During its 2012 legislative session, Washington State passed ESHB 2366, otherwise known as the Matt Adler Suicide Assessment, Treatment, and Management Act of 2012. ESHB 2366 is a significant legislative achievement as it is the first law in the country to require certain health professionals to obtain continuing education in the assessment,…

Purpose: To assess the impact on health care cost and quality among seniors of a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) pilot at Group Health Cooperative, an integrated health care system in Washington State. Design and Methods: A prospective before-and-after evaluation of the experience of seniors receiving primary care services at 1 pilot clinic…

Poor academic outcomes and high dropout rates are major concerns of educators, policy makers, and parents alike--and poor health severely limits a child's motivation and ability to learn. Recent research confirms that "health disparities affect educational achievement". Improving students' health is integral to education reform.…

Context: Hispanics in the United States have a higher prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (type 2 diabetes) and experience more complications for the disease than non-Hispanic whites. Differences in medical management or self-management practices may, in part, explain the relative high risk for diabetes complications among…

Context: The physician assistant profession has been moving toward requiring master's degrees for new practitioners, but some argue this could change the face of the discipline. Purpose: To see if there is an association between physician assistants' academic degrees and practice in primary care, in rural areas, and with the medically underserved.…

Rural areas have difficulty attracting physicians, and they also send fewer students to medical schools than do urban areas. A program at the University of Washington's medical school known as WAMI--for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho--is trying to combat that problem. (MLW)

In an effort to make the geographic distribution of physicians closer to the distribution of the population as a whole, in 1971 the states of Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WAMI) established the WAMI Program. The results of the first seven years of the program are described. (Author/MLW)