percent in 1965, the first year national smoking rates were recorded. The current rate for young adults 18 to 24 dropped even more than the overall rate, to 10 percent in 2017 from 13 percent in 2016. However, use of electronic cigarettes among young people is burgeoning , and one in five Americans, still use some type of tobacco-based product, and 34 million of the 47 million users still smoke. Kentucky's latest reported adult smoking rate is 24.5 percent. The national figures were published

Rural communities have unique health-care needs: accessibility, a lack of providers, the needs of an aging population suffering from a greater number of chronic conditions, and larger percentages of people without health insurance or enough insurance. On top of that, rural hospitals � many of which are local economic linchpins � struggle with declining government reimbursements and the lack of Medicaid expansion in many states. For these reasons and more, the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health observes each third Thursday of every November � this year, Nov. 15 � as National Rural Health Day. "First and foremost, National Rural Health Day is an opportunity to 'celebrate the power of rural' by honoring the selfless, community-minded, can-do spirit that prevails in rural America," NOSORH says. "But it also gives us a chance to bring to light the unique healthcare challenges that rural citizens face � and showcase the efforts of rural healthcare

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News A nonprofit group that rates hospitals has released its latest grades for keeping patients safe, giving Cs to most of the 51 Kentucky hospitals it rated. Their average grade was worse than the spring 2018 ratings, but Kentucky's overall ranking among the states, based on the percentage of hospitals with A grades, improved one spot, to 33rd, from the spring report. Ky. Health News chart based on Leapfrog Group data and logo The Leapfrog Group , a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., rated over 2,600 hospitals. Most of Kentucky's 129 hospitals were not rated, since rural hospitals with "critical access" status don't have to report quality measures to the federal government. The grades are calculated using 28 performance measures of patient safety that indicate how well hospitals protect patients from preventable medical errors, infections and injuries. The study notes that one in 25 patients leave hospitals with a new in

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Teens who use electronic cigarettes end up smoking traditional cigarettes at about the same rate as teens who first start with the traditional smokes, according to a recent study based on surveys in California and Connecticut. �The findings show that e-cigs do nothing to deter the amount of combustible smoking in youth,� Jessica Barrington-Trimis, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California and the study�s lead author, said in a news release . �On the contrary, they increase the likelihood that vaping teens will start smoking.� The study, published in the medical journal  Pediatrics , is based on surveys of 6,258 high-school students in three studies, including two from the Children's Health Study and Happiness and Health Study in Southern California and a Yale University survey in Connecticut. Participants were re-surveyed again six to 16 months later. During the study period, 7 percent of the st

A food service employee at the Albert B. Chandler Hospital at the University of Kentucky has been diagnosed with hepatitis A, a highly contagious liver disease, the hospital announced. The employee prepared food at the Pavilion A cafeteria, but was not involved in any food preparation for hospital patients. The hospital advises anyone who ate at the cafeteria between Oct. 11 and 30 to get a hepatitis A vaccination, which requires two shots, six months apart. All food-service workers at UK HealthCare will now be required to get the vaccine, and the hospital will set up "vaccination stations" for that. The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department and UK HealthCare have recommended that all Lexington residents get vaccinated as the number of cases continues to climb. Kentucky schoolchildren were required to have the vaccination at the beginning of the school year. In the current outbreak, there have been no confirmed cases of hepatitis A being transmitted by food-service wo

Abby Drane Abby Drane has been named Kentucky regional CEO for Centerstone,  a non-profit organization that cares for patients with mental, developmental and behavioral issues. She will replace Tony Zipple, who is retiring Nov. 30. Drane was president and CEO of Uspiritus , which serves abused and neglected youth in Kentucky, and before that was Centerstone's chief operating officer. She has served as chief financial officer for two of Kentucky�s largest community mental health centers,  Seven Counties Services (now Centerstone) and Communicare . Drane earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from Central Missouri State University and her MBA from Western Kentucky University .

