In November 2016, in response to the significant increase in deaths due to opioid overdose, Governor Terry McAuliffe and Virginia Health Commissioner Marissa Levine declared a public emergency over the state’s opioid addiction crisis. The following are some staggering facts regarding this epidemic:
“Give me tangible solutions— not comfort!”
These are Holly Ladd’s words, painstakingly, but emphatically, typed on an alphabet chart through eye scanning technology. The technology also translates her messages into her actual voice.
Holly is an award-winning, international health care lawyer, afflicted with a terminal disease. She has only days to live, but she is courageously leading her own care and demanding service on her own terms from her service providers.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that Autism Spectrum Disorder affects one out of every 68 births in the U.S. In the past two decades alone, the incidence of autism has increased by 600 percent. So how do we cope with the growing challenge? And how will we pay for it?
I have been involved with quality advancement activities at Grafton for 20 years. Now more than ever, I see leadership’s desire not just to follow best practice but to innovate and define best practices ourselves. I have been through many (many, many) regulatory inspections and accreditation surveys. While some of those experiences may have helped us shape our understanding about a matter, quite honestly just as often the experiences focused on areas that were not truly related to quality of our services.
In March of 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (ACA). One of the ACA’s major provisions is Medicaid expansion. Under the law, states can broaden the Medicaid financial eligibility criteria to families and individuals making up to 133% of the federal poverty level ($15,400 per individual or $32,000 per family of four).This could provide access to more of Grafton’s lower income clients and many others across the state, but unfortunately at this time, the Virginia General Assembly has chosen not to expand this important program.