Health and Welfare

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, whose public statements usually emphasize the need to cut federal spending on entitlement programs, as they did in Lexington Friday, apparently passed up an opportunity to rein in Medicare spending when he signed off on a big favor for a significant campaign contributor in the fiscal-cliff deal.

Highway safety comes in many shapes and sizes….not all of them from official government sources.   Governments set speed limits, improve roadways, and battle bad drivers.  But, for more than a decade, a Lexington man has argued the experts are not perfect.  

“You have a highway memorial here.  A burned out tree here.  Another highway memorial there.  Over my lifetime, I’m gonna guess maybe 15, 20 people have died at that same spot, that same stretch of road.”

The University of Kentucky will manage the new Eastern State Hospital, replacing theBluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, which has operated the current facility since 1995. The new hospital, being built on UK's Coldstream Research Campus off Newtown Pike, will replace an outdated facility along that boulevard in central Lexington.

One-third of Kentucky adults have friends or relatives who have experienced problems from abusing prescription pain relievers, and 8 percent have used pain medicine when it wasn't prescribed or for the feeling it caused, according to a statewide poll conducted last fall.

Students in many Kentucky counties will find it harder to see a school nurse due to changes in the state Medicaid program and lack of payment from managed-care companies. In Crittenden County schools, budget woes have forced the Pennyrile District Health Department to request additional money from the school district to keep its school health clinics fully-staffed and open, reports Jason Travis of The Crittenden Press.  Allison Beshear, director of the health department, told Travis one reason from the budget crunch is a lack of payment from Kentucky Spirit, which owes the health department $266,000.

Craig H. Blakely, dean at the School of Rural Public Health at Texas A&M University, has been named dean of the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences. U of L has a role in rural health in Western Kentucky, overseeing the Area Health Education Centers in the region.

Flu forced the Lawrence County School District to announce on Wednesday that it will be closed until Tuesday. According to a report in The Levisa Lazer, school officials said once attendance dropped below 80 percent, local doctors suggested closing the schools to reduce the spread of the illness.

While a plethora of research on childhood obesity has linked it to long-term health problems, a new UCLA study focuses on the condition's more proximate consequences, showing that obese children are at a greater risk for immediate health problems than previously thought. That's important for Kentucky, which ranks poorly in many health measures and is third highest in child obesity. (Photo by Tara Kaprowy)

One lesser-known aspect of the Affordable Care Act is it’s reliance on state health cooperatives —  which work separate of the state- or federally run health exchange, but are free to offer their own brand of insurance on the exchange. But recent Congressional deal-making is putting those co-ops in danger.

It's not too late to get your flu shot, even though the flu has hit earlier and more broadly than usual, experts say. It generally takes about two weeks for a flu vaccine to be most effective, said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Getting the shot in mid-January might seem too late, but it's "better late than never," he said during a teleconference Friday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Kentucky has spent five weeks at its highest level of flu, which is far more than last year. That means more than half of the state’s regions have reported an increased number of cases. Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services spokesperson Gwenda Bond says although this year’s outbreak is more severe than previous years, it is not too out of the ordinary.

Conversion to electronic health records hasn't produced hoped-for savings in health care costs predicted by a 2005 report, and it's had mixed results in improving efficiency and patient care, according to a RAND Corporation report. RAND's 2005 predictions helped drive growth in the electronic records industry and encourage billions of dollars in subsidies from the federal government to hospitals and doctors to implement such systems, Reed Abelson and Julie Creswell of The New York Times report.

A coalition of health groups say they will give state Rep. Susan Westrom, D-Lexington, the most public support ever for a bill to ban smoking in Kentucky restaurants and workplaces, a bill she's tried to get passed twice, Jacqueline Pitts of CN2 reports. The coalition, which includes Smoke-Free Kentucky and the American Lung Association, revealed plans yesterday for a two-week ad campaign about the benefits of a statewide smoking ban law.

A newspaper and online advertising campaign calling for "a comprehensive, statewide smoke-free law" is hitting Kentucky news outlets this week, as the legislature convenes. The campaign was launched by Smoke-Free Kentucky Coalition, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The ad can viewed here.

University campuses appear to be the newest battlegrounds over tobacco use. As Northern Kentucky University prepares to take its first steps toward becoming a tobacco-free campus, the University of Cincinnati has backed off because of the lack of widespread support. NKU’s governing Board of Regents is expected to vote today on banning tobacco from the Highland Heights campus.