Illustration by Ben Wiseman for The New Yorker Electronic health records were supposed to "make medical care easier and more efficient," says The New Yorker . "But are screens coming between doctors and patients?" Yes, surgeon Atul Gawande writes in the magazine's latest issue, starting with a description of his 2015 training session on the Epic Systems Corp. system, which now has information on more than half of Americans. "The new system would give us one platform for doing almost everything health professionals needed�recording and communicating our medical observations, sending prescriptions to a patient�s pharmacy, ordering tests and scans, viewing results, scheduling surgery, sending insurance bills. With Epic, paper lab-order slips, vital-signs charts, and hospital-ward records would disappear. We�d be greener, faster, better. But three years later I�ve come to feel that a system that promised to increase my mastery over my work has, instead, increa

https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article221137300.html

The Coalition for a a Smoke-Free Tomorrow will hold a half-day conference on electronic cigarettes Dec. 10 in Louisville, and offer remote viewing locations in Bowling Green, Hazard and Paducah. The conference, titled "Next Generation Tobacco: The Impact of E-Cigarettes on Kentucky's Future Health," will focus on the recent explosion in the popularity of Juul and other pod e-cigarettes, especially among youth and young adults, and potential policies for preventing associated disease and illness. Speakers will focus on the role of flavors in encouraging underage vaping; the extent to which e-cigarettes and other vaping devices actually help people quit smoking; what's in vaping products; whether they are a safer alternative to combustible cigarettes; and the evidence that e-cigs are a gateway to smoking for youth and young adults. The conference will be held Monday, Dec. 10 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the office of the  Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky , 1640 Ly

Kentucky has gained more flexibility to provide substance-use-disorder (SUD) services for people on Medicaid as part of the state's new Medicaid plan, most of which was vacated by a judge in June, according to a state news release. Kaiser Family Foundation map shows ranges of opioid addiction among Medicaid beneficiaries before the program was expanded in 2014. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved the "substance use disorder implementation protocol" portion of the plan, called Kentucky HEALTH, for "Helping to Engage and Achieve Long Term Health," on Oct. 5. So far, it is the only part of the state's request for a waiver of the rules to overhaul its Medicaid program that has been approved. �Expanding access to treatment and recovery services for individuals with substance use disorder is critical to our efforts to combat the opioid epidemic in Kentucky,� Health Secretary Adam Meier said in a news release. �We have worked diligently to ide

As teen use of Juul products continues to soar, the head of the Food and Drug Administration says all options are on the table, including limiting sales of flavored e-cigarette products to stores selling smoking-vapor products. Types of electronic cigarettes In a recent interview with CNBC , FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb noted that teens tend to purchase e-cigarettes at convenience stores and gas stations, and said restricting their sale to vaping stores is a good idea because they generally do a better job checking identification documents for their ages. Gottlieb estimated that high-school students' reported use of e-cigarettes surged 77 percent last year, and middle schoolers' use grew 50 percent. He said the actual numbers are probably higher because kids don't associate "Juuling" with e-cigarettes. He said next year's National Youth Tobacco Survey will have specific questions about branded products. "These really are reaching epidemic proportion

Hepatitis A has been blamed for two more deaths, both in Franklin County, bringing to 16 the statewide toll in the outbreak of the contagious liver disease, which has lasted more than a year. None of the deaths have been connected to food-service workers, but concern about transmission by them remains a concern. Officials in Franklin and Fayette counties confirmed the disease in two more food-service workers and urged residents to get vaccinated for hepatitis A. "Since August 2017, more than 2,275 outbreak-associated cases of acute hepatitis A have been reported in 94 of the state�s 120 counties," Chanda Veno reports for The State Journal in Frankfort. Franklin County Health Director Judy Mattingly "couldn�t give the victims� age or sex, but she did explain that both cases fit within the statewide profile of those afflicted by hepatitis A, whose mean age is 37.7 years old," Veno reports. Mattingly told her, �As with all Kentucky cases in this outbreak, it is belie

