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Archive for the ‘Health Disparities’ Category

“Hospitals Making Progress on Health Care Disparities”- Reading between the Lines

Posted in Advocacy, Discrimination, Ethics, Health Disparities, Healthcare Inequalities, Hispanic/Latino, Immigrants, Language Access, Language Services, Limited English Proficiency, Paitent safety, Patient Safety, Translation on 30 November 2014| Leave a Comment »

In recent weeks I’ve received email alerts announcing  “Hospitals Making Progress on Health Care Disparities“, a new study from the American Hospital Association’s Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence program and associated organizations.   I took a look  first at the infographic accompanying the notices, and then at the published study itself, the 2013 Diversity and Disparities: A Benchmark Study of U.S. Hospitals. It was no surprise to read that the demographic profile of hospital executives and boards is still so far from representative of  the general  population, since the last HPoE study in 2011. However, the 2013 study reports data on language services in hospitals that raised my eyebrows ( 2011 comparison data points shown in parentheses):   EquityofCareStudy

  • 95%  (90%) are collecting data on primary language of patients
  • 87% (80%) are translating forms and documents for patients
  • 66% (61%) collected information on patient language needs

Leaving aside the matter of ascertaining the difference between collecting “primary language of patient” and “patient language needs,” these highly encouraging results led me to seek details in the source report. Having recently done extensive research for my own presentation on the status of  language services in healthcare for the 2014 WASCLA Summit, the HPoE findings seemed even more amazing. What I found in the report itself , which did conclude that more needs to be done to achieve equity of care in the broader sense, was that some basic background and research points seemed not to have been included or were too limited in scope to be meaningful.  For example,  the report did not include the list of hospitals which had participated in the survey, nor how the recent cohort compares to the 2011 and 2009 participant groups. There was no discussion of the statistical validity of the response rate of 1109 hospitals (~19% of all 5922 AHA member hospitals invited to participate), nor how representative the response sample is for hospitals nationwide. For example, while the study noted that all data was self-reported,  there was no mention of the possibility that only hospitals which have disparities reduction initiatives chose to participate.  I am pursuing the actual data used for the study, and hope to have information to share soon.

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WA Healthplanfinder Updates

Posted in Advocacy, Assistance, Discrimination, Ethics, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Health Care Reform, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Health Literacy, Healthcare Inequalities, Hispanic/Latino, Immigrants, Language Access, Language Services, Limited English Proficiency, Medicaid, Promotions, State of Washington, Translation on 20 December 2013| Leave a Comment »

Consumer info fact sheets  translated into WA’s threshold written languages   (Chinese, Lao, Khmer ( Cambodian), Korean, Russian,  Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese) were posted on Dec. 16, just one week before the deadline to start an application for coverage to be effective Jan. 1, 2014. In an unrelated development, HBE  decided on this brief extension  for completing applications due to various  problems people have had in being able to use the online forms and or access phone customer services.  Regarding the translated fact sheets, it’s taken almost 6 months for their publication to replace the original problematic versions that were taken down from the site.
However, the new fact sheets are not easy to find as they are not posted on the consumer website,  but located exclusively on the HBE corporate website.  The corporate site features a line at top right-hand side of homepage entitled “Information in Other  Languages” which links to the fact sheets page, plus also links out to the consumer website.  In contrast, the consumer Healthplanfinder site (which is in both  English and Spanish) does not offer any such subject line, nor does it display a link to corporate site.  The Healthplanfinder site likewise does not contain any readily visible clear statement of consumer  language access or disability access rights, except for a message in tiny font on bottom of the homepage that says [sic] : If you need additional language or disability accomodations, you may call 1-855-WAFINDER (1-855-923-4633).   On the Spanish version of the website, this statement illustrates yet another example of  faulty translation, as the term “disability accomodation” is twice translated, and very ungrammatically, as  “discapacidad alojamiento”  which means disability lodging.  Sure enough, a quick check on Google Translate  English > Spanish reveals  “lodging” as the first  translation for “accommodation.”  Since 2012 advocates had been recommending the inclusion of multilingual tag lines and/or translated summaries sections for the website. Interpretersymbol

