Insights

You learn a lot when you spend months reporting on a given issue or community, as our fellows can attest. Whether you’re embarking on a big new story or seeking to go deeper on a given issue, it pays to learn from those who’ve already put in the shoe leather and crunched the data. In these essays and columns, our community of journalists steps back from the notebooks and tape to reflect on key lessons, highlight urgent themes, and offer sage advice on the essential health stories of the day. 

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<p><a href="http://www.consumersunion.org/">Consumers Union</a> is offering a great opportunity for people focused on health care and health journalism to make their voices heard.</p><p>From now until next Friday, Feb. 25, Consumer Union’s <a href="https://secure.consumersunion.org/site/Advocacy?page=UserActionInactive… Patient Project</a> will be gathering opinions from people about Medicare’s new <a href="http://www.medicare.gov/find-a-doctor/provider-search.aspx">Physician Compare</a> site to submit as part of Medicare’s open comment period on the site.</p>

Author(s)
By Sarah Arnquist

<p>While speaking at the National Institutes of Health on Tuesday, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah (left, photo source USAID) told the audience of scientists how the development agency would support the creation of new innovations and their delivery to improve the health of the world’s neediest popul

Author(s)
By Ralph Gage

<p>Now we can go to the starting line. After a bit of uncertainty injected into the process by in-state political maneuvering, the Kansas Insurance Department has been awarded an "early innovator" grant to help the state set up its insurance exchange program.</p>

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<p>Allergan, the maker of the Lap-Band surgical device, likes to say that it puts patient safety first.</p> <p>Undoubtedly, it does not want patients to have a bad outcome. More injuries and deaths from Lap-Band surgeries – especially at a time when the company is <a href="http://bit.ly/go4V5s">seeking FDA approval to expand the use</a> of the devices – could derail a very successful sales record.</p> <p>Yet many of the clinics and doctors being promoted as Lap-Band surgeons on the company’s own website have a series of problems that should give patients pause.</p>

Author(s)
By Michelle Levander

<p>Boyle Heights is a neighborhood populated by restless souls. Its small houses, windows barred more often than not, hold within them stories of journeys and reinvention; these days, it’s Spanglish and café de olla served at a Formica table covered in flowered oilcloth. Before that, the kitchen conversation was sprinkled with Yiddish or Japanese, as earlier generations of immigrants made their mark on these streets.&nbsp;But who captures the stories in these days of diminished newsroom resources of this working class neighborhood? Who shares the yarns that help people feel, as one teenager told us recently, that "No estamos solos," that we are not alone?&nbsp;In a few months, we will have a chance to see what stories emerge from this Latino immigrant neighborhood of about 100,000, located a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles. And we will learn how the community responds to journalism written, not by outsiders, but by local youth writing "<em>por la comunidad y para la comunidad</em>&nbsp;"– for the community and by the community -- as Pedro Rojas, the executive editor of La Opinión, put it as we planned this venture in community journalism together.</p>