Special Clinics Emerge To Help Children With Complex Medical Conditions
“Care for these kids is unbelievably time-consuming and labor-intensive, and there is no way in the current system there is enough financial incentive for providers to do this,” says Dr. Jay Berry, a physician and researcher in the Complex Care Service at Boston Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. In other news, new studies find that preemies face struggles even after infancy.
The Wall Street Journal:
New Model For Meeting The Needs Of The Most Fragile Children
Hospitals are creating special clinics to coordinate care for the close to three million U.S. children—about one in 25—who suffer from complex medical conditions and will in many cases require a lifetime of care. Children with medical complexity, known as CMC, are the sickest and most fragile children; an estimated one-third to one-half of all U.S. spending on children’s health care goes to filling their medical needs. (Landro, 3/28)
Reuters:
Tiniest Preemies Struggle With School And Adult Life
Although extremely preterm birth is no longer the death sentence it once was, many of the tiniest preemies still struggle in school and have a harder time as adults, two new studies suggest. One study focused on the most vulnerable subset of preemies: those born at no more than 28 weeks gestation. More than half of these infants went on to have moderate to severe cognitive deficits and had academic test scores well below average. (Rapaport, 3/25)