Information on some metrics for the Healthplanfinder call center became available last week with the release of the  November Healthplanfinder Data Report. On the language access side of things (p.10 of the report)  the numbers are not encouraging: the call center received almost 12,000 calls in Spanish, but handled only some 1600 of them. The call center in Spokane has bilingual Spanish-English staff (reported as 6 out of 80 employees at start-up) on site and routes calls in other languages to a telephonic interpreter service. For calls in all languages besides Spanish combined, 1045 were actually handled (answered)out of 3621 calls attempted. The report does not state if the multilingual calls are included in the totals for approximately 35,000 calls  handled in November or the almost  158,000 calls throttled (deflected from the system, i.e. not put into the queue to await a response).  While the HBE is said to be increasing staffing for the call center,  any increases planned for its language capacity are as yet unknown. Given the demand, it would seem that Spanish-speaking callers too could benefit from immediate access to interpreter services.

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Translations for WA Health Benefit Exchange Still a Struggle

Posted in Advocacy, Discrimination, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Health Care Reform, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Health Literacy, Healthcare Inequalities, Hispanic/Latino, Immigrants, Language Access, Language Services, Limited English Proficiency, Medicaid, State of Washington, Translation, tagged , , , , on 10 December 2013| Leave a Comment »

The irony was not lost for me that while writing on the positive results of the FDA’s use of  translation services, that here in my state, once known as a national leader in language services, we are still struggling to get quality translations for our Health Benefits Exchange (HBE).  The efforts  to achieve this goal have been a major focus for the Washington State Coalition for Language Access, and its been a year now since we co-authored with Northwest Health Law Advocates the report Language Access in Washington under the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act  expressly for the HBE efforts. Now with 175,000 enrollees, Washington State deserves the praise it’s getting for the record-breaking enrollment figures in the new health insurance  marketplace Washington Healthplanfinder, WA_Healthplanfinder_RGBespecially compared to the situation in neighboring Oregon and to the federal Healthcare.gov platform. But the picture is much less rosy regarding providing equal access for Washingtonians with limited English proficiency (LEP), who now number some 8% of state population or half-million residents, representing an increase of 210 % in the past decade . Demographic data on enrollees is said not to be available.

We are now less than 2 weeks away from the enrollment deadline for coverage to start Jan. 1, 2014, and the consumer fact sheets that were intended to inform the public of the options under the ACA have not yet been made available to Washington’s LEP population. Even though work began in July to replace the problematic original translations – errors brought to HBE’s attention by advocates- there are still no consumer fact sheets available in Washington’s  threshold languages ( in written form these are: Chinese, Lao, Khmer, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Somali, and Vietnamese).

In addition, the Spanish versions of the paper application for Healthplanfinder, while continuing to be publicly available, have contained horrific translation errors.  In the section  which inquires about the applicant’s citizenship status, the phrase ” Non-citizen legally present in the US”  was translated into Spanish to mean just the opposite,  i.e., the translation says “ non-citizen not legally present….”  ACA, complete with the  I-word in Spanish in version #1.  After the mistake was identified on Oct. 15 , again by advocates,  staff said they took immediate action to have the vendor correct it.  The screenshots included here show the sections containing the mistranslations.

Spanish version #1

And yet, advocates identified that the new translation contained the same error, just written with different wording.   Here is Spanish version #2, as it appeared on Nov. 14: Screen shot 2013-12-05 at 11.00.31 AM

This one particular error may now have been recently corrected  for a 3rd iteration, through volunteer  efforts of local language access advocates trying to beat the clock to help consumers. However, we hear anecdotally that more translation concerns persist and can’t be confident that there are not similar errors in the translations in the other languages.

What remains a mystery is how this sorry state of affairs has come about, and if there were ever robust quality assurance measures in the procurement chain for the translations. It is beyond comprehension how such blatant errors could be made given that the work was done by vendors holding official State contracts who must affirm that they use  qualified translators and proper translation procedures. And if this is happening in Spanish, the 2nd most used language in both our State and nationally,  and thus one for which there is an ample number of nationally-certified translators available to do the work, there is a real reason to fear that similar egregious errors may exist in other language translations.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, HBE staffers announced  at a meeting of its Health Equity Technical Advisory Committee, that work halted back in June to create a Language Access Plan  (LAP) for the HBE requested by the TAC , will resume in the new year.  LAPs are meant to serve as blueprints to guide the work of agencies and programs to comply with the laws requiring they provide language services, and  to help prevent the kind of  problems that we’ve being seeing here in the other Washington.  I’ll continue to report on the work in progress.

