Medical-review panel law described as ‘imperfect,’ with only 11% of 531 claims assigned to a panel after one year on the books

A Republican-backed law that established medical-review panels to screen lawsuits against health-care providers before they can proceed Is now a year old, and things have not gone exactly as proponents expected, Andrew Wolfson reports for the Louisville Courier Journal.

Source: Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
Courier Journal 

Just 11 percent of 531 claims have been assigned to a panel, findings have been issued in only 3 percent of the cases, and another 5 percent were withdrawn, settled or dismissed, Wolfson reports.

Proponents of the law, largely nursing homes, physicians, hospitals and others who claim to be subjected to frivolous lawsuits, have said the review panels would decrease the number of frivolous lawsuits and cut the cost of liability insurance for providers. Gov. Matt Bevin's administration has called the panels the "first step toward tort reform."

Opponents, including a Frankfort judge who found the law unconstitutional, say it unduly restricts people's access the the courts and is an infringement on the right to trial by jury.

"Even lawyers who defend doctors, hospitals and nursing homes say the process so far has been ineffective,” Wolfson reports.

“I’m not going to deny that the numbers aren’t good and it is an imperfect law,'' Betsy Johnson, president of the Kentucky Association of Health Care Facilities, which lobbies for nursing homes, told Wolfson.

And lawyers who represent injured people are even more critical.

“The delays aren’t fair to the citizens of Kentucky, many of whom may have been catastrophically injured or killed by negligence and whose families may need resolution of their claim in order to survive,” Louisville attorney Hans Poppe told Wolfson.

Others said the law needs more time.

"Any major policy change like the medical review panel process certainly takes time to implement, and it was expected that there would be hiccups,” said Patrick Padgett, executive vice president of the Kentucky Medical Association, told Wolfson.

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled last October that the law violated 13 sections of the Kentucky Constitution, but it has been allowed to remain in effect while his ruling was appealed.

"The effect of the medical review panel process is not the reduction of frivolous negligence claims, but rather, the erection of barriers to the court system," Shepherd wrote. "Those that cannot afford the additional delays and costs should not be prevented from pursuing their constitutional right to a 'remedy by due course of law.' "

The appeal was argued this week and a ruling is expected in a couple of months, Wolfson reports in a separate article that details the case and includes comments from the opposing briefs.

Under the law, all claims against health-care providers must be submitted to a medical review panel  to determine its merit unless both sides agree to bypass the panel to take the case directly to court.

The panel is made up of a lawyer who serves as the non-voting chairman and three health-care professionals who determine if the suit has merit. The decision of the panel isn't binding, and claimants can still file suit even if the panel rules against them or issues no finding after nine months. However, the opinion can be used in court and the panelist called to testify.

The law includes lawsuits that involve physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, dietitians, podiatrists, EMS providers, dentists, dental hygienists, social workers, medical laboratories and speech language pathologists, Wolfson reports.

Drug-overdose stats would be a lot worse without naloxone

Photo illustration from The Anderson News

The statistics on drug-overdose deaths in Kentucky are bad, but they could be a lot worse if first responders didn't save so many drug users with naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of opioids, they told Editor-Publisher Ben Carlson of The Anderson News.

Carlson reports, "Bart Powell, the county’s director of public safety, said were it not for Narcan, a drug used to revive those who have overdosed, the number of deaths here would have been considerably higher." Narcan is the brand name of the device usually used to deliver naloxone.

“There were two just yesterday,” Powell told Carlson July 30. “There are 10 or more we are bringing back each month. There’s no scientific way to tell, but from the street perspective, there would have been a lot more deaths.”

Powell said ambulances have long carried naloxone, "but the recent decision to provide the life-saving drug to police and firefighters has been key to preventing deaths, particularly in rural communities such as Anderson," Carlson reports.

“The police often get there first because they’re already out,” Powell  said. “Their response times, especially in the city, are usually quicker. They’ve saved a lot of lives.”

Carlson's story, across the top of his front page, was mainly about Anderson County ranking 11th out of 120 counties in drug overdoses in 2017, according to a report from the state Office of Drug Control Policy.

