Posts Tagged: patients
News
Mental health services are crucial to our well-being. I think that most people will agree with me. As I write, mental health clinicians employed at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California are beginning week three of a strike over work conditions. As these essential workers see it, their employer’s rules are harmful to them and their patients. Count a young family member of mine among the latter. What follows are my reflections on his experience with Kaiser clinicians.
Opinion
OPINION: Summer travel is back in full force. But would you get on an airplane if you knew the pilot’s only training was practicing in a simulator for a week or so and then completing a few test flights with an instructor? That is essentially what AB 2236 would require with regard to an optometrist doing eye surgery in California if the bill became law.
Opinion
OPINION: As health care delivery evolves thanks to advances in data sharing and technology, it’s important that health systems harness the availability of these new tools to improve transparency, information dissemination and communications between doctor and patient, allowing them to better work together to make vital health decisions.
Opinion
OPINION: If passed, SB 958 would severely limit specialty pharmacies’ ability to deliver lower cost medications to patients, while also making it even easier for hospitals to markup the cost they charge patients for critical medications, and in the end, we would see higher health care premiums for California’s employers and individuals.
Opinion
OPINION: As I have shared throughout my career I, like many people, have a mental health condition. I have anxiety and bi-polar depression. I am also in recovery for alcoholism. I regularly see a psychiatrist, therapist and I take medication.
Opinion
OPINION: California is committed to the health of its residents. Nearly a quarter of Gov. Newsom’s state budget for 2022-2023 is allocated to health care expenditures. Amid their focus on improving health care access and affordability, however, policymakers should also reexamine existing programs that are failing to properly protect vulnerable California communities.
Opinion
OPINION: “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” proclaims an elderly woman in a 1980’s commercial for LifeCall, a home system that summoned emergency care, but became the subject of derision and perhaps a bit of schadenfreude over time, spawning parodies. Of course, it might seem funny until it’s you or a loved one, perhaps the victim of a fall due to poor eyesight.
News
A London-based biotech firm has given up its life-saving treatment for the bubble baby disease and turned it over to California’s $12 billion stem cell agency and UCLA, where it was developed with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.
News
Amid a pandemic that has pushed millions of mothers out of the workplace, caused fertility rates to plunge and heightened the risk of death for pregnant women, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers are seeking a slate of health proposals for low-income families and children. Newsom, a self-described feminist and the father of four young children, has long advocated family-friendly health and economic policies.
Opinion
OPINION: When California began delivering millions of COVID-19 vaccines, we turned to neighborhood pharmacists to get shots in arms quickly and safely. These highly educated and trained medical professionals helped to protect our communities, making personal sacrifices to serve even though they already perform high-pressure jobs where mistakes may cost lives.
A pre-school girl and her therapist. (Photo: ABO Photography, via Shutterstock)
