National Headlines
Upcoming Events
Board of Dentistry
May 14, 5:30 p.m.
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959
Code: 2453454
Patient Safety Corporation
May 15, 9 a.m.
Conference Call: (866) 200-9760
Code: 8938936#
Contact Susan Moore, susan.a.moore@comcast.net, for agenda
Board of Osteopathic Medicine
May 15, 10 a.m.
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959
Code: 2454587
Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Association
May 16, 1 p.m., West Palm Beach
The Crowne Plaza
Call (850) 488-8191 for agenda
Enhanced Benefits Panel under Medicaid Reform
May 16, 1 p.m., Tallahassee
Agency for Health Care Administration
Contact Aldria White (850) 488-3560, for agenda
Board of Nursing Home Administrators
May 17, 10 a.m., Tallahassee
Conference Call: (888) 808-695
Code: 9849329103
Correctional Medical Authority
May 17, 1 p.m., Tallahassee
Department of Health
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959
Code: 2454583
Contact Suzanne Wieczorek, (850) 245-4557, for agenda
Children's Medical Services Network Advisory Council
May 18, 1 p.m., Tallahassee
Florida Department of Health
Contact Joyce Raichelson, (850) 245-4200 ext. 4677, for agenda
Board of Medicine Credentials Committee
May 19, 8 a.m., Orlando
Hyatt Regency
Contact Larry McPherson, (850) 245-4131, for agenda
Sate Consumer Health Information and Policy Advisory Council Data Transparency Steering Committee
May 21, 10 a.m., Tallahassee
Agency or Health Care Administration
Conference Call: (713) 481-0090
Code: 9701442#
Contact Cheryl Barfield, (850) 414-5422, for agenda
Hemophilia Medical Advisory Panel
May 22, 3 p.m., Tallahassee
Agency for Health Care Administration, Division of Medicaid
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959
Code: 8509227337
Drug Wholesaler Advisory Council
May 22, 9:30 a.m.
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959
Code: 2454292
SHINE Professional Spring Training
May 24, 8:30 a.m., Orlando
Embassy Suites Orlando
Contact Marianne Hightman, (850) 414-2158, for more information
Health Information Exchange Coordinating Committee
May 27, 10 a.m., Tallahassee
Agency for Health Care Administration
Contact Carolyn H. Tuner, (850) 922-5861, for agenda
2008 Governor's Conference on Women's Health
May 27-28, Lake Buena Vista
Lake Buena Vista Palace
Download agenda or e-mail WomensHealth@doh.state.fl.us
Florida Substance Abuse & Mental Health Corp.
Board of Directors Meeting
June 4 - 5, 2008, St. Augustine
Government House, King St.
Contact: Lin Rayner at 850-410-1575
Implementing Innovative Projects in Nursing Homes
June 17, 10 a.m., Tallahassee
Agency for Health Care Administration
Conference Call: (888) 808-6959
Code: 487-0698
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What is Florida Health News?
Florida Health News Inc., an independent online news service, is a not-for-profit journalistic enterprise that was launched in March 2007 with seed money from foundations. Our mission: to inform the public on state and local health policy and finance issues as they develop.
Florida Health News (FHN) posts health-related stories reported around the state, highlights the Florida impact of national stories, posts upcoming conferences and other key events and tracks state health legislation. The news service provides original coverage of Florida health developments, and that coverage will expand in 2008. FHN also offers e-Alerts, a Monday-through-Friday news service, available at no charge by signing up at this site.
FHN, a Florida not-for-profit corporation, is sponsored by the Florida Health Policy Center, a unique collaborative of Florida foundations dedicated to furthering access to neutral and objective health information. The members are: Allegany Franciscan Ministries, Inc., Florida Philanthropic Network, Health Foundation of South Florida, Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice, Jessie Ball duPont Fund, Palm Healthcare Foundation, Quantum Foundation and Winter Park Health Foundation. More information about the collaborative is available at www.floridahealthpolicycenter.org.
In 2008 we will redesign our site to add new features and we value your feedback on what you find useful (or not). Please send your comments, story tips and news of conferences and other events to the editor, Carol Gentry, at carol.gentry@floridahealthnews.org. Desk: 727-522-4876; Mobile: 727-410-3266.
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Here is a look at some of the people behind Florida Health News:
Board of Directors (volunteers)
President: Paula Hays, Gulfport
From 1984 until 2001, Paula Hays was chief executive officer of Boley Centers for Behavioral Health Care. Boley is the largest residential and rehabilitation program for persons with psychiatric and emotional problems in the southeastern US, with a yearly operating budget of over $10 million and campuses providing day services and programs for vocational training and juvenile justice. Ms. Hays, who holds a masters of science degree in communication disorders from USF and extra study in exceptional child education, now teaches courses in ethics and administration of not-for-profits in the Program for Experienced Learners at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. She is a volunteer for the Tampa Bay SPCA and avid photographer.