Kentucky Voices for Health to host webinar on controversial Medicaid plan Aug. 14; not open to news media

Kentucky Voices for Health will host a webinar
titled "Kentucky HEALTH: What We've Learned and What Comes Next" Tuesday, August 14 at 11 a.m. EST.

Kentucky HEALTH, for Helping to Engage and Achieve Long Term Health, is the official name for the state's new Medicaid plan that was set to go into effect July 1, but instead was vacated by a federal judge who said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had not adequately considered the state's estimate that in five years its Medicaid rolls would have 95,000 fewer people with the plan than without it, in large measure for non-compliance with its requirement. The judge sent the plan back to HHS for more review.

HHS has opened up another public comment period on Kentucky HEALTH that ends Aug. 18. As of Aug. 7, the Medicaid.gov website showed more than 300 comments had been submitted. State officials told legislators that they're working "toward a re-approval" of the plan and haven't decided on an appeal.

The webinar is open to "state partners working to protect coverage for Kentuckians" and is closed to the news media. Click here to register.

The webinar will include presentations from Leo Cuello, director of  health policy at the National Health Law Program; Jessica Schubel, senior policy analyst for the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities; Jason Dunn, policy analyst at KVH; and Dustin Pugel, policy analyst at the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

The registration page says the webinar will discuss the the Trump administrations push to get states to adopt a Medicaid work requirement; the recent federal court decision about Kentucky HEALTH; and  the national work requirement debate.

It will also discuss the latest research on work requirements, recent experiences from other states, like Arkansas, that have begun implementing work requirements, successful strategies for defeating bad state proposals and takeaways from recent messaging research.

UK College of Medicine’s Bowling Green Campus welcomes inaugural class, with hopes they will stay in the region to practice

Students of the UK medical school’s Bowling Green Campus
pose in front of Western Kentucky University’s Van Meter Hall.

The University of Kentucky College of Medicine’s Bowling Green Campus welcomed its first class of 30 medical students Aug. 3 during its inaugural white- coat ceremony at Western Kentucky University, Don Sergent reports for the Bowling Green Daily News.

This four-year, regional-campus medical school is the first of its kind in Kentucky. It was created through a partnership between UK, WKU and The Medical Center at Bowling Green in an effort to bring more doctors to the region.

A UK news release notes that the Bowling Green campus is a fully functioning campus, utilizing the exact curriculum and assessments as UK’s Lexington campus.

The 24,000-square-foot portion of the $28.3 million building on The Medical Center's campus where the students will eventually be located won't be ready until mid-September, so they will begin the program using facilities at The Medical Center and WKU, Sergent reports.

At the ceremony, Don Brown, assistant dean of the Bowling Green campus, bragged on inaugural class members for their many accomplishments and told the attendees that the selection process was highly competitive; and Associate Dean Todd Cheever said the class fit well with their goal of addressing the need for more physicians in Kentucky, Sergent reports.

“The vast majority of the students are from Kentucky, which is the mission,” Cheever said. “And the ones from out of state have Kentucky ties. I believe we have the right 30 students.”

Of the 30 new students, 26 are from Kentucky, representing 14 Kentucky counties, including five from Bowling Green or elsewhere in Warren County. The others are from Ohio, Tennessee and Florida.

Mallory Vaughn, a WKU graduate who has known since elementary school that she wanted to be a doctor, told Sergent that the Bowling Green campus “was an absolute dream for me. I get to work in the hospital I was born in. I’ll be able to prepare for my professional career and give back to the community that has nurtured me.”

Connor Donley, also from Bowling Green, told Sergent that he was ecstatic when he was selected for the inaugural class. “The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for me personally,” said Donley, a UK graduate. “I’m excited that I’m going to be getting my education in the community where I grew up.”

Earlier the same day, 136 students received white coats in a ceremony at the UK College of Medicine's Lexington campus.

A similar regional program is expected to open in Northern Kentucky in the fall of 2019, through a partnership between UK's medical school, St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Northern Kentucky University. It will have 35 students in its inaugural class. UK's medical school also partners with Morehead State University and St. Claire Regional Medical Center to offer the Rural Physician Leadership Program.

All of these programs aim to bring more physicians into the rural parts of the state.

