Kara Gavin

1 month ago | michiganmedicine.org | Kara Gavin

The third of the studies shows the power of teamwork in handling patient messages, by creating a framework for medical assistants, nurses of different training levels, and physicians to use to address in-basket messages more efficiently and effectively. All the authors are from the Division of General Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine at U-M Health, which runs multiple primary care clinics across southeast Michigan for adults and mixed populations of children and adults.

1 month ago | record.umich.edu | Kara Gavin

A large percentage of American children are growing up in households with at least one parent who uses alcohol or other drugs in problematic ways — raising the risk that those children will go on to do the same, a new study suggests. Using data from 2023 to give as current a view as possible, the researchers estimate that 19 million children — 1 in 4 of Americans under age 18 — live with a parent or other adult who meets the definition for a substance use disorder.

1 month ago | michiganmedicine.org | Kara Gavin

No matter where you live in the United States, or where you get your health insurance, you probably know people who have Medicaid coverage for their health care. After all, Medicaid covers nearly 80 million people right now. Most of them are older adults, people with disabilities, children and pregnant women. But many others also rely on it too. That’s one out of every five people in the U.S., all of them with low incomes.

1 month ago | michiganmedicine.org | Kara Gavin

The first group included the states where the percentage of people with Medicaid dropped the most from the month before unwinding began to the end of 2023: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. The second group was states with the smallest percentage drops: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Virginia and Wisconsin.

2 months ago | michiganmedicine.org | Kara Gavin

For someone with heart failure, very high blood pressure, or severe COVID-19, going home from the hospital can feel like falling off a cliff. Suddenly, they lose the round-the-clock monitoring of their vital signs that can give early warning of a potential health crisis. And those missed signs can lead to another trip back to the hospital within days or weeks. It’s an expensive and life-disrupting cycle. It also contributes to crowded emergency rooms and hospitals for everyone.