Graham speaks out against Senate healthcare plan

Graham says backroom deals on health care will end bi-partisanship

JANUARY 19, 2010 4:17 p.m. (0)

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham came back to Greenville today and urged Democrats in Washington to “stop and start over” on healthcare reform.

The Senate plan under consideration would expand Medicaid benefits to millions of Americans by raising the income level to qualify while introducing cost savings that the bill’s advocates say would allow about $480 billion in cuts to Medicare.  Continue reading...

 

Free medicine

Spartanburg County's employee clinic gets high marks from patients

FEBRUARY 18, 2010 9:58 a.m. (0)

Tony Bell was visiting the clinic he helped set up for Spartanburg County employees recently, and the clinic’s advising physician happened to be there.

“My shoulder has been bothering me forever and a day,” said Bell, sporting a blue canvas arm sling late last week. “He said, ‘Why don’t you get an MRI?’ I hadn’t gotten back to my office before they were calling me to set it up.”  Continue reading...

 

St. Francis receives $1 million

JUNE 14, 2010 10:01 a.m. (0)

Bon Secours St. Francis Health System’s bone marrow transplant unit will soon more than double in size thanks to $1 million in donations from employees and community members.

The unit is the only one of its kind in the Upstate and one of two dedicated inpatient transplant units in South Carolina.  Continue reading...

 

Baby Boomers: health care crisis?

JULY 21, 2010 6:26 a.m. (0)

A bottleneck in health care is coming fast as the first wave of Baby Boomers reach Medicare age next year, obesity sends more people to the emergency room and coverage is expanded to millions.

At the same time caps remain on the number of American doctors coming out of medical training each year, doctors approaching retirement will almost double in the next decade and government reform is increasing demands that hospitals deliver better care with less money.  Continue reading...

 

A cause, a cure

SEPTEMBER 29, 2010 12:30 p.m. (0)

Leslie Crews’ husband found it on Labor Day 2006.

A lump, no bigger than a marble, beneath her arm.  Continue reading...

 

A different kind of doctoring

MDVIP promises a lessened patient load, no-wait appointments

NOVEMBER 29, 2010 2:54 p.m. (4)

Seeing 40 patients a day, spending maybe 10 minutes tops on each, being quick with the prescription pad, shuffling them in and out, backing them up in the waiting room, going home exhausted, stressed out, discouraged.

That’s not why Leslie Long and Nancy Netter went to medical school, and they walked away, not from medicine but from the traditional office practice that wore them out and, as they saw it, shortchanged patients.

Long and Netter joined MDVIP, a network of doctors who limit patient load to 600, promise no-wait appointments, give 90-minute physicals, spend at least 30 minutes on scheduled appointments, stress preventative care, and are always a phone call away.  Continue reading...

 

Coalition wants Greenville to Live Well

Group advocates changing policies, systems, environments

JANUARY 21, 2011 11:03 a.m. (0)

A coalition of school, business, health care and local government groups want to make the healthy choice the easy choice for Greenville County residents.

And they say changing policies, systems and environments is the way to do that.

“Most of us already know that we should be making healthier choices,” said Katy Smith, executive director of the Piedmont Health Care Foundation. “The problem is, sometimes those choices aren’t available to us, or the unhealthier choices are easier or more appealing.”  Continue reading...

 

St. Francis to expand cancer program

Health system will offer specialized treatment options

FEBRUARY 17, 2011 2:18 p.m. (1)

Bon Secours St. Francis Health System is adding internationally known cancer specialists, expanding its cancer treatment facilities, improving patient access to clinical trials and offering specialized treatment options in response to a growing demand for cancer treatment in the Upstate.

An integral part of the expansion is the St. Francis Hematology Oncology Center for the treatment of blood cancers and disorders, which are among the most difficult to diagnose and treat. Doctors are able to tailor treatment by examining the cancer genes.

Three doctors will lead the center: Dr. Gary Spitzer, one of the primary physician architects of stem cell transplantation at M.D. Anderson Hospital and a doctor who helped develop treatment regimes for Hodgkin’s lymphoma now considered standard of care; Dr. Frits van Rhee, an internationally recognized specialist in the treatment of multiple myeloma and Castleman’s disease who is known for his work in gene array therapy; and Dr. Devena Alston, an oncologist with expertise in blood and solid tumors.  Continue reading...

 

Local teens start revolution

Mauldin student leads campaign for healthier school lunches

JUNE 17, 2011 11:06 a.m. (1)

Greenville County lunchroom menus are getting a healthy makeover thanks in part to Mauldin High School student Ben Riddle.

Fed up with the lack of real nutrition in school lunches, where he says, iceberg lettuce and a few tomatoes pass for a salad and a soy patty colored and flavored is called a hamburger, he decided to do something.

Riddle started a blog called Operation Food Revolution: Mauldin High School that called on students to make healthier food choices and demand more nutritious options.  Continue reading...