Vice President: Jay Wolfson, DrPH, JD, Tampa
Jay Wolfson is the Distinguished Service Professor of Public Health and Medicine and the Associate Vice President for Health Law, Policy and Safety at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He is a leader in Florida’s attempt to develop an electronic health network and a member of the governing board of the Health Professions Education Consortium of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He directs the federally designated Suncoast Center for Patient Safety at USF and is co-director of the Consortium for Law and Medicine for USF and Stetson College of Law. Dr. Wolfson became nationally known while serving as guardian ad litem for Terry Schiavo, reporting to the governor and courts. He holds a doctorate in public health from the University of Texas, a law degree from Stetson, a master’s degree in public health from Indiana University, a master’s degree in history from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Illinois. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tokyo Medical School, a Faculty Scholar to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a W.K. Kellogg Fellow in health care finance.
Secretary/Treasurer: Kim Walsh-Childers, PhD, Gainesville
A professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Dr. Walsh-Childers is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia and earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on print media news coverage of health issues, mass media effects on individual health and health policy and the relationship between content and adolescent sexual beliefs and behavior. She teaches journalism ethics, news-writing, a graduate seminar in mass media and health and magazine feature writing. She is an active member of the Association of Health Care Journalists.
Immediate Past President: Martha Lenderman
Martha Lenderman retired from state government in 1996 as mental-health and substance-abuse program administrator for the Department of Children and Families in Pinellas and Pasco counties. She now consults and testifies in matters concerning Florida’s mental-health law and serves on numerous public and non-profit boards, including the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas, Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, Pasco-Pinellas Area Agency on Aging, Mental Health Coalition of Pinellas, and the Juvenile Justice Board for the 6th Circuit.
Amy Dean, West Palm Beach
Amy Dean, Vice President of Policy & Workforce Programs for Palm Healthcare Foundation Inc. in West Palm Beach, is responsible for the foundation’s nursing workforce initiatives, including the Healthcare Workforce Partnership community collaboration, and its health policy and advocacy efforts. Prior to joining the nonprofit sector in 2001, she worked in real estate finance and investment banking in Chicago; Sydney, Australia; New York City; and Miami. Ms. Dean is a member of several local and national health and social services organizations. She has a master of business administration from the University of Chicago, a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a bachelor's degree in health services from Florida Atlantic University.
Philip Galewitz, West Palm Beach
Philip Galewitz has been a health writer for The Palm Beach Post for eight years and is a board member and former president of the Association of Health Care Journalists. In 2004-05, he was a Kaiser Family Foundation Media Fellow and spent the year researching and writing about community solutions for the uninsured. Mr. Galewitz was a national heath writer with The Associated Press and worked as a health writer for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. He has contributed to several national magazines and won a number of awards for his work. He has a bachelor's degree in health planning and administration and a master's in public administration with an emphasis in health policy, both from Pennsylvania State University.
David Lawrence Jr., Miami
David Lawrence Jr., who spent 35 years in newspapers and retired in 1999 as publisher of The Miami Herald, is now chairman of The Children’s Trust, a dedicated source of funds to help children in Miami-Dade. He was a key figure in the passage of an amendment for universal pre-kindergarten programs in 2002 and led the later efforts on implementation at the request of then-Gov. Jeb Bush. He is president of The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation and University Scholar for Early Childhood Development and Readiness at the University of Florida. During his tenure as publisher, The Herald won five Pulitzer Prizes. Before coming to Miami in 1989, he was publisher and executive editor of the Detroit Free Press, and had been editor of The Charlotte Observer. Mr. Lawrence earned his bachelor of science in journalism from the University of Florida, one of 10 institutions that later granted him an honorary doctorate. He graduated from the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School in 1983.
Lisa Portelli, Winter Park
Lisa Portelli, a program director at Winter Park Health Foundation, serves as statewide coordinator for the Florida Health Policy Center, the collaborative that provided startup funds for Florida Health News. A journalism graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Ms. Portelli earned a master’s in public administration from University of Central Florida and led several housing programs for the homeless and jobless before joining the foundation in 2002. Ms. Portelli has served on the Governor's Commission on Homelessness and was founding chairman of Healing the Children of Florida Inc. A member of numerous non-profit boards, Ms. Portelli was awarded the Celebration of Leadership-Tribute to Outstanding Women award in 1997.
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Staff, consultants
Editor, Executive Director: Carol Gentry, St. Petersburg
Carol Gentry, founder and editor of Florida Health News, has three decades of experience covering health finance and policy, with an emphasis on consumer education and protection. She covered health and medicine for the St. Petersburg Times for 10 years, for the Tampa Tribune for two years and for the Wall Street Journal for three years, in addition to being a member of the editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel in 2004-05. She has written for national magazines and been a commentator for public radio’s Marketplace; she is active in the Association of Health Care Journalists, serving as a judge for the awards each year. Ms. Gentry was a Kaiser Family Foundation Media Fellow in 1994-95, conducting research on the managed-care movement’s effects on patients and health-care professionals. In 1996, she earned a master’s degree in public administration with a concentration in health policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has taught health journalism at the college and professional level in this and other countries and directed the Knight Journalism Fellowships at CDC for almost four years. She also served two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia.