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Foucs on Community Clinics

Posted in Advocacy, Assistance, Children's Health, Community clinics, Economics of Health Care, Health Care Reform, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Healthcare Inequalities, Medicaid on 6 May 2012| Leave a Comment »

In these times of intense attention to healthcare from all quarters of the US,  a new study by USA Today and Kaiser Health News reporters focused on community clinics.  Over the past 2 decades community clinics have  developed from origins often as volunteer-run efforts, to become a vital part of  what is called the safety-net. Frequently they now are the sole source of care available to over 20 million people, often as the only providers who will accept patients covered by Medicaid,  and for the growing ranks of the uninsured. The sorry state of healthcare access would be far worse if it were not for community clinics.  These centers will play an important role too in the reforms set to start in 2014. It is expected that many who will become newly insured  by Medicaid will be seeking  care at community clinics. Long woefully underfunded, clinics will be eligible to receive help from the $10 billion approved by Congress for expanding their  service capacity.   

The report entitled  Community clinics have odds stacked against them  looked  at almost 1200 community clinics across the country, and ranked them based on the 6 categories of performance quality measures which federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) must report to the federal government.  The categories cover care for patients with diabetes and high blood pressure, rates of screening for cervical cancer and childhood immunizations, plus timeliness of prenatal care and rates of low birth-weight babies.

Using  2010 clinic performance data obtained by FOIA request, the reporting team found wide variations in care by center,  by region of the country, and between specific centers in the same city.  Generally, clinics in the South performed worse that those in New England, the Midwest, and California. Overall, their  survey showed community clinics not performing as well as the national averages for the study parameters .

There is more context to understanding the survey results however, that was not part of the report.  The National Association of Community Health Centers issued a statement about the report which while recognizing the value of examining clinic performance, expressed concern about the wrong impressions that the media study might give:

The article disregards the better quality care that most health centers achieve when compared to care provided to other low-income patients elsewhere.  However, at least the article does reveal what few Americans realize– that every health center reports on the quality of care their patients receive….

<snip>

…When you compare the federal data that is the focus of the USA Today article with national data from the National Center for Health Statistics, health centers performed better than national averages for entering women into prenatal care during the first trimester, childhood immunization rates, reduced low birth rates and hypertension control…..

NACHC recently published its report Health Wanted – The State of Unmet Need for Primary Health Care in America  which takes an in-depth look at the factors behind the consistent and increasing demand for community clinics, the links to social determinants of health and how funding has not kept up to meet population needs.  In FY 2011 for example, only 67 out of some 1900 applications for new health center service sites were funded.

Seattle/Local Health Guide extracted localized  figures from the report to create a Washington State Comparison Chart.  Janna Wilson, Senior External  Relations Officer for the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health shared additional concerns with me  in a personal  communication, about implications and lack of context  for specific data used for the local news article:

The data provided for Public Health represents a small subset of the patients we see—our homeless primary care patients. This is because Public Health’s federal health center grant comes under a targeted program called Health Care for the Homeless. Our federal data report, therefore, is specific to our homeless patients per federal reporting requirements.  As you know, homeless patients face barriers that often exacerbate medical and behavioral health conditions and complicate treatment plans.
 

While most community health center grants and programs are for the general low-income population, some — like ours — target special population groups such as homeless people or migrant workers.  There is nothing in the USA Today article that provides this important context. That said, quality improvement is a big part of our program for all our patients, whether homeless or housed.

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Washington’s Apple Health for Kids Earns $17M Federal Achievement Bonus

Posted in Advocacy, Children's Health, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Health Care Reform, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Recession, State of Washington on 9 January 2012| Leave a Comment »

With almost nothing but a steady stream of dire news about public services in 2011 , and  the prospect of even more budget cuts facing us as the Washington State Legislature convenes work today, it is heartening to hear some good news. For the third year in a row, Washington has earned bonuses for enrolling children in Apple Health for Kids, our state’s plan for low- and middle-income kids, which includes the Children’s Health Insurance Program. As Crosscut reported:

Tens of thousands more children have health insurance now, despite the state’s having reached the grim milestone of 1 million uninsured residents last year. Washington is also the only Western state to win federal awards in 2011 for both early learning and children’s insurance programs.

