California is taking another run at requiring doctors to check a patient’s prescription history before prescribing potentially addictive drugs, with legislation passing the state senate yesterday. But will California legislators make the same kinds of compromises with providers that Oklahoma did?
Oklahoma is one of only a handful of states that require physicians to check a patient’s prescription history before prescribing potentially addictive drugs. How did Oklahoma enact this requirement when so many other states, such as California, have tried and failed?
Annie Brewster started Health Story Collaborative to give patients a voice, and to bring the human side of illness back into the practice of medical care and recovery. Research suggests that the way we narrate stories of illness can have a profound impact on our mental health.
In April, the governor of Oklahoma signed a bill that requires doctors to check a state-run database of patients and prescriptions before writing a new prescription for addictive medications. That makes the state a national leader in efforts to track such prescriptions and curtail abuse.
Reporter Tom Corwin of The Augusta Chronicle was shocked to learn of 82 unexpected deaths in 2013 among disabled patients receiving care in community placements in Georgia. The discovery launched him on an extended data-driven investigation. Here he shares lessons from the series.
New data show that teens and young adults in the ER for an assault injury were 40 percent more likely than their peers to be involved in gun violence over the next two years. That makes such ER visits a big opportunity for those working to interrupt the cycle of youth gun violence.
The University of Minnesota is replacing the chairman of its psychiatry department following two scathing reviews of its safety protocols in research involving human subjects and its recruitment of a troubled man who later died by suicide in a schizophrenia drug trial.
A reporting project got its start when a probation official made an off-hand comment about juvenile hall having turned into a “commitment facility” for mentally ill children. So began one reporter's deep dive into Sacramento's juvenile justice system.
Two Herald reporters are being honored with the Selden Ring Award this week for their "Innocents Lost" series that chronicled the abuse and neglect deaths of 477 Florida children. Here they share how they reported the project.
After an onslaught of media reports suggesting that depression was the cause of the Germanwings tragedy, people are too readily blaming mental illness as the enemy of public safety. That can make it harder for others to overcome the stigma associated with mental illness.