Intern: Brittany Rajchel, Gainesville
Brittany Rajchel is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Florida, expecting to receive her master’s degree in May 2008. She has a bachelor of science in journalism and a bachelor of arts in history. Before taking on the part-time job of gathering newspaper stories of interest each morning for Florida Health News, she wrote for the Gainesville Sun and freelanced for several Florida magazines. She currently teaches media writing at UF and works as a personal trainer and fitness instructor.
Consultant: Patricia Curtis, Tallahassee
Patricia Curtis, a communications consultant with a background in both journalism and non-profits, served as managing editor for Florida Health News during its launch and first nine months of service. She now tracks bills and events at the capital and stands in for the editor on daily duties when necessary. In January 2007, Ms. Curtis retired from state government, where she was a top policy aide in substance abuse and mental health for the Department of Children & Families. She spent 13 years as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Tallahassee before becoming an information officer and public affairs coordinator for two state agencies and press secretary for a Florida gubernatorial campaign. In the late 1980s, she joined a non-profit behavioral healthcare association as a policy analyst, lobbyist and editor of various publications, including websites.
Webmaster John Baker, Tallahassee
John Baker owns Rapido Internet Services (Rapido.com), a contracted provider of site design and development , including content management, database and Web hosting. A graphics designer, he has worked with Pat in developing Web sites for non-profit groups.
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Studies
"The little money managed care may save in the short run is going to be dwarfed by the millions that will be paid out ... when the lawsuits roll in."
-- Dennis Slate, top mental-health official in the detention program for illegal immigrants, in the Washington Post's continuing investigation of immigrants' treatment.
 Here's a question that comes up a lot: How do you find a story that we ran several days or weeks ago? If it's a Florida Health News story, click on the "Our Stories" tab. If not, go to the Search box just above this column and try likely search terms until you find it. If the publication still has that story posted, no problem. If it's been archived, you won't be able to read it. Alas, there's nothing we can do about that; we don't own the copyright. -- Carol Gentry, editor
One in four Floridians under age 65 lacks health insurance. Countless others are "under-insured," which means their coverage won't meet their needs if they get seriously ill or hurt. You'd think they'd be easy to find, given their numbers, but they don't stand out until they get sick. Reporters need to find them (see Steve Nohlgren's account below). If you know any, please have them call Carol Gentry, Editor, at 727-410-3266 or write Carol.Gentry@FloridaHealthNews.org.
The hardest thing about covering the health system isn’t necessarily the ordeal of figuring out how it works.
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Nohlgren
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It’s finding the patients – real people – who are affected by its quirks. Recently, St. Petersburg Times’ Stephen Nohlgren, one of the best health reporters in the business, put faces on several parts of Medicaid that the Legislature was considering for cuts, in a story published April 19. He had only four days to pull it off. We asked him to explain how he did it; here's his account.
Floridians have a new source for checking the quality of nursing homes. The Medicare Nursing Home Compare Web site now offers a note under the name of any facility with a history of poor performance. Site visitors can search the Special Focus Facility list by name, state, county, city or zip code.
Those who say taxpayers overspend on private Medicare health plans may want to scrutinize the 13 percent hike in the 2009 benchmark rate for Miami-Dade, which will rise to $1,238 per member per month. Miami-Dade already has one of the highest pay rates in the nation. Don't miss this account by Florida Health News' Washington correspondent, Susan Jaffe, and a chart that shows the rates for all the counties in Florida. -- Carol Gentry, editor
Discussions of how to provide universal access to health care in this country always begin with the assumption that it will cost billions of additional dollars and founder on the question of how to pay for it. A documentary on public television's Frontline, which aired April 15 but is available online, shows that's the wrong question. It explains how other democracies provide coverage for everyone, while spending considerably less than the U.S. Their citizens live longer,healthier lives and no one ever declares bankruptcy from medical bills. In fact, there areno bills. This show is too good to miss.-- Carol Gentry, editor
The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care 2008 says too much medical treatment not only wastes money, but can lead to worse results. In some parts of Florida, it says, there appears to be substantial overtreatment caused by excessive numbers of doctors and hospital beds. The Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota areas were listed as highest in the nation for spending on outpatient care. Read more...
As we reported in late March, a nationwide patient-satisfaction survey showed Florida hospitals' scores averaged 5 to 8 percentage points lower than the national average in all 10 categories.
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Gulliver
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Now David Gulliver, health reporter at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, has gone the next step, crunching data from a federal Web site to show ratings for all the hospitals that reported survey results for each category statewide. He used this as the basis for a feature on the highest-scorer in his area. Now, other reporters can easily find the hospitals in their own regions that patients liked best (and least)on the tables he developed. At our request, David wrote an explanation so that others can learn to do it, too. -- Carol Gentry, Editor
If you've signed up for the free daily e-Alerts from Florida Health News and are not getting them:
--Check your junk e-mail basket. If our e-Alerts are there, right click and tell your computer that we're a safe sender.
 --If our e-Alerts aren't in the junk e-mail basket, tell your IT department or whoever manages your Internet service.
--If they can't help, give me a call at 727-410-3266 or write to editor@FloridaHealthNews.org.
We really don't want to lose you! -- Carol Gentry, editor
All Studies»
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