Tag Archives: Children

Experts who work with children affected by gun violence say coverage lacks nuance

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Kathryn Bocanegra, assistant professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, listening to panelist Arturo Carrillo, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., director of health and violence prevention at Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. (Photo by Erica Tricarico)

Law enforcement officials frequently mischaracterize perpetrators and victims of gun violence, resulting in news headlines and soundbites that sometimes obscure the toll it takes on very young people.

That was the broad message from experts on the “What exposure to chronic violence — especially among children — does to human health” panel at Reporting on Violence as a Public Health Issue: An AHCJ Summit in Chicago.

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Katti Gray (@kattigray) is AHCJ's core topic leader for behavioral and mental health. A former Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellow, Gray is providing resources to help AHCJ members expand their coverage of mental health amid ongoing efforts to de-stigmatize mental illness and to place mental health care on par with all health care.

Dallas, Baltimore children’s hospitals embrace high-tech features in behavioral health areas to promote calmness

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Photo courtesy of Children’s Health

Children and teenagers presenting to emergency rooms with behavioral health crises sometimes wait hours to days for a bed in a psychiatric unit or facility. Children’s Medical Center in Dallas is trying to make that stay less stressful for patients and their families by incorporating technologies such as mood lighting, projected images of calming scenery and an interactive touchscreen allowing patients to draw, play music or games.

Also, this year, the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital in Baltimore opened a new inpatient psychiatry unit for patients ages 5-17 featuring nature themes, special lighting and patients’ choices of relaxing sounds. In both cases, clinicians aim to create more calming environments to help de-escalate behavioral and mental health crises.

The Dallas hospital opened three “Philips rooms” (named after Phillips, their health care technology partner) in their emergency department in June 2021. A fourth is scheduled to open in 2022.

The inspiration behind these rooms

Inspiration came partly from two memorable patient experiences, said Keri Kaiser, senior vice president and chief marketing and experience officer for Children’s Health, during a recent webinar hosted by Becker’s Healthcare. Kaiser was in the ED one day when she saw a young girl, who was extremely violent, being held in a bare room alone. She was in the custody of Child Protective Services and had no parents or guardians with her. Because of her aggression, staff limited their interaction while hoping to find a placement in a psychiatric facility. On another occasion, Kaiser’s friends told her that their daughter, who was being held in the ED, was physically safe but felt helpless being stuck in a bare room.

Shortly after, Kaiser and others with the health system were scheduled to visit Philips to see what technology advancements could be brought to the neonatal intensive care unit. The company has worked with hospitals to offer what it calls the “ambient experience” — a variety of room designs, dynamic lighting, image projection and calming sounds to make waiting areas, and procedure and recovery rooms more pleasant. As Kaiser viewed these options, she asked if they could also be used for behavioral and mental health patients in the ED.

Geneva Burnap, M.B.A., R.N., N.E.A.-B.C., a nurse, and senior director for emergency services at Children’s Health, said during the webinar that she initially got some pushback about creating these rooms, because behavioral health holds only made up 4.5% of their patients. But studying analytics, she and her colleagues found that some 20% of care hours were spent on these patients.

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Karen Blum is AHCJ’s core topic leader on health IT. An independent journalist in the Baltimore area, she has written health IT stories for publications such as Pharmacy Practice News, Clinical Oncology News, Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News, General Surgery News and Infectious Disease Special Edition.

Community transmission rate key to K-12 school reopening

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school busAs school leaders and parents grapple with questions about school reopening this fall, a key measure to consider is the community transmission rate of COVID-19, say two educators and an infectious disease specialist.

When states and cities are reporting that more than 5% of COVID-19 tests are positive, the transmission rate is high enough that schools could become hot spots for community outbreaks, they said. Continue reading →

Bara Vaida (@barav) is AHCJ's core topic leader on infectious diseases. An independent journalist, she has written extensively about health policy and infectious diseases. Her work has appeared in the National Journal, Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg News, McClatchy News Service, MSNBC, NPR, Politico, The Washington Post and other outlets.

Report shows improvement in dental health but highlights disparities

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Photo: Pedro Presilha via Flickr

Across the U.S., tooth decay remains widespread. Poor and minority Americans continue to be disproportionately burdened by disease. But in recent years, some progress has been made in addressing oral health disparities and reaching vulnerable children with needed dental services, federal data show.

According to newly released findings from the 2011-16 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): Continue reading →

Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.

Self, AAP collaborate on library of vaccine images for free use

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Photo: Self Magazine via Flickr

Photos accompanying news stories about vaccines are notoriously awful, both in effect and in verisimilitude. They often feature large needles that have little resemblance to the actual needles used to administer immunizations.

Or they are real images but feature an utterly terrified child screaming as though Satan himself were injecting demon blood into their veins. (Note: Most vaccines are administered into the muscle, not the bloodstream.) Continue reading →

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.