Stroke More Common in Kids?
The rate of childhood stroke in a managed care plan was 2.4 per 100,000 person years, two to four times as high as past estimates, according to an analysis of imaging studies and diagnostic coding. The previous underestimates relied on diagnostic coding alone, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, wrote online (Stroke 2009 Sept. 17 [doi: 10.1161/strokeaha.109.564633]). The team analyzed the medical records of just over 2 million children aged 19 years or younger who were enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente managed care plan in Northern California from 1993 to 2003. Stroke cases were confirmed through chart reviews by neurologists. They found that radiology was significantly more sensitive (83%) than was diagnostic coding (39%).
State's Epilepsy Foundation Closes
The economic slowdown forced the Epilepsy Foundation of South Carolina to shut down at the end of October, said officials of the national organization. They cited a drop in the chapter's corporate and individual donations and the loss of its annual state funding. Following the closing, calls to the South Carolina office were redirected to the national Epilepsy Foundation. “The national Epilepsy Foundation will cooperate with local volunteers now and in the future to reestablish a presence in South Carolina that will support people with epilepsy,” Gary Berg, vice-president of affiliate relations for the Epilepsy Foundation, said in a statement. The organization estimates that about 65,000 people with epilepsy live in South Carolina.
Practice Revenues Decline
Medical practice revenues fell in 2008, possibly because of declining patient volumes and payments from people in financial hardship, according to the Medical Group Management Association. Medical practices responded by trimming overhead costs more than 1%, but that wasn't enough to offset shrinking revenues, the MGMA found in its practice-cost survey. Multispecialty group practices saw a 1.9% decline in total medical revenue in 2008, with substantial drops in both the number of procedures and the number of patients. Bad debt in multispecialty group practices from fee-for-service charges increased 13% from 2006 to 2008.
NIH Grants Total $5 Billion
The National Institutes of Health has awarded more than 12,000 grants for $5 billion in stimulus package funds toward research in HIV, cancer, heart disease, and autism. The grants, which were announced at a press conference by President Obama, come from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was passed and signed last spring. “This represents the single largest boost to biomedical research in history,” the president said. Some of the funds will be used to apply findings from the Human Genome Project to treatment and prevention of the target diseases. For example, the NIH will expand the Cancer Genome Atlas so that it eventually sequences DNA from 20,000 tissue samples and 20 types of cancer. Other stimulus package funding was designated by the Department of Health and Human Services for chronic disease prevention and wellness programs as well as for information technology at large federally funded health centers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will administer $373 million for the chronic disease programs and community-based approaches that increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and decrease the prevalence of obesity. Eighteen grants totaling more than $22 million will fund information technology in medicine, according to the department.