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon, Unsplash.com A small-scale study suggests that when young marijuana smokers stop for a month, their memory improves. "The results show that not only does marijuana impair teenagers� and young adults� abilities to take in information, but that this memory muddling may be reversible ," Science News reports. One week into the experiment, those who abstained from pot "performed moderately better on memory tests than they had at the beginning of the study," reports Laura Sanders of Science News. "One particular aspect of memory, the ability to take in and remember lists of words, seemed to drive the overall improvement. . . .  Tricky tasks that required close monitoring of number sequences, and the directions and locations of arrows" did not seem to be affected. "Scientists have struggled to find clear answers about how marijuana affects the developing brain, in part because it�s unethical to ask children to begin using a drug

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News It's again time to sign up for federally subsidized health insurance through Healthcare.gov . Open enrollment for coverage in 2019 runs through Dec. 15. It's worth taking a look, because most shoppers in the marketplace will qualify for financial help to lower their costs. About 80 percent of Kentuckians enrolled through the federal exchange qualified for tax credits or subsidies that reduced their premiums, according to a Cabinet for Health and Family Services news release . "For most of those who qualify, the credits will offset any premium increases, so the cost of insurance in 2019 will be about the same as this year," says the release. In Kentucky, Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky and CareSource will offer federally subsidized plans on Healthcare.gov, with rate increases of 4.3 percent and 19.4 percent, respectively. Anthem has returned to 34 counties it formerly served, to cover a total of 93. CareSource is covering 61

The Food and Drug Administration approved a powerful new painkiller Friday over the objections of a Kentucky doctor who co-chairs its advisory committee on such matters, and other physicians. Dr. Raeford Brown Dr. Raeford Brown of the University of Kentucky and others argue that sufentanil, 10 times more powerful than fentanyl, "would inevitably be diverted to illicit use and cause more overdose deaths," reports Lenny Bernstein of The Washington Post . Brown, a professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics, is the longtime chair of the FDA�s Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee. The panel voted 10-3 on Oct. 12 to support approval of the drug, which was developed with millions of dollars from the Pentagon, which wants an easier-to-use painkiller for the battlefield. The drug, branded as Dsuvia, is "a tablet version of an opioid marketed for intravenous delivery, but is administered under the tongue using a specially developed, single-dose applicator,&

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News As national and state reports showed the number of deaths related to opioids may be at a plateau, or declining, President Donald Trump has signed a comprehensive, bipartisan opioid bill that includes both law-enforcement and public-health measures. "Together we are going to end the scourge of drug addiction in America," Trump said Oct. 24. "We are either going to end it or we are going to make an extremely big dent in this terrible, terrible problem." CDC graphic The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 's preliminary data shows that the 12 month period ending March 2018, the most recent data compiled, saw a decline of nearly 3 percent in the number of reported overdose deaths, to 68,690, when compared to the 12 month period ending November 2017, when the number of overdose deaths was at its highest ever, 70,780. The same CDC report shows an even greater drop in Kentucky of 9.2 percent. In the 12-month period ending

By Sarah Ladd University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media GEORGETOWN, Ky. � A warm scene in a Georgetown home Monday night turned the focus of persons with addictions from alcohol bottles, pill bottles and needles to the intimate struggles those people�s families face. The group of a dozen or so sat in a circle in the dining room and took turns sharing about their love and loss as they spoke, sometimes tearfully, about their sons and daughters who struggled and continue to struggle with various addictions. They are members of PAL , Parents of Addicted Loved ones, an organization that �provides hope and support through addiction education for parents dealing with an addicted loved one,� says its website. The members gathered Monday said that as a result of PAL, their journeys have �totally changed� and helped them feel like they�re not alone. Karen Butcher, the group�s PAL facilitator, referred to the times parents try to help their children out of addictions: �You think at fi