Ky. making great strides in treating patients with hepatitis C, with harm-reduction programs and fewer restrictions on treatment

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Eliminating hepatitis C in Kentucky and the rest of the nation will require universal screening and non-restricted access to treatment, and because new cases of the disease are largely driven by intravenous drug use, states must also commit to increasing harm-reduction programs like syringe exchanges and medication assisted therapies.

Those were the overarching messages to more than 300 people who attended the fifth annual Viral Hepatitis Conference in Lexington on July 31. The good news was that Kentucky has made great strides on all of these fronts since last year's conference, which had a similar message.

Access to harm reduction is one of the areas in which Kentucky has excelled.

Cincinnati Enquirer photo

Dr. Allen Brenzel, medical director for the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, told the crowd that one of the things he was most proud of was the state's syringe exchanges, which are mainly intended to decrease the spread of infectious diseases, such as hepatitis C and HIV.

Kentucky leads the nation in the number of counties with local syringe exchanges. As of July, 45 of the state's 120 counties have approved such programs at more than 50 sites. That's a lot more than Brenzel expected under a 2015 law that requires approval by the local health board, the county fiscal court and governing body of the city where the exchange is to be located.

"I travel a lot, and the fact that Kentucky has harm-reduction syringe exchange is one of the things I'm most proud of . . . It's an incredible thing," Brenzel said. "We all thought we'd have four or five of them in our urban areas, but what I think is exciting is that our rural counties stood up and said, 'We're tired of this. We're tired of our neighbors dying; we're tired of our friends [dying]. We know this is a health risk.'"

Only about 10 percent of syringe-exchange participants agree to be tested for hepatitis, and critics of the programs claim they enable drug use. On the recent KET program "Disrupting the Opioid Epidemic," host Renee Shaw asked Jennifer Hancock, president and CEO of Volunteers of America Mid-States, about that.

"It is enabling people to take that first courageous step toward a path of recovery," Hancock replied. Earlier, she said, "They are absolutely saving people’s lives."

Hancock, Brenzel and Dr. Ardis Dee Hoven, an infectious disease specialist with the state Department of Public Health, said the exchange specialists strive to build long-term relationships with their clients, making it easier to eventually steer them toward treatment.

"This is not about a supply of needles,” Brenzel said. “This is about the first step in the road to recovery."

At the conference, Brenzel also talked about the state's many different programs that are set up to distribute naloxone, the life-saving drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Brenzel added that the U.S. surgeon general has said that having access to naloxone and learning how to use it is "as important as learning CPR."

Jon Zibbell, senior public health scientist at RTI International, an independent nonprofit research institute, told conference attendees that the nation has both a health-care crisis and a public-health crisis.

He said that while it's important to treat the 4 million people who are chronically infected, especially because we know that between 8,000 and 10,000 of them will die annually from a liver-related illness, it is the IV drug users with hepatitis C who are creating the public health crisis.

"The only real way to address the public health crisis for hepatitis C and hepatitis B is to address the people who are still injecting, to protect those downstream transmissions," Zibbell said.

On top of treating people who are actively using drugs, he said, the best way to treat these individuals may be to create a "one-stop-shop" for related services, including hepatitis C treatment, medication-assisted therapies, syringe exchange and access to naloxone.

"We need a way to make it so infected people don't transmit the virus and uninfected people don't acquire the virus, and then naloxone to keep them alive," he said.

Kentucky no longer requires people getting hepatitis C treatment to stay off illicit drugs, only that they be screened and counseled for any illicit drug use. The state has also removed the requirement that only allowed treatment during advanced stages of the disease; now anyone can be treated for it.

The state still requires the disease be treated by or in consultation with a specialist, which is a challenge because there aren't enough specialists to meet Kentuckians' needs.

Dr. Jens Rosenau, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Kentucky and a hepatologist and gastroenterologist at the Kentucky Clinic, said that between July 2014 and December 2016, before the restrictions were removed, only 22 percent of his patients started treatment for the disease, largely because of the restrictions.

But after the majority of the state's managed-care organizations lifted the restrictions in April, allowing Medicaid to pay for treatment, he said his treatment uptake rates have doubled. "This month we actually started 150 patients on treatment," he said. "It is probably our record now."

Rosenau also noted that the UK Healthcare emergency department started doing universal screening for hepatitis C in July and that in just two weeks had identified more than 70 patients with the disease who didn't know they had it: "That is overwhelming." The disease is common, but latent, among the Baby Boom generation.