Of course, one of the reasons that so many children are now enrolled in Apple Health is because their parents have lost their jobs and/or health insurance. And some 100,000 eligible children are not enrolled in the program, highlighting the need to continue outreach efforts, which lost  state funding in 2009.  Nevertheless the ceaseless efforts of advocacy groups like  the Children’s Alliance are a driving force which led to this performance award, which  in turn will help the State do even more for our kids.

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Headline Scan

Posted in Access to Medicines, Advocacy, Assistance, Children's Health, Economics of Health Care, Environmental Health, Ethics, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Health Literacy, Healthcare Inequalities, Language Access, Recession, State of Washington, Workers' rights on 18 May 2011| Leave a Comment »

Can We Afford Personalized Medicine?

Special treatment for ‘high profile’ patients; exasperation for the rest of us

Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care

People Who Donate Organs For Transplants Can Have Difficulty Getting Insurance

Foundations, Conflicts Of Interest And Drugmakers

Mission Crash: The Intolerable Policy Incoherence in US AIDS Policy, Global and Domestic

 Office of Minority Health Awards Major Project to Support
CCHI’s work on Healthcare Interpreter Certification

WA Governor signs precedent-setting healthcare worker safety laws

Washington is first state in nation to ban toxic pavement sealants

HHS awards $4.9 million to support families of children with special health care needs

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Glimmer of Hope: Senate Votes to Tap Life Sciences Discovery Fund for WA Basic Health Program, Continue Medical Interpreter Program

Posted in Advocacy, Discrimination, DSHS budget, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Health Disparities, Healthcare Inequalities, Language Access, Language Services, Lobbying, State of Washington on 15 February 2011| Leave a Comment »

Things are still beyond grim as the work on Washington State’s  budget continues. However, on February 4, there was a more hopeful sign when the  Senate approved its version of the Supplemental Budget, including a provision to continue the Basic Health Program, although in reduced scope, by drawing on the Life Sciences Discovery Fund. The  LSDF was established in 2005 from WA’s share of national tobacco settlement funds.  Both the Governor’s budget and the one previously approved by the House had cut  BHP, along  with the DSHS long-standing  interpreter services program for  Medicaid and CHIP patients  These potentially promising developments however have garnered less attention than another set of proposals in HB 1847 ,which would  to sustain funding for BHP by eliminating tax exemptions for Big Banking,  and sales taxes on elective cosmetic surgery and private jets. 

While advocates regard these developments as positive, the struggle is far from over. The Supplemental budget is now undergoing the reconciliation process by both houses and will needs the Governor’s approval; the Biennial budget  will have its turn next. Both contain deep cuts in virtually every area of life affecting Washingtonians, with the worst cuts affecting the most vulnerable populations, especially immigrants and refugees. WA Budget cuts 2011.

The history of these two programs is of particular note at this critical time.  The original intent of the Master Tobacco Settlement Agreement was to fund health services in the states for those affected by smoking.  At the time, Gov. Gregoire, aware that the state would come into additional funds from that source by 2009, planned a move to combine them with private monies to develop a biotech sector.  In a  2005 commentary prescient of current threat of extinction for the Basic Health Program (which began as a 1987 pilot project and became permanent in 1993) the Seattle Weekly had reported:

It will be controversial because originally the tobacco settlement money was supposed to be used to help states offset the health care costs associated with smoking. In 2003, when Gary Locke floated an idea similar to the Life Science Discovery Fund—he called it Bio21—Senate Majority Leader Brown told Seattle Weekly she didn’t like the idea of using tobacco money for biotechnology. “We are one of the few states that has remained true to using that money for health care,” she said at the time. Expect the debate over the best use of the tobacco money to continue.

As I had written previously, in late October 2010, after the Governor had issued her call for “across the board budget cuts” from every state agency, the LSDF awarded $5 million to a private company engaged in personalized medicine research.  Last week, LSDF awarded $600,000 in commercialization grants to four research projects.

