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Flu Prevention? Try Paid Sick Days

This is repost written by Ellen Bravo, the executive director Family Values @ Work, a national network of 17 state and local coalitions helping spur the growing movement for family-friendly workplace policies such as paid sick days and family leave insurance.

Ask Adela Valdez how it feels to hear public health experts on TV explain ways to limit a flu outbreak. Get a flu shot, wash your hands, they advise – and if you get the flu, stay home until 24 hours after your fever’s gone.

“One day, I had a fever but I went to work anyway,” Adela said. She’d worked for three years in a factory in New York making expensive lamps. “On the third day, I still had a fever. I felt very sick and I asked permission to go to the hospital.”

Her supervisor’s response? “Fine, go to the hospital, but don’t come back. I need people who come here to work, not to get sick.”

Adela lost her job.

Read the rest of the post here.

January 11, 2013

author: Editorial Staff

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This is repost written by Ellen Bravo,

Health, HealthCetera, Media Engagement, Policy

Sandy’s Aftermath: Overstretching a Health Care System

Source:Huffington Post (AP Photo/ John Minchillo)

Many people saw the television coverage of New York University Langone Medical Center’s evaluation of patients during Hurricane Sandy, including very sick newborns. While the evacuation appeared to be very well managed, it nonetheless presented significant challenges to administrators, staff, and rescue workers. Hospitals that took in these patients and those from Bellevue Hospital and the VA Hospital of Manhattan, as well as outlying nursing homes, were also confronted with how to accommodate more patients safely. While Sandy is behind us, the health care system in New York City continues to be stretched beyond capacity.

Tonight on Healthstyles, host Diana Mason, PhD, RN, talks with Kimberly Glassman, PhD, RN, Senior Vice President for Patient Services and Chief Nurse Officer at NYU Langone Medical Center, and Thomas Smith, DNP, RN, Senior Vice President and Chief Nurse Officer at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center, about their experiences during Sandy and the continuing impact of the storm on their institutions.

So tune in tonight on WBAI, 99.5 FM (www.wbai.org) at 11:00 PM;

Healthstyles is sponsored by the Center for Health, Media & Policy at Hunter College, City University of New York.

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January 10, 2013

author: Diana J. Mason

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[caption id="attachment_5692" align="alignnone" width="570"] Source:Huffington Post (AP

Health, Policy

GETHealth Summit to address health workforce shortages in developing countries

Robert Bollinger, MD, MPH

This guest post is by Robert Bollinger, MD, MPH, Director and Professor, Johns Hopkins University Center for Clinical Global Health Education (CCGHE). Dr. Bollinger is a Professor of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, with joint appointments in the Department of International Health of the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

The poorest communities of Africa, Asia and Latin America suffer from more than 80% of the global burden of disease and death. A major challenge to addressing this disparity is that these same communities have less than 10% of the worlds trained health care workers. A recent study has estimated that, in these poor communities, between 50-80% of the times someone seeks a diagnosis, medication or other treatment for an illness, people receive these services from an untrained or poorly trained practitioner. Billions of dollars are invested every year to provide access to treatment for diseases like HIV, malaria and TB. Yet, there are not nearly enough well-trained doctors, nurses, midwives and community health workers to ensure that these investments are well-spent and saving as many lives as possible.

At the Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education, we are focused on leveraging innovative ways to use information communication technology (ICT), such as internet-based learning, telemedicine, smartphones and mobile tablets to address this need for training. We have developed our own mobile health (mHealth) platform that uses regular cellphone, smartphones and tablets to train and empower health care workers in the most resource-limited communities in the world. Our open-source platform called eMOCHA is supporting improvements in health care in 11 countries.

The CCGHE, together with the Global Partnership Forum, the International Telecommunication Union, the WHO, the US CDC, the US National Institutes of Health, the mHealth Alliance, the Governments of Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda, as well as many other partners will be hosting a meeting called the GETHealth Summit, to discuss new innovations and opportunities to leverage ICT to improve training and support of health care workers around the world. We look forward to a highly interactive format and welcome health care, IT and education innovators, leaders and other stakeholders from around the world to join us in New York at the United Nations on February 6 and 7 for the GETHealth Summit. You can register and learn more about the Summit here.

January 9, 2013

author: Editorial Staff

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[caption id="attachment_5681" align="alignleft" width="140"] Robert Bollinger, MD,

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Flu Prevention? Try Paid Sick Days

Sandy’s Aftermath: Overstretching a Health Care System

GETHealth Summit to address health workforce shortages in developing countries

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