04/29/2009
http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1148216.cfm
BY MATTHEW E. MILLIKEN
DURHAM -- Can the City of Medicine become a national leader in health?
It can if backers of Durham Health Innovations are to be believed. This comprehensive new project, announced at Tuesday's Durham Health Summit, is meant to assess how health care can be improved here.
Victor Dzau, the president of Duke University Health System, expressed hope that the project will help change the financial basis for health care in this country. "What we want to do is set the example for the country, how this can be done," Dzau said. "And I think [with] the right reform, people will begin to say, wow, you know what? We've got to make sure that we reimburse for those activities so that everybody is healthier, and I think that's coming."
A federal grant and Duke are combining to contribute $1 million to Durham Health Innovations. Over the next seven months, that money will fund a planning effort that is meant to involve the entire Durham community. Participants will include medical researchers, health care providers, the people they treat and the government and nonprofit organizations that serve those people.
At year's end, project leaders will recommend reallocating existing health spending in ways that will improve community health.
Robert Califf, a cardiologist and Duke's vice chancellor for clinic research, said that Durham embodies a paradox of American health. "If you want to find the worst health in the United States, go to the biggest academic health centers where the government is putting the most money into biomedical research," he said.
Although some Durham County health indicators are at or below state averages, the county has the state's fifth-highest HIV infection rate. And in many categories, including teenage pregnancy, infant mortality and sexually transmitted diseases, blacks and Latinos have far higher incidences that whites.
The problem, Califf argued, is not the number of health care providers -- Durham has one of the state's best population-to-provider ratios -- or even the amount of spending. It's an expensive, inefficient health care system that often has trouble translating medical breakthroughs into better community health.
Durham Health Innovations will focus on 10 different areas divided among four categories. The life stage projects will cover maternal and prenatal health, teen health and senior health, while the "hard medical" category will deal with heart and circulation diseases, cancer, and asthma and lung diseases.
The lone behavioral health project will involve a collaborative approach to pain management, substance abuse and psychiatric illness. The medical/behavioral crossover category features projects on obesity, diabetes and sexually transmitted diseases.
Lavonia Allison, the chairwoman of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, said she was excited about Durham Health Innovations. She liked the program's emphasis on quantifying health outcomes as well as its emphasis on bringing health into the community.
"It's extremely important to target where the problems are -- to not wait until people go to institutions of health," Allison said.
Michael Page, the chairman of the Durham Board of County Commissioners, praised Dzau and Duke for sponsoring Durham Health Innovations as well as a variety of other community programs over the last decade.
"What you are really saying to our community is that we care about you and we're not turning our backs to you," Page said during a panel at the end of the health summit.