The Interpreter Services program also was created as a result of federal litigation, in this case as a result of a 1991 Consent Decree negotiated with the Office of Civil Rights in response to lawsuits and civil rights complaints filed against DSHS for failing to provide equal access to services for clients with limited English proficiency  By law, in this case the Civil Rights Act of 1964, title VI, recipients of federal funds must not discriminate against program beneficiaries on the basis of race, color, or national origin.  Courts have defined lack of language access as a form of discrimination based on national origin. However, the responsibility to fund language services is ultimately that of providers. Since  techncially Washington funded the DSHS program voluntarily, it is now able to seek to de-fund it, unlike other mandatory programs. But in doing so, the state would also forgo specific federal funds that it has been receiving that have covered 50-75% of the total costs, as the Washington State Coalition for Language Access explains in a fact sheet:  WASCLA DSHS Interpreter Services Talking Points January 2011

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Poor Journalism Fans Flames of Hate in the Evergreen State

Posted in Advocacy, Discrimination, DSHS budget, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Health Disparities, Health Insurance, Healthcare Inequalities, Language Access, Lobbying, Recession, Responsible journalism, State of Washington on 4 February 2011| Leave a Comment »

A front-page article published on February 1 by  The Seattle Times, now the Emerald City’s  sole remaining daily newspaper, purporting to describe new state demographic trends, is causing outrage at a very critical time. At this very moment  the draconian cuts proposed by the Governor to balance the budget, are the subject of  contention in the Legislature  as advocates  struggle to convince lawmakers to preserve at least the semblance of a safety net .  The program cuts would disproportionately affect poor immigrants and refugees and communities of color, as the planned terminations cut deeply into a range of services from state food assistance, citizenship programs, Medicaid medical interpreter services, to health insurance plans which now cover noncitizen adults and some 27,000 children enrolled in the Children’s Health program of Apple Health for Kids, among other vital services.  In addition, other bills being considered would promote racial/ethnic profiling of state residents, including requiring citizenship checks of applicants for drivers’ licenses to those targeting youth for incarceration on the basis of presumed but not proven gang affiliations.

So it seems like more than a coincidence that the Times story Illegal-immigrant numbers in state jump 35% in 3 years was published the day before the Senate Ways & Means Committee was to hold a hearing on the 2011 Supplemental Budget bill which encompasses all of the cuts. The Times article discussed a just-released report from the Pew Hispanic Center  entitled Unauthorized Immigrant Population:
National and State Trends, 2010, about  results of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. Beyond  just the damage that the inflammatory  and dehumanizing language of the article’s title can cause in the court of public opinion , it turns out that reporter Lornet Turnbull  got his facts wrong too.  Subsequently Jeff Passel, one of the authors of the Pew report, was interviewed by a reporter for local radio station.   Passel said that based on the Census data, there was no evidence that Washington’s undocumented population had increased, pointing to the high margin of error in the data analysis and its very small sample size, and more pointedly, that the Seattle Times had not done fact-checking with Pew.  The  Feb. 3 interview Dispute About Growth Of Undocumented Immigrants In Wash. can be heard in its entirety on the KUOW website.

In these desperate economic times, articles like this one in the Seattle Times serve only to scapegoat all immigrants for the economic woes of the state (and the nation) instead of focusing on the genuine causes of the recession.  Over 400 comments  have been posted in response so far, most of them of a hate-mongering nature.  Recognition that Washington’s regressive tax structure means that all of us contribute at the same (sales tax) rate to state coffers, regardless of immigration status or income, is handily overlooked by the ranters. Interestingly, the Times has posted a partial correction to the article, explaining that undocumented people constitute a small  fraction of the state’s population

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that illegal immigrants accounted for nearly 5 percent of the state’s population, giving Washington the seventh highest rate of illegal immigrants in the nation. A Pew Hispanic Center report, on which the story was based, incorrectly attributed the percentage and ranking to Washington state rather than to the District of Columbia. The center has corrected the information in its online report to reflect that illegal immigrants comprise 3.4 percent of Washington state’s population, a rate that does not rank it among the top 10 states.

The story’s problematc title and other content inaccuracies however remain the same, its damage done.  Use of attention-grabbing headlines is a journalistic technique of course; likewise  fewer readers ever bother to go back to read corrections.

