There is a study in Ann Arbor where the lead suthor, Dr. Lena Chen, says that not because you are paying less for health care means that you are getting low quality care. Dr. Chen is a clinical lecturer at University of Michigan Health System. She said that they would like to find out why there is a “huge range” between hospitals.

Below is the transcript taken from http://www.wbur.org/npr/123979339

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

Does paying less for hospital care mean that you get lower quality care? Well, according to a new study in the archives of internal medicine the answer is not necessarily. Dr. Lena Chen is a clinical lecturer at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. She was the lead author of that study and she joins us now from member station WUOM. Dr. Chen, welcome to the program.

Dr. LENA CHEN (Clinical Lecturer, University of Michigan Health System): Hi.

SIEGEL: Your study examines the records of care for congestive heart failure patients – all of them Medicare patients – in more than 3,000 hospitals. Tell us what you found.

Dr. CHEN: Well, we found that the cost of caring for a patient does not necessarily correlate with the quality of care delivered. So, for same conditions such as congestive heart failure, higher-cost hospitals provided higher quality care. But for other conditions such as pneumonia, the converse was true.

SIEGEL: You mean, that actually lower cost hospitals for some conditions in the end provided better care than higher cost hospitals.

Dr. CHEN: Yes. Although the differences were very small in terms of quality differences between the high and the low cost hospitals.

SIEGEL: Some of the ranges in price for treating the same ailment are pretty stunning here. For example, for congestive heart failure, you have a range of what was the cheapest and what was the most expensive?

Dr. CHEN: For congestive heart failure, the cheapest was $1,522, and the highest was $18,927.

SIEGEL: Eighteen thousand?

Dr. CHEN: Yes, it’s definitely a huge range and we’d like to understand why there is such a range between hospitals.

SIEGEL: But what’s driving that difference? Is it how many days you spend in the hospital? Is it how many people are checking up on you, medication, what’s doing it?

Dr. CHEN: In part, it is probably the length of stay so – we found that the higher cost hospitals did have longer length of stay meaning the patient was in the hospital for a longer period of time. But beyond that we were unable to identify the specific reasons why high-cost hospitals cost more. Some of the reasons could be what you mention, such as different testing patterns.

SIEGEL: Does part of the country figure in it? I mean, are there just places where medical care is much more expensive because of, you know, real estate or utilities cost for the hospital?

Dr. CHEN: We did try to factor in the wages of a particular area. So, for example, a hospital in New York City versus a hospital in a small town, their wages might be slightly different. So, we adjusted for that in our in defining what was a high-cost hospital.

SIEGEL: But the range that you just cited to us for the cost of congestive heart failure, I mean, you’d have to find the highest labor market in the world versus a very, very cheap one to account for that.

Dr. CHEN: That’s true. Definitely, it’s in part driven by what the hospital does. But we don’t have an answer as to what that is. Some of it may also be driven by differences in patients seen by different hospitals. We did try to adjust for that. But there maybe some residual differences that we could not account for.

SIEGEL: When we say that the outcomes at hospitals that cost less, that charge less are no different or essentially no different than at the more expensive ones per hundred patients, I mean, how many more have a really bad outcome at the loser in that comparison?

Dr. CHEN: Yeah, I mean the mortality rates for congestive heart failure in the lowest cost hospital was 10.8 percent and in the highest-cost hospital it was 9.8 percent.

SIEGEL: So you’re saying the ranges, whether 10 people or 11 people did not make it through treatment – which does sound pretty small – and the range of cost can be what you described as eight or nine fold in terms of cost?

Dr. CHEN: Right, there’s a much bigger difference in dollars.

SIEGEL: So, if people are prone to think that, you know, some hospital must be good because people pay a lot to go there and be treated, that would be misguided, and to think that because that hospital is cheap doesn’t mean you’re going to some low-rent medical facility.

Dr. CHEN: That is true. And I think that when you’re going to a hospital, if you have the luxury of looking at the cost that it would be important to look at their quality measures as well, not just cost as a predictor of the type of care you’re going to get.

