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          Child Health Information Project
              Children's Defense Fund
                 December 8, 2000
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In this issue:

* IOWA PROJECT LINKS RURAL AREAS CROSS-STATE TO TOP-NOTCH MEDICAL ADVICE

* SCHOOL NURSES PLAY IMPORTANT ROLE IN REDUCING NUMBER OF UNINSURED STUDENTS IN MASSACHUSETTS

* NEW REPORT ON EXPRESS LANE ELIGIBILITY

* COMMUNITY-BASED PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
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IOWA PROJECT LINKS RURAL AREAS CROSS-STATE TO TOP-NOTCH MEDICAL ADVICE

(Bethesda, MD) -- When a child has a complicated problem like autism or cerebral palsy, it can take medical professionals, therapists, teachers, family members, and home care aides to provide proper care. For families in rural areas, it's hard to get to the specialists their children need to see. Another challenge is developing a plan to coordinate the diverse team of caregivers.

The University of Iowa's Child Interdisciplinary Disability Project (CIDP), based at the University Hospital School in Iowa City, fulfills this function, but with a high-tech twist. "Thanks to a fiber optic network and interactive audiovisual devices, experts at the University can perform clinical evaluations, and plot a course of care, for children hundreds of miles across the state," said National Library of Medicine Director, Donald Lindberg, MD. "The patient is spared long car trips, parents don't have to miss work, and the family can tap into the best medical advice the state has to offer without leaving their hometown. Perhaps best of all, with the various experts all assembled, they can collaborate with ease."

"The Iowa model might be replicated in other states with good results," observes Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA). "Telemedicine puts technology to work to improve the delivery of health care," says Harkin.  "It links patients and their doctors in rural or remote hospitals with highly trained medical specialists and state-of-the-art medical technology located hundreds or even thousands of miles away. At a time when health care costs continue to skyrocket, telemedicine has the potential to ensure that quality health care remains affordable and accessible for working families in all areas of the country."

To learn more about the Iowa telemedicine project: www.medicine.uiowa.edu/uhs/execsum.cfm 

Source: National Institute of Health News Release, www.nih.gov , December 1, 2000.
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SCHOOL NURSES PLAY IMPORTANT ROLE IN REDUCING NUMBER OF UNINSURED STUDENTS IN MASSACHUSETTS

The role of the school nurse has changed significantly in the past few years as the demand for more health care prevention and intervention is increasing in our schools.  Today, Massachusetts school nurses are not only dealing with everyday illnesses and injuries, they are also focusing their efforts on helping uninsured children and families get health insurance.

School nurses in MA have begun a statewide campaign, in partnership with the Division of Medical Assistance and the Department of Public Health, to reach and enroll uninsured families in MassHealth and the Children's Medical Security Plan (CMSP) -- two state programs that provide free and low-cost health care coverage to MA residents.

"Many families see the school nurse as a reliable and trusted source of health information and guidance. "...[T]he school nurse is one of the few health care professionals who may see [a] child on a regular basis," said Anne Sheetz, Director of School Health Services of the Department of Public Health.

Many school nurses are implementing innovative programs within their communities to locate and help enroll the uninsured. In several school districts, school nurses have lobbied to include an additional question on school forms which asks parents if their child has health insurance. In Springfield, MA, for instance, school nurses use school meal program applications which asks parents if they would like an application for free or low-cost health care coverage and offer assistance completing it.

For details on this program, contact Tracey McSheffrey at tmcsheffrey@nt.dma.state.ma.us  or at 617.210.5325

For more information on school nurses, visit the National Association of School Nurses' web site at www.nasn.org 

Source: Massachusetts Division of Medical Assistance Press Release, www.state.ma.us/dma , November 30, 2000
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NEW REPORT ON EXPRESS LANE ELIGIBILITY

A new guidebook has been released by the Children's Partnership and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured entitled "Putting Express Lane Eligibility Into Practice." The guidebook describes how states can find and enroll uninsured children by using other public programs that have similar eligibility rules as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Over seventy percent of all low-income uninsured children live in families that participate in School Lunch, WIC, TANF, or Unemployment Compensation, reports the Children's Partnership.

To access the report, along with other pertinent information on Express Lane Eligibility, go to: www.childrenspartnership.org  and click on the report title. 
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COMMUNITY-BASED PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

The National Institute for Environmental Health Services has announced a new awards program for community-based, public health research approaches to health conditions having an environmentally-related origin. Awards stress the need for further advances in the implementation of prevention and intervention methods that are applied to environmental health; accumulate and evaluate data, make assignments of environmental causes of diseases more plausible; and develop, implement, and evaluate community-based monitoring of exposure.

For grant guidelines, eligibility requirements, and a more in-depth description of the grant, please go to: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-ES-01-003.html 

Source: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences News Release, www.niehs.nih.gov , November 29, 2000.
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