Kentucky is also the first state in the nation to pass a law that requires all pregnant women to be tested for hepatitis C, and for their babies to be tested at 24 months if the mother tested positive. One in 56 Kentucky births are to mothers who have hepatitis C.

Barbara Cave and Danielle Revert, family nurse practitioners in Louisville, said the state needs universal screening for hepatitis C.

Revert noted a study found that using the current guidelines for screening, 25 percent of people who would test positive for the disease would be missed. "If we're going to talk about eradicating this disease, I really think we're going to have to shift our screening focus more toward this universal screening idea," she said.

Cave added that the prevalence of hepatitis C is likely far greater than the 3.5 million that is normally reported because this number doesn't include any people who are institutionalized, incarcerated, hospitalized, homeless or are military veterans. She said the U.S. estimate should be closer to 5.2 million.

Corinna Dan, viral hepatitis policy adviser for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,  said it's challenging to get people to pay attention to a specific health issue like hepatitis, and that it simply doesn't have the kind of support that you see for many other health conditions, like HIV, which has a "huge advocacy base."

"We haven't done that yet effectively for hepatitis," she said. "We do need champions at the ground level, at the local level . . . because that's where people are served, that's where people have the need."

UK researchers track genetic trail of ALS, one version of which is more common around Cumberland Gap than anywhere else

Debby Taylor and Dr. Edward Kasarskis talk at the headquarters
of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. (Alex Stilz photo)

Two University of Kentucky researchers are on the genetic trail of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. Their detective story has not reached its end, but it is told in fascinating fashion by Eric Boodman of Stat, the medicine-and-science publication of The Boston Globe.

The story is based around the Cumberland Gap, where Kentucky meets Tennessee and Virginia. "This corner of Appalachia runs thicker with a particular form of inherited ALS than almost anywhere else," Boodman reports, and its chief tracker is Dr. Edward Kasarskis, the neurologist who discovered the cluster, beginning with one family in 1993. A family member on her deathbed told him of a relative who knew "the whole family history," Kasarskis told Boodman, but she "just refused to talk to me."

"He tried to piece it together himself, making calls, jotting names and dates on bits of paper," Boodman writes. "Families were tight-lipped, though, and he didn’t have much luck. He turned to other things." But a decade later, he mentioned his quest to UK research coordinator Debby Taylor, who had been "mapping her own family history on Ancestry.com, and she offered to try with software what hadn’t worked by hand. Within a day, she had 12 pages of names." How, it has "grown into a 250-page digital family tree, with around 6,700 names, eight generations, two intertwined families, and a lot of ALS."

Now, "Taylor and Dr. K know that among the 5,000 annual diagnoses of ALS in the U.S., only around 10 percent are inherited. They know there are over 30 different major genes in which a mistake might be causing the disease. They know that the mutation they’re studying is among the rarer ones, affecting a gene called FUS. What they still don’t know is why certain family members with the mutation get the disease, and others don’t." Kasarskis cited a man who lived into his 90s, had then gene, and never developed the disease -- but three of his children did, and two others got the gene from him.

Though they have a roadmap, the research is slow. They "can’t just look up an address and show up at someone’s door. “Until they develop an illness and come to medical attention, they’re just a name on a chart, on a pedigree,” Kasarskis said. “We can’t legally go doing cold calls: ‘Hey, George, how’s it going? By the way, have you developed your ALS yet?’” So they must "wait for patients to come to them," Boodman reports. "They don’t ask about participating in research right away; there is no cure for ALS, and the diagnosis can be devastating. . . . Some people don’t trust Taylor and Dr. K. Others don’t see how this research could possibly help them. Yet others simply refuse to accept the diagnosis."

Taylor told Boodman, “If you tell your fiancé that there’s ALS in your family, do you think he or she is really going to marry you? So this is not anything that people want to talk about.” But enough of them talked to Boodman to make a great story. Read it here.

Ky. has two new vaccine requirements this year for students, adding to existing requirements for kindergarten and 6th grade

Going back to school requires more than just making sure you have all the required school supplies; it also means making sure your child is up to date on their vaccines, especially since Kentucky has two new vaccine requirements.

