Iowa news
MercyOne launches patient-provider matching tool in central Iowa
MercyOne has piloted a new patient-provider matching tool that aims to make it easier for patients to connect with a primary care physician. MercyOne worked with Patient Bond, a spinoff company of Procter and Gamble, to develop the online tool. The 11-question quiz was developed from an inventory of 384 different attributes that the company narrowed down to the ones that best characterize people’s health attitudes. Pittman said to her knowledge, it’s the first tool like it offered by a health system in Iowa. (Business Record)
Takeaways from ‘Caring for Our Kids: The Mental Health Toll on Children’
As a parent of a child with significant mental health needs, Jennifer Ulie-Wells knows firsthand the struggle in finding comprehensive mental health care for children in Iowa. Ulie-Wells, executive director of Please Pass the Love, a nonprofit advocacy organization founded by parents, said she found great support as a parent from the programs of Des Moines-based Orchard Place. “Orchard Place saved my child’s life,” Ulie-Wells said during a recent webinar on children’s mental health hosted by the Community Foundation of Iowa. The community needs to carefully consider how, and where, it invests in children’s mental health, she said. (Business Record)
Vilifying vaccine mandates has consequences, and all of us in Iowa might bear them
Scientific discoveries have driven advances in human health for as long as there has been science. Americans’ life expectancy at birth has increased over seven years since 1960, even accounting for a drop because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccines, it bears repeating, are a prominent example of this. There were 15,000 cases of polio paralysis in the 1950s. There has not been a case in the U.S. since 1979. This corresponds with the introduction of the polio vaccine. Before a vaccine for measles became available in the 1960s, at least 400 people died annually in the U.S., with tens of thousands more going to the hospital. Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. (Des Moines Register)
National news
As possibility of 4th doses looms, White House says it has no money for them
Federal regulators and health officials will assess the need for fourth COVID-19 vaccine doses, which the Biden administration lacks the funds to purchase for everyone. Second booster shots went from a questioned possibility to a more likely reality last week as drugmakers filed for the FDA’s green light for the additional dose. Pfizer and BioNTech submitted an application to the FDA seeking emergency authorization for a second booster shot of their COVID-19 vaccine for people 65 and older. Moderna followed suit days later, seeking emergency-use authorization of a second booster shot of its COVID-19 vaccine for all adults. (Becker’s Hospital Review)
Moderna says COVID-19 vaccine for young kids generates strong immune response
Moderna said Wednesday its COVID-19 vaccine generated a strong immune response and was generally well-tolerated in kids ages 6 months up to 6 years. The drugmaker said two 25-microgram doses of the vaccine, a quarter of the dose given to those 18 and older, produced an antibody response similar to what was seen in a clinical trial of adults. (NBC News)
OSHA schedules hearing on permanent COVID-19 standard for health care workers
In a move toward developing a final COVID-19 standard for health care workers, the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has partially reopened the rulemaking record and scheduled an online public hearing. The agency is allowing written comments through April 22 and will begin the online hearing April 27. The news comes after OSHA issued an emergency temporary standard for health care workers in June. (Becker’s Hospital Review)