Here is a sampling of foundation blog posts that recently caught my eye.
Health Care Delivery
“Retail Clinics Are Expanding Their Role within the Health Care System,” by Tara Oakman, on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF’s) Culture of Health blog, May 6. In this interesting post, Oakman writes about “doc-in-a-box” clinics. They are convenient and cost much less than a trip to a hospital emergency department and even less than a visit to a physician’s office, she notes. Oakman discusses a recent RWJF-funded study from Manatt Health that says that retail clinics can even assist in addressing some nonclinical needs related to social determinants of health. That Manatt study also suggests how retail clinics could be improved—for example, by locating more of them in “underserved areas where they might be needed most,” she explains. (Oakman, a senior program officer at the foundation, recently wrote a Health Affairs GrantWatch post on cost transparency.)
Health Philanthropy
“Eight Top Issues for Health Funders in 2015,” by Faith Mitchell, on the Altarum Institute’s Health Policy Forum blog, April 28. Mitchell is president and CEO of Grantmakers In Health (GIH) and a member of the Health Affairs editorial board. She lists what she and her colleagues at GIH—the “trade association” for foundations and corporate-giving programs that fund in health—have gleaned from their conversations with staffers at philanthropies around the country.
If your organization is seeking a grant, read this post to see if your work aligns with many foundations’ current interests. She lists the current priorities in alphabetical order.
Even if you think you know what is on the list, you may learn, for example, on which aspects of healthy eating/active living these funders want to focus their resources.
And not to worry, health reform is still on the list!
Health Professions Workforce
“Helping to Unlock Resources: The Changing Role of the Pharmacist,” by Wasim Baqir, on the blog of the Health Foundation, based in London, England, May 21. Baqir, a guest blogger who is a research and development pharmacist at Northumbria Healthcare NHS (National Health Service) Foundation Trust, tells readers that pharmacists in the United Kingdom have been able to prescribe medicines for some ten years.
He inquires, “By changing the pharmacist’s role from one of ensuring the prescription is clinically correct to one of doing the prescribing, are we making care safer or adding in additional risks?” He says two studies have come out (he links to them), and they seem to indicate that “pharmacist prescribers can prescribe safely.”
Baqir suggests another role for pharmacists: stopping medicines for reasons that include “no current indication.” This commonly happens with older people, he explains: They are prescribed a medicine for what is initially a good reason; the prescription “then becomes inappropriate through a lack of review and questioning.”
I e-mailed Baqir to find out more about prescribing pharmacists. He told me that pharmacists in the United Kingdom “still have their traditional roles.” Prescribing is “something most pharmacists do in addition to other traditional roles.” Baqir pointed out that it’s “generally accepted” that pharmacists “should not dispense or clinically check their own prescribing.” But pharmacist prescribing is less than 1 percent of all drug prescribing, he noted. For more information, he suggested checking out this brief history that he and his coauthors wrote; it was published in the European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy in 2012.
Health Reform
“The Affordable Care Act: What Are the Facts after Five Years?” by David Blumenthal, on the Commonwealth Fund Blog, May 7. Blumenthal, who is head of the Commonwealth Fund, notes that much of the debate about the ACA has been “partisan and ideological.” He adds that we need to look at the law’s successes and failures to date. He says that the ACA “has had a considerable impact on the availability of health insurance.” And signs indicate that the ACA “is starting to change the way care is paid for and delivered to patients.” Blumenthal, who doesn’t mention in the post any definite ACA “failures,” seems to be optimistic about the law’s effects thus far.
The blog post alerts readers to Commonwealth’s new collection of publications examining whether Obamacare is meeting its aims of coverage expansion and improved functioning of the “health insurance and health care system” in the United States.
For a post that is critical of one aspect of the law, read “The Post-Launch Problem: The Affordable Care Act’s Persistently High Administrative Costs,” by David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, Health Affairs Blog, May 27. [Note to readers: This is not a philanthropy blog post.]
Smoking Prevention
“No Time to Waste in Battle to Regulate E-Cigarettes,” by Joe Marx, on the RWJF’s Culture of Health blog, April 28. Marx, a long-time RWJF staffer, states that “even within the health community, there is debate on the value of e-cigarettes in helping people [to] quit smoking traditional cigarettes.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate e-cigarettes at the federal level, he notes. But at least forty states prohibit e-cigarettes from being sold to minors, Marx says.
Marx reports the results of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report on student smoking in the United States. He quotes CDC director Tom Frieden, who said in a press release accompanying the report:
“Nicotine is dangerous for kids at any age, whether it’s an e-cigarette, hookah, cigarette or cigar. Adolescence is a critical time for brain development. Nicotine exposure at a young age may cause lasting harm to brain development, promote addiction, and lead to sustained tobacco use.”
Substance Use Prevention
“Drug Courts Save: Lives, Families, Costs, and Communities,” by Stephanie Boyer, on the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City’s Local Health Buzz blog, May 6. Boyer is assistant to the director of administrative services and manager of the probation office for the Kansas City, Missouri, Municipal Court. She states, “If we are serious about reducing substance abuse, crime, and recidivism while saving money for taxpayers, then we must continue to expand drug courts and veterans treatment courts.” She says the key is to use the court’s “leverage” to keep people with long histories of substance use and crime “engaged in treatment long enough to be successful.”
I had not previously heard of drug courts for vets. “Research continues to draw a link between substance abuse and combat-related mental illness,” Boyer says.
Her post also contains short descriptions of Kansas City’s regular drug court program and court for vets, as well as some national stats from a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
Watch for my upcoming June 2015 Health Affairs GrantWatch column on what foundations are doing to prevent substance use. The issue will be released on June 8.
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