Normally, vaccine records are only required for entry into kindergarten and sixth grade, but this year Kentucky schools will be checking every student to make sure they are up to date on the two new required vaccines: hepatitis A and a meningitis booster for students 16 and older.

"We encourage parents to contact their medical provider to review their child’s immunization status to help ensure a smooth back-to-school transition for the upcoming year," Public Health Commissioner Jeffrey D. Howard said in a news release.

The state now requires all school-aged children in kindergarten through 12th grade to show proof of having received two doses of the hepatitis A vaccine to attend school.

Because the two-dose hepatitis A vaccine is given six months apart, the state health department recognizes that some students may have only received one dose when school starts -- and that's OK, according to the news release.

The health department says if a student has not yet received the second dose of the hepatitis A vaccine for this school year, the student's immunization record will be considered "provisional" and will expire 14 days after the second dose is required.

In addition to the hepatitis A vaccine, students 16 and older are required to get a meningitis booster, called the meningococcal ACWY vaccine. This means that their immunization record must show proof of having received two doses of the vaccine.

However, it's important to note that if the first dose of the meningitis vaccine was received at age 16 or older, the second dose is not required for school entry.

The new requirements add to the list of vaccines required for students entering kindergarten and sixth grade.

Those entering kindergarten are required to have the combined TDAP vaccine for for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; a measles-mumps-ruebella vaccine; and vaccines for hepatitis B, polio and chicken pox.

Students entering sixth grade are required to have all of the immunizations that were required to enter kindergarten, as well as a TDAP booster, a meningitis vaccine, and a second chicken-pox vaccine.

The HPV vaccine, which protects against the human papillomavirus, is recommended for 11- and 12-year old boys and girls, but is not required. HPV infections cause more than 90 percent of anal and cervical cancers and around 70 percent of vaginal, vulvar, penile and middle throat cancers, and two of the HPV strains are associated with more than 90 percent of anal and genital warts.

Flu vaccine is also recommended for school-aged children every year as soon as it is available, but is not required. This vaccine is especially important for those with chronic conditions like asthma or diabetes.

Vaccines are generally covered as a no-cost preventive service by most health insurance plans. But if your child does not have health insurance, you should contact your local health department for assistance.

Any child with a medical condition who is unable to receive the vaccines will be issued a medical exemption certificate by their health-care provider.

And if a parent chooses not to immunize a child based on religious objections, the parent must complete a sworn and notarized religious exemption form that can be found online. All immunization forms can be found on the Kentucky Immunization Program and Kentucky Department of Education websites.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reminds parents that it is never too late to catch up on their child's missed immunizations, and that primary care providers can help set up an adjusted immunization schedule.

Two Northern Kentucky police departments have hired social workers, the first in the state to do so; helps in drug fight

The Alexandria Police Department in Northern Kentucky was the first police department in the state to hire a full-time police social worker. It's been so successful they are hiring another one and the nearby Erlanger Police Department has hired one too.

Kelly Pompilio, Alexandria Police Department's first police
social worker, rides along with a police officer. (Photo by Jim
Robertson, Kentucky Law Enforcement Magazine)

"For the first time in my career I'm seeing this agency help people work through problems that we have never been able to help with," Police Chief Mike Ward said on the Kentucky Educational Television program "Disrupting the Opioid Epidemic."

The Kentucky Enquirer reported that Lexington, Louisville and Bowling Green have previously hired social workers that focus on victims' advocacy, but Alexandria's hire "will focus, as programs in Illinois and Wisconsin do, on every kind of case from helping children impacted by domestic violence to criminal cases."

"People in crisis cannot self-advocate . . . and that's where the police social worker comes in and helps guide people to the right services," Ward said on KET. He added that 67 percent of their calls for service are non-criminal in nature and said, "When people don't know what to do, they call 911."

Van Ingram, who served with the Maysville Police Department for more than 23 years, six as chief, and is now the executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, called Ward's idea to hire a police social worker "genius."

"A lot of police are often reluctant to step into that social workers role because frankly, that's not what we are trained to do," Ingram said. "But to have one there at the police department to make those referrals, that can help with those situations is just genius in my mind."

Abbie Darst of Kentucky Law Enforcement Magazine reported last year how Ward learned about the police social work position and how it's working out.

