Health

Six Kansas cities have added e-cigarettes to their local smoking bans. (BIGSTOCK)

Take 5 for your health

Health Advocates Will Push To Add E-Cigarettes To Kansas Smoking Ban Kansas’ ban on smoking tobacco products in most public places has been in place since 2010. In those five years, the smoke-free atmosphere of bars, restaurants and other indoor spots has become the norm. Erica Anderson, a health promotion specialist for the Lawrence-Douglas County…

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This batch of young turkeys is among the first birds returned to an avian-flu infected farm in northwest Iowa. (Photo: Amy Mayer | Harvest Public Media)

Take 5 for your health

Officials, Farmers Preparing For Fall Bird Flu Outbreak Amid Ongoing Mystery Farmers and agriculture officials are gearing up for another round of bird flu this fall, an outbreak they fear could be worse than the devastating spring crisis that hit egg layers and turkeys in the Midwest, wiped out entire farms and sent egg prices…

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Welcome to the working week

Using figures from the American Time Use Survey, NPR’s Lam Thuy Vo created this graphic and story What Americans Actually Do all Day Long, In 2 Graphics in 2012. Has much changed for any of us?

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A recently unsealed 'whistleblower' lawsuit alleges Lawrence Memorial Hospital defrauded Medicare and Medicaid. (File photo)

Lawsuit Alleges Medicare Fraud At Lawrence Memorial Hospital

A former emergency room nurse at Lawrence Memorial Hospital has filed a federal “whistleblower” lawsuit alleging that the hospital falsified patient records to obtain higher Medicare and Medicaid payments. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan. on behalf of Megen Duffy alleges that top hospital officials knew about the fraud, which…

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KU Med Breaks Ground For New, $75M Training Facility

When Dr. David Zamierowski was training as a physician in the 1960s, he tried out his new skills on living patients.

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Take 5 for your Health

NURSES RALLY TO PROTEST STAFFING AND COMPENSATION AT RESEARCH MEDICAL CENTER Dozens of registered nurses and supporters marched and chanted outside of Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Thursday evening to draw attention to labor issues. The picketers, who were organized by the National Nurses United union, say the hospital is failing to comply…

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Hospital Leader Challenges Brownback On Innovation, Medicaid Comments

The head of the Kansas Hospital Association is taking issue with comments made by Gov. Sam Brownback at a recent news conference. Asked about his continuing opposition to Medicaid expansion, Brownback downplayed the importance of the issue, telling reporters that innovation is more important to hospital finances than the billions of additional federal dollars that expansion would…

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An irrigated field in Kansas. Irrigation accounts for about 85 percent of the state’s water use, according to the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Division of Water Resources.

Plentiful access to water fuels prosperity in rural Republic County community

In mid-fall, trucks full of corn and soybeans rumble through the north-central Kansas town of Courtland on their way to the grain elevator at the south end of Main Street. While neighboring counties struggle to survive, the western half of Republic County, including Courtland, population 273, isn’t doing too bad. Technology and insurance companies support the…

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A man in Kansas takes a drink from a water container. While about 96 percent of Kansans receive water from public water supplies that meet or exceed all state and federal regulations for clean water, some public water systems have one of more sources that exceed safe levels of contaminants.

Most water in Kansas safe to drink

The good news about the public water supply in Kansas is that almost all of it is safe to drink. About 96 percent of Kansans receive water from public water supplies that meet or exceed all state and federal regulations for clean water, said Mike Tate, director of the Bureau of Water for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. “The vast, vast majority of…

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Obesity And Diabetes In KC Area Continue To Rise

While health trends in metropolitan Kansas City are generally headed in a positive direction, two exceptions are obesity and diabetes. Every county from 2004 to 2011 saw growth in the rates of those conditions. There’s a glimmer of good news, however. Measured across shorter time frames, 2004-2007 and 2008-2011, the rates for those conditions have…

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