FCC will vote next month on a $100 million telehealth initiative

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Rebecca Vesely

About Rebecca Vesely

Rebecca Vesely is AHCJ's topic leader on health information technology and a freelance writer. She has written about health, science and medicine for AFP, the Bay Area News Group, Modern Healthcare, Wired, Scientific American online and many other news outlets.

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on July 10 to advance a $100 million telehealth initiative to boost funding for care programs that serve rural low-income Americans at home, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said this week at an event in rural Virginia.

The Connected Care Pilot Program would fund eligible health providers so they can obtain the broadband needed to provide remote patient monitoring and connected technologies to patients, Carr said. The three-year pilot will track costs, savings and outcomes, he said. Continue reading →

In midst of national ‘Medicare for All’ debate, one state takes own action

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Joanne Kenen

About Joanne Kenen

Joanne Kenen, (@JoanneKenen) the health editor at Politico, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform and curates related material at healthjournalism.org. She welcomes questions and suggestions on health reform resources and tip sheets at joanne@healthjournalism.org. Follow her on Facebook.

Photo: Stuart Moulder via Flickr

Washington has become the first state to move ahead with a version of a public option – an element of the markets that was part of the original 2009 Affordable Care Act legislation but didn’t survive the U.S. Senate.

The idea was to have one government-run health plan within the exchange to enhance competition with private insurers and keep down costs. Continue reading →

Tip sheet highlights program addressing older adults’ mental health

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Liz Seegert

About Liz Seegert

Liz Seegert (@lseegert), is AHCJ’s topic editor on aging. Her work has appeared in NextAvenue.com, Journal of Active Aging, Cancer Today, Kaiser Health News, the Connecticut Health I-Team and other outlets. She is a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and co-produces the HealthCetera podcast.

Photo: Togar Sianturi via Flickr

Mental and physical health often go hand in hand, but for many older adults, mental health conditions can be missed or misdiagnosed. Conditions such as depression and anxiety are common and may be indicators of or stem from more serious illnesses, like Parkinson’s or heart disease, as this new tip sheet explains.

Stigma, self-blame, and lack of training among physicians to recognize mental health issues are just some of the reasons that fewer than 3% of older Americans seek help for mental health issues, according to this Health Affairs article. Geropsychologists are trained to deal with the specific needs of older adults, but are in short supply. Continue reading →

Should you cover animal research? Check out these tips first

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Tara Haelle

About Tara Haelle

Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.

Most journalists know — or quickly learn — that animal studies are problematic and usually best left uncovered if writing about general health and medical findings for a broad consumer audience. In fact, simply the way animals are bred and used in research can be problematic.

Aside from the controversy over use of animals in research and debates on the usefulness and relevance of that research, the fact remains that humans aren’t mice, or rats or horses or pigs or even chimpanzees. What happens in animals therefore cannot ever be directly translated to human anatomy and physiology. Continue reading →

Webcast to focus on the value of ‘value-based’ care

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Joseph Burns

About Joseph Burns

Joseph Burns (@jburns18), a Massachusetts-based independent journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health insurance. He welcomes questions and suggestions on insurance resources and tip sheets at joseph@healthjournalism.org.

In a blog post last summer, we asked what appeared to be a simple question: Is value-based care a fad? It turns out that while the question may be simple, the answer is a bit more complicated.

After the blog post ran, we heard from the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas, Austin. The school has a department devoted to teaching value-based care to its medical students. AHCJ will host a webcast at noon ET on Tuesday, June 25, for members featuring two of the school’s professors — Elizabeth Teisberg, Ph.D., and Scott Wallace — who will answer questions about value-based care and explain what students in this program are learning. Continue reading →

AHCJ members return incumbents to board of directors

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Len Bruzzese

About Len Bruzzese

Len Bruzzese is the executive director of AHCJ and its Center for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. He also is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and served for nearly 20 years in daily journalism.

Six incumbents were returned to the Association of Health Care Journalism’s board of directors for a term starting July 1, 2019.

Incumbents beginning a new two-year term are Jeanne Erdmann, a Missouri-based freelancer; Felice Freyer, The Boston Globe; Gideon Gil, Stat; Marlene Harris-Taylor, WVIZ/PBS Ideastream; Maryn McKenna, an Atlanta-based freelancer; and Karl Stark, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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