Pompilio leaves these cards with heroin
users or their family members in the hopes
they will seek treatment. (WCPO image)

One of the programs spearheaded by Kelly Pompilio, the agencies' police social worker, is the Angel Program, which was created by the Alexandria police and has been replicated across the state. This program, with the help of volunteers, not only helps people with substance use disorders get into treatment, but also helps them move through recovery to find jobs or educational opportunities. The program has reached out to more than 90 individuals, with over 40 entering treatment.

Abby Anstead and Kristyn Hartman of Cincinnati's WCPO-TV reported in detail about Pompilio and the Angel Program.

“The biggest thing I do is helping families in crisis getting linked to what they need and being able to make those phone calls for them,” Pompilio told them. “With our drug treatment programs, each addict, I probably call 10 facilities each time and put them on waiting lists, find out what insurance they accept, what the waiting list is, what their program looks like, their availability -- and for a family member to have to do that when they’ve already been emotionally drained, that’s very difficult.”

Ward's advice to other police departments: "Hire a darn social worker and let them do the job, they are phenomenal."

The Erlanger Police Department has done just that, Breanna Molloy reports for WCPO. Inspired by Alexandria, the Erlanger department hired its own social worker, Becky Strouse, who told Molloy in April that in her two months on the job, she had already followed up on dozens of calls related to mental illness, drug abuse and domestic violence.

"For example, there was a domestic violence situation where we had been called multiple times in a three-day time frame. And then we were able to get the mom and the children out of the home and get them placed into a safe place," Strouse said.

Ashland Middle School students invent device to pick up needles, win $150,000 technology grant for school

A group of middle school students at Ashland Middle School were inspired to create a device to pick up used syringes after learning that first responders had only rubber gloves and tongs to pick them up. The students have been recognized nationally for their invention.

Ashland Middle School was one of three schools to win the 2018 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest for inventing a device to pick up dirty needles, winning the school a $150,000 technology grant. The annual contest challenges sixth through 12th graders to use science, technology, engineering arts and mathematics to address real-world issues and inspire local change.

The device is slightly longer than a syringe and about two inches wide; it looks like a small plastic box with teeth. To pick up the needle, the box is placed over it, teeth side down, then squeezed to pick up then needle, without anyone touching it. The device can then be placed in an evidence cylinder.

"This doesn't solve the drug crisis; it just helps us stay safe while we are trying to solve the drug crisis," Aubree Hay, a student who worked on the project, said on a recent Kentucky Educational Television program, "Disrupting the Opioid Epidemic: A KET Forum."

The students created the device after their school resource officer, Troy Patrick, pitched the idea to their science and technology teacher and explained to them the dangers first responders face when they come upon dirty needles left behind by intravenous drug users, including exposure to HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and leftover drug residue.

"This is something that could be nationwide," Patrick said. "It could be used in every ambulance and every police department in the nation."

Ashland Middle School is in Boyd County, which has been particularly hard hit by the opioid epidemic. The state's 2017 Overdose Fatality Report found that the county ranked fourth for overdose deaths per person, at 64.6 per 100,000 residents.

Will Wright of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports that staff at the local elementary schools in Boyd County scan playgrounds every day for discarded needles.

The students started working on the project last fall and won the state level competition in December, an honor that came with a $50,000 technology award. In March, they became one of 10 national finalists and after presenting their projects to a panel of judges in New York in April, they were chosen as one of three 2018 national grand prize winners, according to the news release.

The New York Post reports that Ashland Middle School was also named the Community Choice Award winner, based on the public's votes, which will bring a further $20,000 of technology to the school.

The students have also created an online database where people can report where they find used needles, as a way to map the areas most likely to encounter drug paraphernalia.

Ann Woo, senior director of corporate citizenship for Samsung, told Wright that the Ashland project stood out because it could be utilized in communities across the world that are impacted by the drug epidemic. “We loved the creativity and ingenuity,” Woo said, adding that the invention “can actually have impact in other communities across the nation.”

The other two grand-prize winners were Cavallini Middle School in Upper Saddle River, N.J., which developed a helmet concussion sensor, and Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Winston-Salem, N.C., which built a smart water-sensor system that automatically deploys water barriers during floods.

