In The Know: Stay Informed with Health Care News
Posted by Pauline Heidemann on Mon, Jan 23, 2012 @ 06:24 AM
This week, In The Know, looks at the following news stories: 5 Percent of Patients Responsible for Half of Health Care Costs; Obesity Rates Stop Increasing, but Fail to Decline; Twenty Percent of Americans Experience Mental Illness; Tamiflu’s Efficacy Questioned; Noise Levels in Hospital Rooms Can Be As Loud as Chainsaws.
5 Percent of Patients Responsible for Half of Health Care Costs
Half of all health care costs in the U.S. was incurred by 5 percent of patients, averaging $36,000 each in 2009, according to a report released Wednesday by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In addition, only one percent of Americans was responsible for 22 percent of health care costs, averaging $90,000 per person. Non-Hispanic women in poor health, the elderly, and publicly funded health care users made up the highest spending groups. To read the report, click on http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publications/st354/stat354.pdf.
Obesity Rates Stop Increasing, but Fail to Decline
After two decades of steady increases, obesity rates in adults and children in the United States have reached a plateau, remaining largely unchanged during the past 12 years, according to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Although the data is somewhat positive because the rapid increases in obesity seen in the 1980s and 1990s has not continued and may be leveling off, the numbers are still grim. Overall, 37.7 percent of the adult population and 16.9 percent of children qualify as obese. Dr. David Ludwig, Director of the Childhood Obesity Program at Children’s Hospital in Boston, said, “Children will be entering adulthood heavier than they’ve ever been at any time in human history. Even without further increases in prevalence, the impact of the epidemic will continue to mount for many years to come.” To read the CDC’s findings published by The Journal of the American Medical Association, click on http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/early/2012/01/11/jama.2012.39.full.
Twenty Percent of Americans Experience Mental Illness
A government study, released on Tuesday, reports that about 20 percent of Americans, 49.5 million adults aged 18 or older, experience some sort of mental illness each year that disrupts work, family, or social life. The rate of mental illness was more than twice as high among those aged 18 to 25 than among those aged 50 and older. Adult women were more likely than men to have experienced mental illness in the past year (23 percent versus 16.8 percent). Mental illness is defined as having had a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder (excluding developmental and substance use disorders). The report also noted that an estimated 8.7 million adults had serious thoughts of suicide in the past year, with 2.5 million making suicide plans and 1.1 million attempting suicide. To read the report, click on http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2k10MH_Findings/.
Tamiflu’s Efficacy Questioned
A new review of the influenza drug, Tamiflu, has raised questions about its efficacy. The Cochrane Collaboration reviewed over 15 published studies and nearly 30,000 pages of clinical study reports, however, many of the studies had to be excluded because of missing or contradictory data. Although the Switzerland-based drug maker, Roche, promised to make all of its data available for analysis, the data was incomplete. The drug netted $3.4 billion for Roche in 2009, with current sales estimated to be substantially higher. To read more, click here.
Noise Levels in Hospital Rooms Can Be As Loud as Chainsaws
Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center found that inpatient rooms almost always exceed recommendations for average and maximum noise levels, set at 30 to 40 decibels by the World Health Organization. The average noise level in patient rooms was close to 50 decibels and sometimes as high as 80 decibels, equivalent to that of a chainsaw. The noise came mostly from staff conversation, roommates, alarms, and intercoms and pagers. Patients exposed to the loudest average nighttime noise levels slept an average of 76 fewer minutes than those exposed to the quietest average nighttime noise levels. Loud hospital rooms are associated with clinically significant sleep loss among patients and may hinder recovery. To read the report, click on http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/172/1/68.