February is American Heart Month and according to the Center for Disease Control, “Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.” They go on to cite a report by the American Heart Association saying “In 2010, an estimated 785,000 Americans had a new coronary attack, and about 470,000 had a recurrent attack. About every 25 seconds, an American will have a coronary event, and about one every minute will die from one”. So, every February, there…
For a brief moment, I was five years old again in the small sandbox behind my house. I had my trucks moving around dirt as I built my marvelous edifice that would somehow make the world a better place. I glanced back at my desk and again became the older man, worried about health and finances, trying to do my job the best I can. Yet I have a great job. It is to write about people in the front…
The Patient Centered Medical Home, it is an important topic a lot of people have been talking about recently. I’ve written a little bit about what ‘home’ means. I want to write more about what patient centered really means. As I listen to more and more discussions, I am struck by the crucial role that communications plays in all of this. Patient Centered Medical Homes have increased communications between patients and their providers, it is part of what makes a…
The biggest news of this week was not particularly related to health care, but it is significant enough to highlight anyway. Mubarak Steps Down, Ceding Power to Military. Just yesterday, there was an article, Obama Faces a Stark Choice on Mubarak about Central Intelligence Agency Director, Leon E. Panetta testifying before Congress that there was a “strong likelihood” that Mubarek would step down on Thursday. Panetta went on to compare “the difficulty of making intelligence judgments to forecasting earthquakes: even…
It was another cold, stormy Saturday morning, and I didn’t especially relish the idea of crawling out of bed and heading to Meriden to gather stories from Give Kids a Smile day. Friday, I had driven up to New Britain where our Give Kids A Smile Day was a smashing success. Perhaps the most touching story I heard from there was about a father who had had to cancel a dental appointment for his daughter because they just couldn’t afford…
This week, Recess Rocks, a nationwide childhood obesity prevention campaign of CHC announced the winners of its video contest, which asked students about their ideas of dealing with childhood obesity. The press release is available on the Recess Rocks website. The Middletown Press wrote about the Macdonough School Video Production Club prize winning entry and a New York newspaper wrote about a Potsdam fourth-grader who won 2nd place. Out in Nebraska, a physical education teacher wrote about O’Neill Elementary School…