Health Highlights: April 14, 2008

There aren't enough geriatric medicine specialists. Currently, there are about 7,100 doctors certified in geriatrics in the United States, which works out to one per 2,500 older Americans. There's insufficient training, and geriatric specialists are underpaid.Turnover among nurse aides averages 71 percent a year, and as many as 90 percent of home health aides leave their jobs within the first two years.Medicare doesn't provide for team care that's required by many elderly patients.Elderly people tend to be healthier and live longer than in previous generations, but people aged 65 and older often have more complex conditions and health care needs than younger people.

"We face an impending crisis as the growing number of older patients, who are living longer with more complex health needs, increasingly outpace the number of health care providers with the knowledge and skills to care for them capably," said John W. Rowe, a professor of health policy and management at Columbia University, theAPreported.

Rowe led the Institute of Medicine committee that wrote the report. The Institute of Medicine is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. The committee recommended that: all health care workers be trained in basic geriatric care; the minimum number of hours of training for direct-care workers be increased from 75 to at least 120; and that geriatric specialists, doctors, nurse and care workers get better pay.

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Parents Often Misinformed About Drugs Prescribed for Children

Less than one-third of prescription medicines used to treat children have been formally approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in youngsters, but many parents believe all such drugs are FDA-approved, says a survey released Monday by the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.

Among the findings:

83 percent of parents believed the last medication prescribed for their child was FDA-approved.94 percent of parents feel a child's doctor is responsible for disclosing whether a medication is not FDA-approved for use in children.77 percent want their child's doctor to prescribe only medicines that are FDA-approved for use in children.Women are more likely than men to want their child's doctor to prescribe only medicines with pediatric labeling.Parents with less education are more likely to want only FDA-approved medicine for their children.

"FDA labeling is very important to parents, but that's a problem when only one-third of medicines have FDA approval for use in children," Dr. Matthew M. Davis, director of the National Poll on Children's Health, said in a prepared statement. "The solution to that is to either get more medicines that are FDA-approved by increasing clinical studies, or working to help physicians and parents negotiate the situation when physicians want to use medicines that are safe and effective, but may not have FDA approval."

The national online survey included 2,131 adults, ages 18 and older.

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Sludge Spread on Yards of Low-Income Families