Health

A Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs clinic in a suburban mall has been closed so crews can superheat its tap water to kill bacteria that cause Legionnaire's disease.

Officials don't believe anyone has become ill from water at the clinic in the Washington Crown Center mall in North Franklin Township, about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh in Washington County.

That's according to Brandon Blatt, a vice president of Sterling Medical Corp. of Cincinnati, which leases and runs the clinic under a contract with the VA.

On a recent Thursday morning, Antoinetta Lassiter is playing with roller skates she has just gotten for her fifth birthday. She’s in her Beechview home with her mother and grandmother, asking an endless stream of questions.

Her mother Melinda Lassiter said it's nice to have her home, but if things had gone as planned, her daughter would still be enrolled in her Head Start program.

"I went to pick her up from school, and the teacher told us the school was closing on the 19th of April … and that was kind of shocking actually," she said. 

The average hospital in Pennsylvania made money in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2012, but not as much as they did the year before and not enough to make the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) confident about the future.

The PHC4 released its annual study Wednesday, which found the 171 General Acute Care hospitals in the state realized on average a 5.82 percent operating margin in 2011-2012. That was down from 7.04 percent the year before but above the industry benchmark of 4 percent for a healthy hospital.

The state Department of Public Welfare wants to reduce mental health stigma.

A new initiative, "Mental Health Matters," is being funded by a reduction in Community Hospital Integration Program Project, or CHIPP, funding to a county that was unable to move clients into the community in the time frame that was originally planned and from money set aside for litigation needs that wasn’t used, according to department spokeswoman Donna Morgan.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is celebrating “VA Research Week,” highlighting the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System’s Human Engineering Research Laboratories at Bakery Square, where robotic technology is being used to improve the mobility and function of people with disabilities.  

The KitchenBot can be programmed to make an entire meal; the Cueing Kitchen is a cabinet layout with appliances that gives audio prompts to those with cognitive disabilities so they can function in the kitchen.

State Sen. Matt Smith (D-Allegheny/Washington) is introducing legislation that would mandate insurance companies reimburse people with diabetes for pain management. 

Smith noted that while patients are reimbursed for other diabetes-related costs, treatment for neuropathy is not one of them.

"Patients who have it experience intense aching, tingling, burning and numbness," he said. "What's really problematic about it is if it's left unmanaged, the condition can worsen to the point where the individual will need hospitalization or further treatment by way of an operation."

Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor is hoping that a two-year concentrated effort on organ donation education will help to swell the rolls of organ and tissue donors in the state. The focus of the campaign is that it takes just 30 seconds to register to become an organ donor. 

“In the time it takes you to tie your shoes, you can change your life,” said Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley.  “You can become a hero and become an organ donor. It takes a half minute ... so do it.”

Air quality in Pittsburgh is getting cleaner, but it continues to negatively affect the health and well-being of city residents.

The Breathe Project and Allegheny General Hospital convened a summit Tuesday — World Asthma Day — to examine the overall effects of poor air quality, from increased instances of asthmatic attacks, higher mortality rates and cancer.

It is well known that uncontrolled bleeding can cause multiple organ failure and death.  It is also known that plasma reduces bleeding, so some are wondering if administering it early--while a patient is being transported to a hospital would lower mortality. 

That thought has prompted The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC to organize a four-year multi-center study of whether administering plasma to trauma victims on emergency helicopters will improve outcomes and save lives.