Health Beat: EPA online mapping tool tracks drinking water sources

Editor’s note: Each Wednesday, Talk Business & Politics provides “Health Beat,” a round-up of health-related topics.  –––––––––––––––

EPA RELEASES ONLINE MAPPING TOOL FOR U.S. DRINKING WATER SOURCES: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released DWMAPS – the Drinking Water Mapping Application to Protect Source Waters. The online mapping tool provides the public, water system operators, state programs, and federal agencies with critical information to help them safeguard the sources of America’s drinking water.

DWMAPS allows users to learn about their watershed and understand more about their water supplier, and lets users see if sources of their drinking water are polluted and if there are possible sources of pollution that could affect a community’s water supply. The online mapping tool also guides users to ways they can get involved in protecting drinking water sources in their community.

BAPTIST HEALTH PART OF CASE STUDY NETTING $7 MILLION IN COST SAVINGS: Little Rock’s Baptist Health Medical Center was part of a national case study by The Advisory Board Company of Washington, D.C., where hospitals improved clinical quality and consistency while reducing unnecessary costs and enhancing the patient experience. These initiatives, conducted through The Advisory Board Company’s Crimson physician performance analytics program, produced more than $6.9 million in aggregate savings for Baptist Health’s Physician Partners and Saint Alphonsus Health System’s Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho.

If adopted by other hospitals and health systems, these initiatives could have a tremendous impact on U.S. health care, researchers say. A nationwide 30% reduction in avoidable acute care admissions for diabetes would give patients nationwide $227 million in savings of out-of-pocket costs for co-pays, co-insurance, and other non-covered costs for diabetes-driven hospital admissions.

DIABETES DRUG MAY PREVENT RECURRING STROKES: Pioglitazone, a drug used for type 2 diabetes, may prevent recurrent stroke and heart attacks in people with insulin resistance but without diabetes, according to an exhaustive international study by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The results of the Insulin Resistance Intervention after Stroke (IRIS) trial, presented at the International Stroke Conference 2016 in Los Angeles and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest a potential new method to prevent stroke and heart attack in high-risk patients who have already had one stroke or transient ischemic attack.

The IRIS trial is the first study to provide evidence that a drug targeting cell metabolism may prevent secondary strokes and heart attacks even before diabetes develops. Insulin regulates metabolism and keeps blood sugar levels from getting too high, along with many other processes, in the body. Insulin resistance is a condition in which the body produces insulin but does not use it effectively.