SIEGEL: Dr. Lena Chen, clinical lecturer in the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, thank you very much for talking with us.

Dr. CHEN: Thank you very much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

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According to an Ann Arbor research, treadmill training can help infants who have complications before birth be able to walk earlier and better.

Injuries during the prenatal period can be corrected but there are times that toddlers can be diagnosed with serious disorders such as cerebral palsy according to Rosa Angulo-Barroso, associate professor of movement science at the U-M School of Kinesiology. She said that some of those diagnosis may come later while some mild cases may never come.

Angulo-Barroso and colleagues studied 15 infants who are at risk for neuromotor delays for two years. They tested the changes in physical activity and treadmill stepping.

The researchers observed the frequency of steps and the decrease in toe-walking over the two-year period. For those infants who were still not walking, the researchers followed-up if the child is walking at the age of 3.

They found out that those who have neuromotor delays who are using the treadmill are on the same stage as normal kids. Out of the 15 children, 6 were diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

“We found that in those with neuromotor delays, the pattern of development through time was parallel (but less) than normal kids.” said Angulo-Barroso, who is also a research associate professor at the U-M Center for Human Growth and Development. “We also found less toe-walking, so foot placement improved.”

The study also suggests a critical intervention window. Both children without a diagnosis and kids with cerebral palsy improved the most between 10 months and 18 months.

“We are putting words of caution here,” Angulo-Barroso said. “This is a feasibility study only and the results show it seems viable to do treadmill intervention.”

“Early interventions are really, really critical, so at this point I wouldn’t tell them to go find a treadmill, but I would say make sure you get a good physical therapist and work with the physical therapist to see if your kids would be a good candidate for that kind of (treadmill) intervention,” said Angulo-Barroso, who noted that the next study is a randomized sample of children to see how they respond to a formal treadmill intervention.

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One of the most successful companies in Michigan, Ann Arbor-based NanoBio Corp., has announced Wednesday morning that they have signed an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline for over-the-counter sale of a topical cure for cold sores.

This agreement will give NanoBio an upfront fee of $14.5M. They will also get an additional payment that will amount to $40 M plus royalties on future sales.

NanoBio has already given the compound where it has shown effectiveness in killing viruses during the Phase II U.S. Food and Drug Administration clinical trials under the working name of NB-001.

If the Phase III trials will be successful, FDA will approve it for sale and the British-based phramaceutical will be able to market it in Canada and U.S.

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The Ecology Center in Ann Arbor has tested 737 toys for lead, mercury, and arsenic contents.

The result was only one in three toys contained the poisonous element. This is considered to be the lowest result in three years.”Things do appear to be improving, and I think it’s a sign that public pressure and government regulation work. We need more of it to truly protect kids health,” said Gen Howe from The Ecology Center.

She said that the decrease in the amount of toxins is just proof enough that the toys can actually be made without these toxins. She added that it is possible that the toys can be lead free since there are substitutes.

Eighty percent of the toys that Americans purchase came from China. However, Howe says that when it comes to the toxins, it does not matter where the toys were made. “There really is no association between where the toys are made and what we find. Problem is, we don’t have adequate regulations in our country regardless of whether the toys are made here or elsewhere.”

According to the Ecology Center, toxic toys are a symptom of the complete failure of the chemical regulatory system. These toys must not be sold.

The center put up a website to search all 737 toys by product name, UPC code, product type, manufacturer or retailer.

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There will be a bone marrow registry drive in Ann Arbor. This is being helped by the American Red Cross of Washtenaw County for Deb Horn who has been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and a related condition called Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS). Deb Horn needs to find a matching donor of bone marrow so that the disease can be treated successfully.

When: Sunday, Dec. 6 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: American Red Cross office at 4624 Packard Road in Ann Arbor.

If you are willing to join the marrow registry, you only have to be between the ages of 18 and 60 and willing to donate to any patient who is in need and meet the health guidelines of the registry.

If you want to know more about the National Marrow Donor Program, visit BeTheMatch.org.

