News
Ohio News
The Governor's
Office of Health Transformation
(OHT) announced the launch of its new website. The OHT was
created by an Executive Order signed by Governor John Kasich on January 13 to
plan for the long-term efficient administration of the Ohio Medicaid program and acting to improve the
overall health system performance in Ohio. The
website, www.healthtransformation.ohio.gov,
will serve as a portal for information regarding Ohio’s health transformation initiatives and
provide opportunity for stakeholders to sign up for email updates and to share
ideas about how to modernize Medicaid. You can also follow OHT on Twitter at www.twitter.com/OHTohio. Please take the opportunity to look
through the site and check back regularly for new
information.
Ohio High Risk Insurance Pool offers uninsured Ohio residents with pre-existing medical conditions affordable coverage. Federally funded, run by Medical Mutual. Click here to find out more.
- Educate stakeholders about the need for 'Respite'
- Produce education, outreach and awareness materials
- Gather feedback from the family caregivers and agencies (who help families get respite)
- Collect data and research current respite services in Ohio
- Create practical, simple ways for families to get respite information
- Host regional and/or statewide conferences, summits, workshops, etc.
Lifeline/Safelink offers FREE cell phone service to those who qualify. To learn more about this program and eligibility requirements click here
text4baby is a free mobile information service that provides timely health information to women from early pregnancy through their babies' first year. The service sends important health tips that are timed to the mother's stage of pregnancy or the baby's age.
Legislative Funding Alert! Congress is currently considering two primary options for funding the federal government for the remainder of Fiscal Year (FY) 2011: a single, large appropriations bill based on work already done by the House and Senate (called an omnibus), and a stopgap funding measure (called a continuing resolution [CR]) that would fund the government through the rest of FY 2011, mostly at FY 2010 levels.
Maintaining FY 2010 funding levels for the Lifespan Respite Care Act and National Family Caregiver Support Program would mean 200,000 fewer family caregivers will receive support services and 3 million hours of respite will be lost.
Please CALL CONGRESS TODAY to ensure that ANY final FY 2011 funding bill for Health and Human Services includes:
- $7 million for Lifespan Respite, the amount included in the Senate FY 2011 Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations bill.
- $200 million for the National Family Caregiver Support Program, the amount the President recommended as part of his Middle Class Task Force Initiative, and included in the Senate bill.
These funding levels proposed by Congress for FY 2011 may be cut if we don't act NOW! Congress is expected to decide by next week how to proceed in regard to FY 2011 funding.
ACTION
Call your Representative(s) and Senators TODAY.
- Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Representative’s or Senator’s office. When connected, ask to speak to the person who works on health or disability issues.
- If you don’t know who your Representative and/or Senators are, visit www.congress.org and enter your zip code.
- Explain the importance of providing these funding levels in the final FY 2011 funding bill. Use the talking points below to make your case.
- Ask the staff member if his/her boss will contact the Appropriations Committee in support of including these funding levels in the final FY 2011 spending bill, no matter what format it takes.
Message/Talking Points:
- Over 65 million family caregivers provide at least 80% of long-term care and support to family members of all ages with disabilities or chronic conditions. According to AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, 88% of these family caregivers do not receive any respite services. Also, 85% of family caregivers of veterans receive no respite services, even through the Veterans Administration.
- If we continue to deny supports such as respite to these family caregivers, much more costly foster care, nursing home placements or other institutional placements become the only alternative.
- Please include the additional funding for Lifespan Respite and National Family Caregiver Support that the Administration proposed and Congressional Committees already voted to support. The extra funding will allow nearly 200,000 additional caregivers to be served and 3 million more hours of respite care to be provided.
Information provided by the national Autism Society from Jeff Sell, VP of Public Policy
- Parents have an Opportunity to Participate in National Registry
The Coordination of Rare Diseases atPurpose: By establishing a central registry of persons with a confirmed diagnosis of any rare disease, we hope to accelerate research by providing a resource for the identification of individuals interested in participating in future research studies.
Process of enrollment: After emailing a best time and number at which to reach you to Cords@sanfordhealth.org, CoRDS personnel will contact you to visit about the registry in more detail and will gather your mailing information to mail you a consent form and a brief questionnaire. Once you complete and return these two documents to CoRDS personnel, your information will be entered into the CoRDS registry.For more information on the CoRDS registry, please visit our website: http://sanfordresearch.org/CoRDS
To indicate interest in participating in the CoRDS registry, please contact:
Liz Donohue, Research Development Coordinator
E-mail: Cords@sanfordhealth.org
605.312.6413. FAX: 605-312-6071
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View a fact sheet developed by the Association for Maternal & Child Health Programs on how health care reform effects children and youth with special health care needs
- FINFacts a publication of the Family Information Network of Ohio for families with young children in Help Me Grow funded by the Ohio Department of Health. This issue features families from Toledo.Click here for info on how to suscribe.
- June 2011 issue of the NCC Collaborator from the National Coordinating Center for the Genetic and Newborn Screening Service Collaboratives (NCC). This issue features Regional Coordinating (RC) partnerships with entities outside of the NCC/RC system. The NCC article is a long one and summarizes the Community Conversation that occurred at the 2011 ACMG Clinical Genetics Conference, Screening for Carnitine-Palmitoyl Transferase, Type 1A (CPT1A P479L) in the First Nations Populations of Alaska and British Columbia. You will be struck by the complex interplay of the scientific, public health, and family issues that truly exemplify the need for the NCC/RC system.