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Lumps of Coal for Local Health, Buzz and Bucks for Biotech and Global Health

Posted in Access to Medicines, Assistance, DSHS budget, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Global Health, Health Disparities, Healthcare Inequalities, Language Access, Lobbying, Recession, State of Washington on 3 January 2011| Leave a Comment »

The end of the year with its annual holidays found many  of us here in Washington State feeling anything but in a festive mood, given the imminent decimation of core health and human services, as part of  the Governor’s proposal for balancing of the state’s  budget in the new year and for the biennium.  On September 13th, Governor Gregoire’s Executive Order 10-04 instructed all state agencies to make reductions in their allotments from the State General fund in order to meet the requirement for a balanced  budget. On September 29, DSHS issued its initial plan of how the 6.3% across-the-board budget cuts would be applied to Department programs to meet this mandate. The proposed cuts were aimed at every program and service (included some entirely state-funded and other linked to Medicaid)  not technically defined as “mandatory,” affecting the state’s most vulnerable populations in all age-groups from pre-cradle to grave, and including  primary care delivered at community health centers.

By December, a supplemental budget proposal with even worse news was issued, containing further  proposals for achieving the needed $4 billion in savings to balance the budget. The drastic cuts to almost every aspect of civic life, was driven by outcomes of  ballot measures  from the November elections, which dashed any hopes even of short-term new revenue generation  from snack sales, rejection of a first-ever state income tax to have been levied only on the wealthiest among us, and hamstrung future legislative efforts to raise taxes with the 2/3 majority approval stipulation.  By December 30, the Governor released the latest list of planned budget cuts,and the timeline for their elimination. While some of the worst of the cuts have been staved off or delayed temporarily, it still remains to be seen whether the remaining services will be funded, even in vastly reduced mode, and how many human beings affected by the cuts will even survive.

While at this stage in my life nothing surprises me any more, the discrepancy between what is happening to these most basic of services and the treatment of the high-profile, socially attractive high tech sector by state government should be a wake up call to all of us who value a decent society. While the majority of Washingtonians have not misbehaved, it seems like the most vulnerable among us are being singled out for punishment.

State Dollars > Private Venture

During exactly same time period that the budget cuts were first announced in October, another state agency, the Life Sciences Discovery Fund, gave a grant of $5 million to a private, for-profit business, the Omeros Corporation, a Seattle biopharmaceutical company, for  research into speculative personalized medicines. The grant to Omeros was rolled into a package deal for the firm, that included $25M from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. Even Xconomy: Seattle‘s biotech reporter Luke Timmerman expressed great surprise at this development in his Dec. 14 article entitled Life Sciences Discovery Fund Debunks Perceptions with Omeros Deal, Shows State Can Bankroll Companies. If the research ever pans out, then there is the possibility of financial returns to the state at some unknown time in the future.

A bit of background: Washington’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund was established by the Legislature in 2005 to disburse the tobacco settlement funds allocated to the state. While the the fund originally had been allocated $350M for a 10-year period, when the State’s budget crisis threatened to shut down the program in 2009, it survived with a budget cut of 41% or $39M in funds for FYs 2009-2011. The LSDF’s  stated mission is as follows:

The Life Sciences Discovery Fund supports innovative research in Washington state to promote life sciences competitiveness, enhance economic vitality, and improve health and health care.

which the  program website further explains as intending to “foster growth of the state’s life sciences sector and improve the health and economic wellbeing of its residents.”

But given the crisis situation we now face–in context of course of the ongoing national recession–emergency measures are needed.  It hardly seems the time for state government to be investing in private companies, purely ethical issues aside for the moment. Obviously, it’s going to take more than redirecting the “mere” $5M given by the LSDF to a private venture to save public health services in Washington State, but those funds certainly could have turned things around for a good number of the axed programs, such as the Basic Health Program insurance plan and so many Medicaid services.  While research is important, without access to care, medical innovations are meaningless.  What good is research, if there is no safety net? Given the LSDF’s mission, it should be part of the logical solution needed  now: making sure that all Washingtonians can benefit from the medical knowledge available today. And the state government can take a leadership role too in education on the need for investment in our human capital. Despite laments over the election outcomes,and grim prognostics, the official ChooseWashington.com website continues to highlight the array of attractive tax incentives, some of which I had commented on previously, for certain types of companies to set up shop here, along with the absence of a personal income tax.

Another part of the Governor’s plan to balance the budget, announced December 14, is to eliminate Boards and Commissions. No mention was made in this announcement, however, about the status of  a brand-new board, the Global Health Technologies Competitiveness Board established in July 2010, after SB 6675 Creating the Washington global health technologies and product development competitiveness program and allowing certain tax credits for program contributions, was approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Gregoire. Per RCW 43.374.010, among the Board’s charges are seeking funding from the private sector, foundations, and the federal government in order to issue grants to local enterprises …to stimulate our economy and foster job creation in the emerging field of global health while improving the health of people in our state and the world. The program is required to be administered by a 501(c)6 tax-exempt nonprofit organization, which contracts with the Dept. of Commerce for administrative services.

