"In a way, 911 is a victim of its own success. Most everyone knows to call in the case of an emergency, but plenty of people, and especially “frequent flyers,” use 911 as basic healthcare. The rate of non-life-threatening calls in Memphis is right at the national average, according to estimates from the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians. “In the past, our model has always been, it doesn’t matter what the call is—we’re going to send an ambulance and we’re going to give you a ride to a hospital,” says Andrew Hart, division chief for Emergency Medical Services at the Memphis Fire Department."
"Since April, however, the city has been engaged in an experiment to take some pressure off the emergency dispatch system. A committee of civic, healthcare, and faith leaders launched a program called Rapid Assessment Decision And Redirection (RADAR). For weekday daytime calls that are very likely to be non-emergent in nature, Memphis partners with a faith-based organization, Resurrection Health, to steer residents away from the ER and send healthcare providers directly to them."
"1967 was a volatile year, as riots erupted across the country as a result of deep racial segregation between blacks and whites. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with former Oklahoma Democratic Sen. Fred Harris. Harris is the last living member of the original Kerner Commission, which was formed under President Johnson to investigate why the riots occurred and what can be done to prevent rioting in the future. The conclusions of the report drew backlash from many, including President Johnson."
"A major study of thousands of Alzheimer's patients has discovered that many people diagnosed with the disease might not actually have it, The Washington Post reports. Researchers at the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California, San Francisco found that of 4,000 patients tested for the disease's telltale amyloid plaques in the brain, just 54.3 percent of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients and 70.5 percent of dementia patients actually had the hallmark."
"To begin with, the perfect wisdom of the free market had somehow left 50 million Americans with no coverage at all — and the GOP health plan would get us back near that number. Then let's consider pre-existing conditions. Maybe your family has some of them; mine does. Nothing life-threatening — an old injury here, a bothersome condition there — but in the past it was enough to get us denied coverage on the individual market. If it didn't happen to you, it probably happened to someone you know. The ACA outlawed those denials, and while most Republicans claim they want to keep those protections in place, the bill the Senate is considering would eviscerate them. A provision written by Ted Cruz that was recently added to the bill would allow insurers to offer bare-bones plans that provide little if any real coverage, as long as they also offered a plan that was compliant with the ACA's mandate that insurance cover "essential health benefits" like hospitalization, emergency care, preventive care, and prescription medications. Health-care experts warn that it would create a two-tier system in which young and healthy people buy the cheap coverage and those who are sicker and older buy the more comprehensive coverage, quickly leading to a "death spiral" of skyrocketing premiums in the latter."
"What if the system is destroying drugs that are technically "expired" but could still be safely used?"
"In his lab, Gerona ran tests on the decades-old drugs, including some now defunct brands such as the diet pills Obocell (once pitched to doctors with a portly figurine called "Mr. Obocell") and Bamadex. Overall, the bottles contained 14 different compounds, including antihistamines, pain relievers and stimulants. All the drugs tested were in their original sealed containers."
"The findings surprised both researchers: A dozen of the 14 compounds were still as potent as they were when they were manufactured, some at almost 100 percent of their labeled concentrations."
"Every week in Des Moines, Iowa, the employees of a small nonprofit collect bins of unexpired prescription drugs tossed out by nursing homes after residents died, moved out or no longer needed them. The drugs are given to patients who couldn’t otherwise afford them.
But travel 1,000 miles east to Long Island, New York, and you’ll find nursing homes flushing similar leftover drugs down the toilet, alarming state environmental regulators worried they’ll further contaminate the water supply."
"In Baltimore, Maryland, a massive incinerator burns up tons of the drugs each year — for a fee — from nursing homes across the Eastern seaboard."
"If you want to know why the nation’s health care costs are among the highest in the world, a good place to start is with what we throw away. Across the country, nursing homes routinely toss large quantities of perfectly good prescription medication: tablets for diabetes, syringes of blood thinners, pricey pills for psychosis and seizures."