Current News

by Hilary Niles vtidgger.org
At the same time Vermont lawmakers are scrutinizing Governor Peter Shumlin’s plan to shore up a $51 million revenue shortfall in fiscal year 2015, they’re also eyeing the state’s parched Rainy Day Fund.
With an optimistic rainy day balance estimated at 1 percent of the prior year’s appropriations, the buffer is much thinner than it’s meant to be ‘ and nowhere near new recommendations from public policy think tanks around the country.

The US Senate Tuesday passed a long-awaited Farm Bill, in a vote of 68 to 32. The House passed the five-year Farm Bill (HR 2642) agreement last week, and the bill now goes to the President Obama’s desk. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, says the President will sign it. Proponents of the nearly $1 trillion piece of legislation say it will benefit farmers and help nutrition programs for low-income Americans while saving about $23 billion for taxpayers. The bill had farm-state congressmen, regardless of party, pitted against urban Democrats and Tea Party Republicans.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock and its Center for Telehealth have been awarded two telemedicine grants totaling $998,356 from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to deploy telemedicine equipment and services across six counties in rural New Hampshire and seven counties in rural Vermont. The grants, awarded through USDA Rural Development’s Rural Utilities Service, were announced today by the USDA.
‘These grants will give some of the most rural communities in New Hampshire and Vermont access to world class health care usually only found in larger metropolitan areas,’ said USDA RD Vermont and New Hampshire State Director Ted Brady. ‘Too often rural Americans are forced to travel long distances to access health care. In some cases, these distances prevent timely access to routine health care that can turn a minor problem into a life threatening problem.’

by Morgan True vtdigger.org
Republicans nationwide are hoping to capitalize on states’ struggles to implement the Affordable Care Act as a political tool to leverage their candidates in the midterm elections, and Vermont is not immune.
Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, is hopeful the rocky rollout of Vermont Health Connect will make voters question Democrats’ ability to overhaul the health care system, he said.
Vermont State Republican Committee Chair David Sunderland, as well, questioned Democrats’ competence.

by Morgan True vtdigger.org
The number of people having difficulty completing their enrollment in Vermont Health Connect is dropping, but the problems are taking longer to solve, state officials say.About 2,500 people who sought to have coverage effective January 1 remain stuck in the enrollment process.
The main culprit in the delay is that the ‘change of circumstance’ function ‘ if a user needs to update their information ‘ is still not functional and must be done manually.

By Morgan True, VT Digger After listening to hours of painful personal stories, lawmakers said they need to do more to ensure psychiatric patients receive appropriate care and support services.
Vermonters suffering from mental illness and family members testified at a public hearing Thursday night on the state’s involuntary treatment process. More than 30 people spoke at the hearing on S.287, a bill before the Senate Judiciary and Health and Welfare committees, which seeks to streamline the judicial review process for orders of involuntary medication.
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, was struck by how long it takes for patients to go through the involuntary treatment process.
He said he recognizes that forced medication can be devastating for patients, but said he didn’t believe S.287 would lead to more involuntary medication orders and, if anything, would lead to quicker court rulings.

By Laura Krantz, VT Digger Alleged criminals who can’t stand trial because of a brain injury need mental health services, not a free pass, advocates told lawmakers this week. They support a bill aimed at plugging a loophole in court proceedings for the mentally ill.
A woman whose son was sexually assaulted by a relative who suffered a traumatic brain injury described the daily nightmare of living next door to the man who admitted to assaulting her son.
She and others said the law should be changed so that people with traumatic brain injuries, or TBI, can be eligible for a ‘commitment hearing,’ in which a judge can admit them for mental health services.
Sen. Peg Flory, R-Rutland, told how the son of a family friend sexually assaulted her several years ago. The man suffered a traumatic brain injury after a car hit him when he was 9 years old. Now he is 40, she said.

by Michael O’Connor Without effective biopharmaceutical treatments, I’d be relying on caregiver support for my daily needs. And that’s why I, a Parkinson’s disease survivor, am such a staunch advocate for the clinical research biopharmaceutical companies have conducted, and continue to pursue, in Vermont.
According to a new report, ‘Research in Your Backyard: Pharmaceutical Clinical Trials in Vermont,’ biopharmaceutical companies have conducted 566 trials of new medicines in the state since 1999, and more than half of them have targeted our most debilitating chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. While I have found clinical trials and biomarker research nationally available, I am hopeful there will be Parkinson’s disease (PD) trials established in the backyards of Vermonter’s real soon!

Surgeons can now explore parts of the human body with significantly more light and a higher resolution, higher quality image than was previously possible. Until the recent launch of the Hyperion 300â ¢ Light Source, made by Nathaniel Group of Vergennes, Vermont, with Integrated Awaiba Video Processor, the image quality from flexible endoscopes made it difficult to see into areas of the body that could only be reached with an in incision no smaller than 5mm or through a natural orifice. This is about to change with a groundbreaking collaboration between two leaders in the medical device industry: Nathaniel Group and Awaiba GmbH of Germany.

by Laura Krantz vtdigger.org Amanda Bean finally got tired of losing everything. The mother of five spent much of her adult life incarcerated and a slave to opiates and other drugs. Her lifestyle choices cost Bean her three oldest children, who now live with her parents.
Finally, Bean had had enough. After spending the past three months of her most recent pregnancy homeless, Bean was admitted a week before she delivered to Lund Family Center, a mental health and substance abuse treatment center for mothers in Burlington.

Telemedicine used at nursing homes during hours when doctors are not typically present is a viable way to reduce avoidable hospitalizations, according to research published in February’s issue of Health Affairs.
Hospitalizations of nursing home residents are occurring more frequently, and result in complications, morbidity and expensive Medicare costs. When a medical issue arises on nights and weekends that cannot be addressed by the on-call physician not present at the facility, the doctor can either travel to the nursing home or recommend that the resident be sent to the hospital emergency room. Very often, the physician recommends the hospital emergency room.

Patient Engagement Systems, of Burlington, Vermont, announced today it has enhanced its suite of patient engagement and clinical decision support tools for patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD) with the addition of DPS Health’s Virtual Lifestyle Management (VLM) service. Together, this enhancement underscores PES’s commitment to help health plans, medical groups and providers improve outcomes and lower the costs associated with treating patients with chronic conditions.
By enhancing the Patient Engagement Systems’ solution with the VLM service, PES customers will now have access to lifestyle coaching and behavior change services integrated directly with population monitoring, analytics and communication.