Health

As the retirement-age population grows in Michigan, in-home care is increasingly in high demand. The state, however, is struggling to maintain a workforce that meets the need. 

Two researchers at the MSU College of Human Medicine are working to change that. They received grants from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund. The Fund was set up in 2013 under state law. (Read more about the it here.) 

Oakland County health officials say they’re seeing a spike in whooping cough (AKA pertussis), largely among kids in day care and preschool. That’s likely because the disease is contagious and spreads easily, but kids that age aren’t old enough to have had all their pertussis vaccinations yet.

Since November, the county health department says it's seen 56 confirmed cases of whooping cough, compared with 10 this time last year. The county saw just 59 cases for all of last year. None of those cases has been fatal.

State health officials are warning Michiganders headed south on vacation this winter to be aware that Zika is still a major health threat.

The mosquito-borne virus can cause serious birth defects.  The Centers for Disease Control reports people have been infected in Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico, as well as the Caribbean and South America.

Dr. Eden Wells is Michigan’s chief medical executive. She’s concerned travelers may be less worried because Zika has not been in the news very much lately.

Metro Detroit's water authority is assuring people the water is safe to drink after some downriver Detroit-area residents noticed their drinking water tasted or smelled bad.

Despite the odd smell, taste, and in some cases discoloration of the water, the Great Lakes Water Authority has not found any troubling contaminants in the water samples it has tested.

Cheryl Porter, GLWA’s Chief Operating Officer, doesn't know exactly what caused the smell and taste, but said the complaints started after a river basin's biannual cleaning began.

Two more deer have tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease in Michigan.

The two female deer are from a farm in Mecosta County, north of Grand Rapids. The farm has been quarantined and other deer are being tested for CWD. 

State wildlife officials are investigating to see if the source of the infection can be determined.

CWD can be transmitted directly from one animal to another, or indirectly through the environment. 

More than $1 million in foundation and state grants are going to the Detroit Health Department for five new initiatives aimed at addressing health problems of Detroit children, the Department announced today.

The goal is to reduce health barriers that interfere with school attendance and learning.

"We're focusing on a number of critical outcomes that really affect children's health and keep them out of the classroom and prevent them from being able to learn and, in the future, earn," said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, executive director of the Detroit Health Department.

A Michigan department needs to do more to follow its own regulations on bottled water inspection.

That was the message of an audit released today by the Office of the Auditor General. The report found that the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development did not always perform timely inspections of water bottles and places with water dispensing machines.

In a perfect world, all of our doctors would be really, really good at something called “motivational interviewing.”

There are a million websites and books devoted to motivational interviewing, but here’s a super-quick synopsis (that might make an expert in motivational interviewing cringe): basically, it’s an in-depth, open-ended, non-judgmental conversation about health behaviors that draws out our own thoughts about our drug use/alcoholism/weight struggles, etc. 

One Democratic Michigan congressman says he’s willing to keep an “open-mind” about Republican plans to replace Obamacare.

Large crowds gathered across the nation on Sunday, including in Warren, to oppose the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act.   

Flint Congressman Dan Kildee is concerned a quick repeal of the Affordable Care Act will leave 20 million people, including hundreds of thousands in Michigan, without health insurance.

Kildee wants to see how Republicans will keep some popular provisions of the health care law in place.

The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine is getting a $500,000 grant from the state to develop a registry of Flint residents exposed to the city’s tainted drinking water.

The grant is coming from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. 

Dr. Eden Wells, Michigan's chief medical executive, says while children’s exposure to lead in the water is a primary concern, the registry will follow other health issues as well.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is demanding McLaren Hospital Flint and the Genesee County Health Department turn over records of several Legionnaire's disease cases from 2016.

The department wants "immediate action" taken to address potential legionella exposure problems at McLaren Hospital.

There were 17 cases of legionella in Genesee County last year.   

In the days leading up to president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, Michigan doctors and parents are speaking out against one of his biggest promises.

Trump and many Republicans in Congress are promising to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act.

Those against “Obamacare” say its premiums are too high and it doesn’t provide enough choice. But at a press conference on Monday, several Michigan doctors and patients spoke out in favor of the Act, particularly how it helps children with cancer.

Michigan’s hospital administrators are concerned what will happen if Congress repeals Obamacare in 2017.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act tops the agenda for Republicans after the new congress is sworn in during the first week in January. 

But the Michigan Health and Hospital Association is concerned what will happen if Obamacare is repealed without a replacement strategy ready to take its place.

The association points out, between 2010 and 2019, Michigan hospitals will lose about $7 billion in reduced Medicare reimbursements.  

About 40 protestors rallied outside Republican Congressman David Trott's office in Troy Tuesday, holding signs that read "Don't Take My Medicare or Medicaid."

The protestors urged Trott to think twice about repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Trott is in favor of repealing Obamacare. He says there should be more competition among insurance providers, which he says would mean lower costs for Michigan residents. 

New state laws take effect Tuesday that will regulate Michigan’s medical marijuana industry.

The three laws taking effect will legalize medical marijuana dispensaries, regulate growing and processing facilities and extend legal protections to registered patients who prefer to use non-smokable forms of the drug, including edibles and oils.

It’s the first major update to Michigan’s medical marijuana laws since voters approved legalizing pot for medicinal purposes in 2008. 

Michigan's Legislature and the mental health community in the state are at odds over how best to provide and manage services.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services released a draft set of recommendations to the Legislature about Governor Snyder's Section 298 proposal that would effectively privatize mental health services.

A new University of Michigan report finds teen drug use is continuing to decline in the U.S.

U of M’s Monitoring the Future project has been studying teenage drug use for more than four decades.

“Teen smoking at 12th-grade, 10th-grade and eighth-grade is at the lowest level we’ve ever recorded in 42 years. The same with alcohol use. Same with measures of heavy alcohol use, like binge drinking or getting drunk,” says researcher Richard Meich. “So it looks like teens are moving away from drug use.”

A new study says nearly 1.7 million people in Michigan were uninsurable before the Affordable Care Act.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit that publishes non-partisan medical information, estimates that 28% of non-elderly Michigan adults have preexisting conditions that were uninsurable before the Affordable Care Act.

Cynthia Cox, is with the Kaiser Family Foundation, said many of these people get insurance through their job.

A new report finds, despite improved access to health insurance, a large number of poor Michiganders still fall in and out of coverage.

The University of Michigan’s Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation looked at something called “churning”.  Churning is when individuals pass from one health insurer to another, either by changing plans or entering and exiting Medicaid.

Marianne Udow Philips is the center’s director. She says there remains a lot of health insurance instability.

We may soon see a draft proposal for how Michigan will handle more than two billion dollars in Medicaid funding earmarked for mental health.

The Snyder administration caused an uproar earlier this year when it backed a plan to further privatize the public nonprofit mental health system by turning over $2.4 billion in state funding to Medicaid HMOs.

Mental Health groups said this would put control of the money into the hands of out-of-state, for-profit insurance companies.

Genesee County has recorded its 15th case of Legionnaires Disease of 2016.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says the latest case of the serious respiratory disease was reported in a male patient at Flint’s McLaren Hospital.

A Genesee County health official says the man is recovering from major surgery unrelated to Legionnaires. 

None of the Legionnaires cases in Genesee County reported this year have been fatal.