Telehealth Brings Expert Sexual Assault Exams to Rural Patients
Some rural residents must travel hours for a sexual assault exam. Specialized telehealth services are expanding so they can obtain care closer to home.
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Some rural residents must travel hours for a sexual assault exam. Specialized telehealth services are expanding so they can obtain care closer to home.
In this special episode of KHN’s “What the Health?” Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, talks with host Julie Rovner, KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, about where we are in the pandemic and how we should transition out of the public health emergency. This episode was taped on Dec. 20.
Covid remains a threat for the roughly 30,000 people in the country’s network of immigration facilities. But ICE continues to flout its own pandemic protocols, an extension of the facilities’ poor history of medical care.
While supporters cheer the PASTEUR Act as an essential strategy to stem the rise of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, critics call it a multibillion-dollar giveaway to Big Pharma.
Top negotiators in Congress have agreed to a framework for government spending into next year, but there are details to iron out before a vote — such as the scheduled Medicare payment cuts that have providers worried. Also, the Biden administration reopens its program allowing Americans to request free covid-19 home tests, as hopes for pandemic preparedness measures from Congress dim. Rachel Cohrs of Stat, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, and Rebecca Adams of KHN join KHN’s Mary Agnes Carey to discuss these topics and more. Plus, for extra credit, the panelists recommend their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.
Like many U.S. workplaces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went remote during the pandemic. Most of the agency’s staff members haven’t returned to the office full time, raising concerns about the CDC’s ability to reform itself after recent stumbles.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
The United States is suffering from a severe shortage of affordable housing. But elected officials have done little to fix a problem that puts many Americans at greater risk for sickness and shortens lives.
For contact tracers of sexually transmitted diseases, telephones and text messages have become ineffective. Dating apps increasingly are their best bet for informing people of their exposure risks.
The cash represents an unprecedented opportunity to derail the opioid epidemic, but with countless groups advocating for their share of the pie, the impact could depend heavily on geography and politics.
With a dearth of evidence on effective treatments for long covid, patients and doctors in 400 clinics around the country still rely on trial and error.
As the covid-19 pandemic grinds on, Elko County, Nevada, still lacks a public health department. Yet its elected leaders rejected federal funds that could have helped it create one. Decisions like the one in Elko, and ones made by officials with other state and local governments, leave health experts concerned about whether the country's public health infrastructure will be prepared to handle future health challenges.
The popularity of at-home covid tests has amplified calls from public health researchers and diagnostic companies to make home testing similarly routine for sexually transmitted diseases. But FDA guidelines are lagging.
The Montana tribe has entered a legal fight over whether the state has the right to enforce a prohibition of vaccine mandates on its reservation.
A new wave of obesity care startups offer access to new weight loss medications. But do they offer good health care?
Private equity firms have shelled out almost $1 trillion to acquire nearly 8,000 health care businesses, in deals almost always hidden from federal regulators. The result: higher prices, lawsuits, and complaints about care.
As the covid-19 pandemic raged, an independent nonprofit tied to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hired an army of seasoned professionals to fill the gaps in the country’s public health system. Now, the money has largely run out, and state and local health departments are again without their expertise.
Election night went better than expected for Democrats. Although they could still lose control of one or both houses of Congress, the predicted “red wave” for Republicans failed to materialize. Meanwhile, voters in both red and blue states approved ballot measures to protect abortion rights. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Rachel Cohrs of Stat, and Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss these topics and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews Carolee Lee, the former jewelry magnate, about her efforts to boost gender equity in medical research.
We unmask the winner and runners-up in KHN’s fourth annual Halloween haiku competition — plus the original artwork they inspired as a special treat.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
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