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Tuesday: Health

Legislation to improve health care data sharing may be approved

LANSING — Legislation to overhaul how health care providers share patient data is expected to be sent to the full House later this year, with supporters claiming it will save lives and reduce unnecessary clinic trips. Bills brought to the Committee on Health Policy by Reps. Julie Rogers, D-Kalamazoo, and Curtis VanderWall, R-Ludington, would allow a nonprofit Health Information Exchange to serve as a statewide Health Data Utility and earmark Medicaid funds to pay for it. The goal is to ensure providers receive as much information from each other as possible about their mutual ...

Dear Annie

Dear Annie: My oldest son is married, and while I have always tried to maintain a good relationship with my daughter-in-law, it’s clear that she doesn’t like me. Despite this, I love my two grandchildren more than words can express and cherish every moment I get to spend with them. However, I often feel excluded from their lives, especially when it comes to family trips. My daughter-in-law is very close to her mother, and they frequently plan vacations to Disneyland and Disney World — places that I adore. Over the years, there have been four different Disney trips that included ...

Talk with the Doc

In one of my previous columns, I reviewed some interesting fun facts about our great Lake Superior that certainly is a significant part of our great Upper Peninsula. Of course, Lake Michigan is also is very great part of our wonderful Upper Peninsula. We are certainly blessed to be here in the Upper Peninsula where we are surrounded by the five Great Lakes, which include Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Let us now also take a look at some of the very interesting fun facts about Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is the second largest of the Great ...

Health matters – classic

Some medical topics are not for the faint of heart or those with a weaker stomach. One obvious example is that of chronic wounds and their care. As a specialist in foot and ankle medicine, I find this a fascinating topic which occupies a fair amount of my attention. Although not everyone’s cup of tea, wound care is challenging. An extremely common concern, these non-healing sores (technically known as ulcers), are not only a common problem but often very difficult to resolve. Numerous physicians, in a variety of specialties, encounter them in the course of their work. Thus, some ...

Urology Pearls: Is butter really better?

Should you dip your bread in oil or spread butter over it? Will those who consume oil rather than butter be healthier? Will they live longer? One way to explore such a question is to compare populations that consume more oil with those that consume more butter. France and Italy immediately come to mind. French cuisine traditionally incorporates a substantial amount of butter (in 2024 Frenchmen consumed 8.38 kilograms of butter per person compared with only 2.4 kilograms in Italy), while Italians consume much more olive oil than Frenchmen (9.08 liters vs 1.60 liters annually). The ...

Health Matters: The many causes of arthritis

Too many Americans are living with pain. Certainly, there are innumerable reasons for people to experience discomfort from some specific part of the body. But one in particular, affecting far too many Americans, and often inadequately addressed, is the scourge that is chronic joint pain. Unfortunately, far too often, recurring pain from some joint is explained away, completely minimized, by being labeled simply as our old friend “Arthur-Itis.” A typical scenario: someone in their ‘middle-aged’ years begins to experience aching from the knee, a particularly common site. In this ...