Three-and-a-half-year-old Dylan was tiny, feisty and freckled with tousled blond hair. His mom brought him to the pediatric clinic because he had tried to smother his 2-week-old sister. She didn’t know what to do with him, and frankly neither did we. It was 5 p.m. and the clinic was closing.
Health care's "super-utilizers" are very much in the news these days, as policymakers seek ways to curb spending. But programs that deliver durable results that save money are scarce, in part because many 'frequent fliers' suffer from an incredibly complex web of issues, often tied to early trauma.
In southern Nevada, waiting lists to see a psychologist stretch into the months, and residential treatment centers fill up fast. Jackie Valley of the Las Vegas Sun is embarking on a reporting project looking at the plight of children with mental illness, and what more might be done.
Mary Annette Pember wrote this article, originally published by Indian Country Today Media Network, as a 2014 National Health Journalism Fellow, with support from The Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism. Other stories in her project series can be found here:...
A growing body of evidence suggests that a child’s exposure to trauma and stress can have profound mental and physical health consequences later in life. Arielle Levin Becker recently set out to explore that link and collected some key reporting lessons along the way.
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.