For more information, contact: Doug Horn at (734) 528-2820 or (734) 635-6028; Barbara Rozier of the National Marrow Donor Program at (313) 833-2647; American Red Cross of Washtenaw County at (866) 971-5300.

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(photo: http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/11/david_archuleta_to_perform_wit.html)

Ann Arbor, MI – Charles Woodson donates $2 million to U-M Hospital, specifically to the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital.

The University announced the gift on Thanksgiving before he played for the Green Bay Packers versus the Detroit Lions.

With this generous amount of donation, Woodson’s money will support pediatric research through The Charles Woodson Clinical Research Fund in the $754-million, 1.1-million square foot hospital that is to open in 2012.

Woodson hopes that this would be able to catch the attention of the best researchers in the world who would help children ailed by cancer, heart problems, kidney problems, and autism.

According to Woodson, becoming a father has inspired him to make this donation.

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The Green Michigan Healthcare Conference is being held in Ann Arbor. The event that is taking place this Thursday at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System is sponsored by both the state and the Michigan Health and Hospital Association.

This is focused on the following: sustainability, federal stimulus money, energy, pharmaceutical waste and environmentally friendly buildings. This is for those people working in the engineering and environmental services for hospitals.

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Ann Arbor, MI- U-M invites the public to participate on tweet chat about H1N1. This chat will allow the discussion of the latest updates and information about swine flu. Members of the public are invited to submit queries for the tweet chat that will take place on October 22, from 10 in the morning until noon on Twitter.

Sandro Cinti, M.D. will answer the questions during the first part of the chat, from 10am to 11am. Sandro Cinti, M.D. is an infectious disease expert at the University of Michigan Health System and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

Matthew Davis, M.D. will be the one to answer the questions on the second part which is from 11am to noon. He is a pediatrician and internist who directs the C.S. Mott
Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. He is also an associate professor of public policy at the U-M Ford School of Public Policy,

If you want to participate on the tweet chat, you must first set up a Twitter account if you do not have one yet. submit your questions in the chat, direct message them via Twitter to @UMHealthSystem. Effort will be made to answer all the questions. However, that will also depend on the volume of questions because there may not be enough time.

To follow the chat, log in to Twitter.com or Tweetchat.com using your Twitter
log-in information, from 10 a.m. – noon Thursday, Oct. 22, and follow the hash
tag #H1N1swinefluchat.

A transcript of the chat will be posted online at

http://www.med.umich.edu/flu/tweetchats.htm.

Resources:

Twitter.com/UMHealthSystem

Tweetchat.com

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Ann Arbor UM Health Service sees a rise in flu cases from students as public health officials track the possibility of the transmission of swine flu according to officials.

UM Health Service says that an average of 40 – 50 students per day over the pastweek had symptoms of flu according to Robert Ernst, the director ofthe University’s  Health Service.

“We’re seeing a higher volume than we would typically see. It is unusual to see this many cases of the flu this early in the fall,” he said.

The increase is being monitored closely and the numbers are not yet alarming according to Ernst. So far no one has missed work due to the flu.

Those who have come down with the flu have not been tested to confirm what kind of flu they have. So it is not yet known how many cases of H1N1 there are.

There were about 10 students who were tested positive for the H1N1 virus. It goes to show that the flu circulating is not the seasonal flu according to Ernst.

Public gatherings hold a large potential for the spread of the flu.

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Ann Arbor Public Schools update the swine flu information in the packet that they are going to give to parents, teachers, and students. On Sept. 1, AAPS Superintendent Todd Roberts addressed a letter to al parents that outlines the methods that the school is taking in order to prevent or contain any outbursts of the H1N1 virus.

Superintendent Todd Roberts said in the letter to the board of education that based on the information from the CDC and the Health Department, the coming “flu” season is going to pose a challenge for the Ann Arbor schools. He said that the schools must be prepared to combat the swine flu cases within the first month of the start of the school year.

Swine flu resources are available on the AAPS Website.

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