Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

Schools Should Mandate Mask Wearing When Classes Resume, Doctor Says

Schools should make mask wearing mandatory for students when they return to the classroom next month, Dr. Matthew Sims, director of Infection Prevention Research for Beaumont Health, said Aug. 10 in an online press conference.
“It’s just a danger that there is no reason to take the risk of making this optional,” Sims said.

He was speaking during an online press conference hosted by Beaumont Health.

Dr. Sandy Patel, pediatrician at Beaumont, said the hospital system has been admitting two to three COVID-positive pediatric patients each week for the past [Read More]

By LAREN WEBER
The day after Missouri Gov. Mike Parson finished his bicentennial bus tour to drum up tourism to the state in mid-July, Chicago issued a travel advisory warning about visiting Missouri.

Earlier this summer, as covid-19 case counts began to tick up when the highly transmissible delta variant took hold in the state, the Republican-majority legislature successfully enacted laws limiting public health powers and absolving businesses from covid legal exposure.

The state health officer post has sat vacant since Dr. Randall Williams resigned suddenly in late April — leaving Missouri without a permanent leader as the covid numbers grew. And Brian Steele, a mayor in the Springfield area, which is at [Read More]

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
The drugmaker Pfizer recently announced that vaccinated people are likely to need a booster shot to be effectively protected against new variants of covid-19 and that the company would apply for Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization for the shot. Top government health officials immediately and emphatically announced that the booster isn’t needed right now — and held firm to that position even after Pfizer’s top scientist made his case and shared preliminary data with them last week.

This has led to confusion. Should the nearly 60% of adult Americans who have been fully vaccinated seek out a booster or not? Is the protection that has allowed them [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
I’m keeping with my community theme for this column, but this time, I’m taking it to the streets. After years of being a wish-list item, our organization is set to acquire a refurbished mobile clinic, thanks to generous grant assistance from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Mobile health clinics are not a new concept, and there are thousands of them in operation, but I suspect their value was somewhat diminished amid a decade of healthcare news on emerging medical technology, mega health system mergers and Wall Street takeovers of primary care. But again, we see the pandemic forcing us to reconsider how we deliver care, especially to the [Read More]

By STEPHEN SHAVER & DANIEL AYYASH
A Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) is a common structure in the healthcare industry. However, running a GPO in compliance with the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) involves a complex analysis of two distinct safe harbors under the AKS. A GPO is a negotiating agent that allows its members to leverage their combined buying power to obtain more favorable pricing and terms. Rather than each member negotiating with a given vendor independently, the GPO negotiates and maintains a master purchase agreement with the vendor on behalf of its members which allows the members to make purchases under the master agreement with better terms than the member could [Read More]

By KATHLEEN CAMPBELL WALKER
We owe a tremendous debt to the healthcare worker battalion, who fought, and continues to fight, to save lives globally during this pandemic. It is important to consider that while the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the severe healthcare worker shortages globally, we are now facing an increasing percentage of burnout departures in the industry. For example, a survey conducted by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) found that, “20 percent of national nurse associations reported an increased rate of nurses leaving the profession in 2020.” The ICN estimated that 13 million nurses could be needed to fill global shortages and replace nurses who leave the profession [Read More]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions below are those of the author and not, necessarily, Healthcare Michigan, it’s advertisers or staff.

By ALLAN DOBZYNIAK, MD
Has our profession of medicine passed the point of no return? Are we simply a round cog forced into a square hole by those who would or must control us? Are physicians employees, commodities or simply subservient to the insurance companies, corporatists and politicians?

Surrendering the profession to what physicians are told to perceive as the populist mandate is not the cure; it is part of the disease.

Equating professionalism to progressive groupthink and equating this then to taking the “high road” has given physicians a great view of their defeat [Read More]

Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.

How Much Tax Might Be Owed On Vaccine Sweepstakes Awards?

The state July 21 announced two more $50,000 vaccine lottery award winners, as well as the first $1 million prize. But how much is that, really?

While the Michigan Lottery isn’t running the show on the MI Shot to Win sweepstakes, for any Lottery prize awarded over $5,000, the Lottery is forced to withhold 24% in federal taxes and 4.25% in state taxes, according to its website.

So if the MI Shot to Win sweepstakes winners were treated to the same standards, the $1 million prize winner would need [Read More]

New diagnostic technology known as “molecular imaging” and a new treatment called “molecular targeted radiation therapy” is expected to “revolutionize treatment of cancer,” according to Sen. Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids).

Anthony Chang, founder and CEO of BAMF Health in Grand Rapids, explained the procedure to the House Health Policy Committee recently by showing them a scan of a prostate cancer patient’s body riddled with tumors.

“When we see a patient like this with a hundred tumors in their body, usually this is a death sentence,” Chang said. “We know this type of patient. The only option is chemotherapy with a very strong side effect and eventually they will almost always, almost guaranteed, [Read More]

By CHRISTINA JEWETT
Labor Department officials on June 10 announced a temporary emergency standard to protect health care workers, saying they face “grave danger” in the workplace from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The new standard would require employers to remove workers who have COVID-19 from the workplace, notify workers of COVID exposure at work and strengthen requirements for employers to report worker deaths or hospitalizations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“These are the workers who continue to go into work day in and day out to take care of us, to save our lives,” said Jim Frederick, acting assistant secretary of Labor for occupational safety and health. “And we must make [Read More]