Category: California

Changing Clocks Is Bad For Your Health, But Which Time To Choose?

State legislatures are considering new bills proposing a permanent time standard instead of the spring-forward and fall-back clock changes. Most people want to stop adjusting clocks, but scientists and politicians are at odds over which time is better for society and our health.

Changing Clocks Is Bad For Your Health, But Which Time To Choose?

State legislatures are considering new bills proposing a permanent time standard instead of the spring-forward and fall-back clock changes. Most people want to stop adjusting clocks, but scientists and politicians are at odds over which time is better for society and our health.

Newsom Touts California’s ‘Public Option.’ Wait — What Public Option?

Gov. Gavin Newsom says the state already has a public option: Covered California, the state health insurance exchange. While there is no single definition of a public option, some health care experts say that’s a stretch.

Finding Connections And Comfort At The Local Cafe

For Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers, social and emotional isolation is a threat. But hundreds of “Memory Cafes” around the country offer them a chance to be with others who understand, and to receive social and cognitive stimulation in the process.

Patients Caught In Crossfire Between Giant Hospital Chain, Large Insurer

Insurance giant Cigna and San Francisco-based Dignity Health have failed to ink a 2020 contract, leaving nearly 17,000 patients in California and Nevada scrambling to find new health care providers. Meanwhile, Dignity faces financial and legal challenges while it strives to implement its merger with Catholic Health Initiatives, which created one of the nation’s largest Catholic hospital systems.

As VA Tests Keto Diet To Help Diabetic Patients, Skeptics Raise Red Flags

The Department of Veterans Affairs is partnering with Virta Health, a California startup that offers remote coaching and monitoring for people with Type 2 diabetes to help them follow the ultra-low carbohydrate diet.

Public Health Officials Offer Scant Details On U.S. Coronavirus Patients

To date, the U.S. has six confirmed cases of the viral infection that originated in Wuhan, China. One person caught it from a person in the U.S. So why don’t health officials share more information with the public?

KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Remaking Medicaid — Maybe

The Trump administration is proposing to let states have more control of their Medicaid programs in exchange for potentially less money from the federal government. Meanwhile, the dangerous respiratory virus spreading from China is starting to affect trade and transportation along with public health. Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner, Erin Mershon of Stat and Joanne Kenen of Politico join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more.

Despite New Doubts, ‘Hotspotting’ Help For Heavy Health Care Users Marches On

Gov. Gavin Newsom has earmarked nearly $600 million in his 2020-21 state budget plan to provide intensive care management to high-needs, high-risk patients around the state. The programs are similar to an initiative in Camden, New Jersey, that was called into question by a recent study finding hospital readmissions dropped, but at only about the same rate as patients who didn’t receive the same kind of intensive services.

How Fast Can A New Internet Standard For Sharing Patient Data Catch Fire?

The web-based standard FHIR — pronounced “fire” — could hasten the day when we can view our full medical histories on a smartphone screen. Tech giants are hungry for a piece of the pie, but obstacles remain.