Family that lost a member to overdose raises money for drug education, fosters youth group in Oldham County

Mason Reppen (photo via The Oldham Era)

An Oldham County family that lost a son and brother to a drug overdose has responded by fostering a drug-education program and a youth group, Amanda Manning reports for The Oldham Era.

Mason Reppen died of an overdose of fentanyl in Lexington, and another 22-year-old University of Kentucky student, Clay Jennings, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of providing the drug to him, Manning reports. Jennings had "no criminal record and a stable home life." He is to be sentenced Sept. 28.

"After Mason passed away, family and friends asked how they could help," Manning writes. Reppen's mother, Kelley Wirth, created a GoFundMe page for drug education in the county that has raised more than $6,700.

"From there, Wirth and her daughter got involved with the Coalition for a Healthy Oldham County through the Oldham County Health Department. A new organization, Youth Linking Oldham County, was also created around that time in partnership with the coalition and Oldham County Schools." Reppen's sister helped name the group.

Wirth told Manning, "It’s very hard for all of us because it’s a small community and this disease is attacking a small community,” Wirth said. “We need to treat this disease like we would treat any other disease whether it be cancer or diabetes. We need to help those people that have those addictions.” Manning notes that seven people died of overdoses in Oldham County last year, but the number may be under-reported because deaths that occur in Louisville are attributed to Jefferson County.

Members of the youth group "plan to educate their classmates on the harms of underage drinking, e-cigarettes and other drugs. During the last week of school, they taught fifth graders the harms of these drugs in a special activity," Manning reports. "Wirth said others could be hiding it from their parents in fear of disappointing them." She told Manning, “If we keep it up this way, everybody’s going to be so good at hiding it, we’re just going to see death after death after death. . . . We want Mason’s life to make a difference. If we can help one family, one student or young adult, then that’s the important message,” Wirth said. “That’s the important part of this, is to be able to keep it from happening.”

Sept. 5 continuing education event focuses on opioid recovery, solutions in NE Ky.; features Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland

The upcoming Northeast Kentucky Area Health Education Center continuing education event will feature Sam Quinones, author of the book Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic, which chronicles the rise of prescription abuse and subsequent addiction across the nation.

The Sept. 5 event, called "Recovery and Solutions: The Next Chapter in Northeast Kentucky's Opioid Epidemic," will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Morehead Conference Center. And while it is targeted toward physicians, pharmacists, nurses and other interested health care professionals, journalists are also welcome. Dinner will be provided to attendees, but registration is required. Click here to register.

Quinones will talk about the roles doctors and pharmaceutical companies have played in the national opioid epidemic and how the evolving marketing techniques of heroin dealers have contributed to this national crisis.

The co-founders of Voices of Hope, Alex Elswick and Shelley Elswick, will also host a session called "Voices of Hope: Personal Experiences of the Opioid Crisis." Voices of Hope is a nonprofit organization that offers recovery support to people with substance use disorders. This session will discuss the complex nature of substance use disorders and stigma, as well as the importance of focusing on recovery rather than the pathology of addiction.

A third session, titled, "Unmet Treatment Needs of Opioid Use Disorder: The Scope of the Problem and a Way Forward," will focus on the medical consequences of untreated opioid use disorder, and delve into the differences between primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. This session will be led by Dr. Michelle Lofwall, associate professor, Department of Behavioral Science and Psychiatry, University of Kentucky College of Medicine Center on Drug and Alcohol Research.

Ten attendees will be randomly selected to receive a copy of Dreamland, and time has been allotted at the end of the event for a book signing by Quinones.

For more information about the continuing education requirements or accreditation, contact KaSandra Hensley at kasandra.hensley@neahec.org or call 606-783-6830.

Columbia weekly uses national database to report on staffing levels at Adair County nursing homes

Kentucky Health News published a story July 10 about a national database revealing that staffing levels at nursing homes weren't as good as the industry has made them out to be. Last week the Adair County Community Voice used the data to do a local story. We salute them for it, because many local newspapers avoid going out of their way to report unfavorable information about local businesses. In this case, the Community Voice is looking out for the interests of its readers, which should come first. "Nothing has more to do with how well nursing homes treat their patients than staffing," the Lexington Herald-Leader said in an editorial. (For larger versions of these images, click on them.)