The Global Health Technologies Competitiveness Program (GHTCP) was awarded $1M by the Legislature (evidently not subject to the budget cuts) and issued its first RFP in mid-November, with awards expected to be announced early in the new year, along with a second RFP announcement, according to the Washington Global Health Alliance.

Think Globally, Act Locally ?

These new developments beg the question of just exactly what these specific state-funded programs are doing to improve the health  of Washington residents in the here and now. I write these words from the perspective of understanding full well how domestic and  international health are inextricably linked, whether regarding diseases rapidly transcending national borders or concerning the impact of international trade agreements on availability of medicines for US Medicaid programs, just to name a few examples. I myself am alive today partly as a result of medical advances developed here in Seattle, and I am also directly involved with both local and global health equity work, which makes me even more appalled at what is going on. Global health has been described as Seattle’s “next hot industry,” but few are the public voices applying critical thinking skills to analyze what this actually means for local folks. One of the exceptions is that of Seattle journalist Tom Paulson, who now offers insights on his Humanosphere blog.  such as a November 2010 story on a still-vague, 5-year  $1M  Swedish Medical Center pilot project called Global to Local targeting two low-income communities in  South King County.  Tom pointed out the irony  of this program being rolled out at the very same time that well-established and proven-effective, public health services are being slashed. According to the article, G2L is based on a concept that the “best practices” used by local actors in overseas health programs can be applied here at home too, while structural reasons for domestic health and healthcare inequalities are not addressed. And another observer, Steve Gloyd, MD of Health Alliance International and the UW Dept. of Global Health, has opined that there can be an upside to calling global health an “industry”:

“Maybe using the word will shock people into recognizing that when a local biotech firm says it is working on a vaccine to help people in Africa, some will see it is actually just trying to make a few people in Seattle rich.”

Next year, a new nonprofit called Global Health Nexus will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Seattle World’s Fair with a major conference and exhibition showcasing the region’s global-health advancements. One has to wonder if anyone working to improve health at the local level will be invited to present, or if we’ll be able to afford the registration fees. Perhaps advocates can submit an abstract for a session there featuring real-life Washingtonians sharing first-hand accounts of the outcomes of state budget cuts on preventable health problems, such as  a child who has  been experiencing asthma attacks since elimination of the Children’s Health Program; an adult with diabetes who had to get their leg amputated due to lack of non-emergency podiatry care;  or the relative of a patient who died due to a wrong diagnosis resulting from lack of a medical interpreter;  or we could show  videos of overflowing ERs full of patients bumped from the Basic Health Program and unable to be seen at community clinics. Then maybe we could pass the hat among the rich and famous to take to up a collection for local health.

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Conference Time

Posted in Consumer Protection, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Health Disparities, Healthcare Inequalities, Language Access, Language Services on 26 September 2010| 3 Comments »

Many important conferences are scheduled from September  to the end of the year.   Last week I was  fortunate to be able to attend the second annual meeting of the  Consortium of Universities for Global Health at the University of Washington here in Seattle. I’ll report  on that later.

Some other notable conferences, including those in which I am involved in running and/presenting,  are:

International “Selling Sickness” Conference in Amsterdam, October  7-8, sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Health and Health Care Inspectorate,  Gezonde Scepsis, Healthy Skepticism International, and the  World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe.
While I won’t get to be there in person, my poster will be there  and also posted here on the blog .

Summit VI of the Washington State Coalition for Language Access  (WASCLA) will take place in Seattle on October 15-16.  Run entirely by volunteers, including yours truly, I’m on the team organizing the conference and also a presenter for a plenary session on Community Advocacy & Engagement.  And FYI to those interested in attending: early bird registration rates have been extended to October 1.

The  Diversity Rx 7th National Conference on Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations will be held in Baltimore on October 18-21. Sadly I’ll be missing this top-notch biannual event.

Heading into November, the Washington State Pharmacy Association will hold its annual meeting in Vancouver, WA on the 5th and 6th, where together with  pharmacist and  attorney colleagues from WASCLA, we’ll be speaking on Language Access at the Pharmacy.


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