 

PACE closing: "Poor policy decision"

Non-profit offered services promoting mental health

JANUARY 5, 2012 2:35 p.m. (0)

The closing of Spartanburg’s PACE Center has brought the issue of treating mental illness into sharp focus in the Upstate, but statewide the budget ax has fallen harder on South Carolina’s mental patients than in any other state, according to data from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Between 2009 and 2012 South Carolina cut 39.3 percent of the mental health budget, or $73.6 million. In 2009 the state provided $187.3 million. In 2012 the number is $113.7 million.

Shortly before Christmas, PACE announced it would close on Dec. 31. The center actually closed its office one day after the announcement, according to a recorded voice message. PACE’s Web site was also shut down.  Continue reading...

 

EMS earns accreditation

Agency hopes to be more proactive by 2014

JANUARY 12, 2012 11:31 a.m. (0)

Greenville County EMS’s recent accreditation of excellence from the International Academies of Medical Dispatch is the first major step in a plan that could see emergency medical services forever changed in Greenville, John Zaragoza, EMS director, said last week.

Zaragoza said a beefed up EMS dispatch system, along with some structural changes within the department, will play a crucial role in changing the agency’s role to a more proactive one by 2014, when the National Health Care Act’s provisions will largely be in place.

“No matter what you think of the act, one thing medical professionals all over the country have seized upon is preventative, proactive treatment,” Zaragoza said. “With this accreditation, we’ll be in a position to implement a far more aggressive program when dealing with non life threatening situations.”  Continue reading...

 

100 years and counting

Greenville Hospital System celebrates a milestone

JANUARY 12, 2012 11:48 a.m. (0)

As they started to raise money through teas, doll shows and operas for Greenville’s first hospital more than a century ago, the Rowena Lodge of the Knights of Pythias ladies’ auxiliary could never have imagined their efforts would be the beginning of one of the nation’s largest public hospital systems.

City Hospital opened on Jan. 10, 1912 on Memminger Street. Antibiotics didn’t exist, babies delivered at home often died of complications and patients had a less than 50-50 chance.

Now, surgeons use robotic equipment to perform intricate surgeries, an array of medicines are available to treat all types of diseases and prescriptions are sent to pharmacies with a keyboard stroke on a computer.  Continue reading...

 

Living with type 1 diabetes

One Simpsonville family has help from a keen-nosed British Labrador

APRIL 12, 2012 1:11 p.m. (0)

It affects millions of people in the United States, but it’s not heart disease, cancer or stroke. Diabetes is a chronic health threat to an estimated 26 million Americans. What’s more, an estimated 3 million people nationwide have type 1 diabetes – sometimes called juvenile diabetes – an autoimmune disease that experts once thought only appeared in children or adolescents. However, more than half of all diagnoses are adults, according to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, or JDRF.

In South Carolina, an estimated 36,400 people have type 1 diabetes, said Kathryn Johnson, development director of the Western Carolinas Chapter of JDRF. Type 1 diabetes, or T1D, affects the way the body can transform food into energy using insulin, a pancreas-produced hormone. People with T1D must either inject insulin or use an insulin pump to regulate their blood sugar. Treating diabetes with insulin does not protect the person from blindness, amputation, heart attack or stroke, all common long-term effects of diabetes.  Continue reading...

 

SC health cooperative offers insurance alternative

Nonprofit caters to businesses too small to qualify for national discounts

APRIL 12, 2012 1:57 p.m. (2)

With arguments just completed in the U.S. Supreme Court in the challenge to the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, consumers and businesses are paying close attention to changes in the way health care is accessed and funded.

If the massive law is upheld, among the changes promised for 2014 are an expansion of Medicaid and the advent of government health care “exchanges,” where uninsured consumers can choose an insurance plan. Gov. Nikki Haley believes a state-sponsored exchange will be too expensive for South Carolina, preferring to leave it to the private sector to brainstorm ideas.

From that brainstorming has emerged South Carolina’s first health insurance cooperative, a two-year-old nonprofit group that gives non-related small businesses the opportunity to purchase health insurance as one entity.  Continue reading...

 

Living well at work

Employee wellness programs pay off – in more ways than one

MAY 18, 2012 8:50 a.m. (1)

When Robyn Knox joined Southern Weaving as vice president of human resources in 2007, she saw problems immediately.

The company was experiencing high health insurance renewals, increasing more than 30 percent year after year, she remembered. Also, “there were several employees with serious health conditions; absenteeism and turnover were high; and recoveries from illnesses and injuries were slow.”  Continue reading...

 

Program encourages students to make healthy food choices

Healthy Eating Decisions initiative gaining nationwide exposure

MAY 25, 2012 9:27 a.m. (0)

An estimated 17.1 percent of elderly people in South Carolina faced the threat of hunger in 2010, ranking the state in the top 10 in the nation, according to the latest Senior Hunger in America report commissioned by the Meals on Wheels Foundation.

Mississippi had the highest rate at 21.53 percent and North Dakota had the lowest at 5.52 percent.  Continue reading...