Posts Tagged: patient

Opinion

Advances in teledentistry shouldn’t imperil patient health

Telemedicine male dentist showing dental X-rays on a screen of an elderly woman's tablet. He explains to the remote patient her problems like cavities and impacted teeth.

OPINION: Orthodontists in practice throughout California embrace new technologies as a way to improve service delivery and access to care, but we want to caution policymakers and consumers that its utilization should not come at the expense of patient health and safety.

Opinion

Stem cell initiative: Save lives and energize the economy

A researcher handles a liquid nitrogen bank containing suspended stem cells. (Photo: Elena Pavlovich, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: In our new financial reality, our state and you as voters are faced with tough decisions. Come November, you will decide the fate of California’s stem cell institute. This decision has never been more important to the future of California’s health care, for the patients and their families, than it is now.

Opinion

Costly health care and pharmacy benefit managers

Drugs on a shelf for sale at a pharmacy. (Photo: i viewfinder, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: With the rising cost of health care at forefront of nearly every Californian’s mind, lawmakers in Sacramento are rightly considering a range of potential policy proposals to help rein in costs. In 2018, legislators took positive initial steps to regulate some of the egregious business practices of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) – little-known middlemen in the health care system who have contributed to rising costs.

Opinion

Public health suffers when pharmacists work alone

A pharmacist checks his stock in a California drug store. (Photo: Tyler Olson, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: Drugstore robberies are a symptom of a larger trend in the retail space where pharmacists are forced to work alone for hours on end, juggling telephones, cash registers, and security duties in addition to dispensing medicine.

News

New life sought for right-to-die law

A portrait of the late Brittany Maynard, who advocated for California's right-to-die law, is seen at a 2015 hearing of the Senate Health Committee. A Superior Court judge rejected the law as unconstitutional. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

Deborah Kratter sat in her Half Moon Bay home, explaining her decision to move to Washington state to live, and then die with life-ending medication alongside family members when her terminal pancreatic cancer worsens. “My gosh, when the time comes and you can’t be who you are … I don’t see why you should have to lie in a bed and wait to die,” Kratter said.

News

State targets ‘bubble boy’ syndrome

Young David Vetter, who died from severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) in the 1990s. (Photo: Biotechnology and Society)

California’s stem cell agency is ready to award $20 million on Thursday to a UCLA researcher to assist in his 30-year search for a widely available cure for what has come to be known as the “bubble boy” syndrome– severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID).

Opinion

More health clinic capacity needed

Patients waiting to see the doctor. (Photo: Monkey Business Images)

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) – of which there are nearly 130 in the state — have long served as the safety net for California’s most vulnerable residents living in both urban and rural communities. Yet, as we look into the future, that net is fraying.

Opinion

A solid level of nursing home staffing

A patient gets help walking at a nursing home. (Photo: Photographee.eu, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: If there were Olympic medals for the delivery of quality care in the state’s nursing homes, California would have just scored gold, silver and bronze in seven separate categories. That’s how the federal government ranks the care that is currently delivered – 24 hours a day – to 350,000 residents in skilled nursing facilities in California.

Opinion

Health coverage surge boosts need for anesthesia services

As more people enter the healthcare system and as baby boomers enter senior status there is increased demand for services, especially surgeries and outpatient procedures requiring anesthesia. Administering anesthesia has become even riskier and more difficult as patients with multiple medical problems have been able to live longer.

News

Top tales: 2013’s key political yarns

State Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: David Monniaux)

For the followers of California politics, non-election years usually are yawns. Not so 2013: One would be hard pressed to find a year with more hot-button events fraught with statewide political ramifications. Here’s our roundup of the year’s top tales, a subjective compilation to be sure but one which was fun to put together. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

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