Awareness, Diabetes, Health, Medicine Safety, NeedyMeds, Safety
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Website Highlights Safe Disposal Options for Used Needles & Sharps

More and more communities across the country are encountering a commonly overlooked public health and safety issue: improper needle and sharps disposal. “Sharps” is a medical term for devices with sharps points or edges that can puncture or cut skin. Examples of sharps are needles, syringes, lancets, auto injectors, epinephrine and insulin pens, infusion sets, and connection needles/sets. The group of people who are put in the most danger by improper sharps disposal are environmental service workers – janitors, housekeepers, waste and recycling workers and sewage treatment workers. When a needle is tossed directly into the trash, it has the […]

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Awareness, Health
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Gun Violence is a Public Health Issue

In 2016, there were 36,978 deaths in the United States involving guns. This includes 732 children and 3,234 teenagers; 21,386 were suicides and 346 of the events are considered mass shootings (the FBI defines mass shootings as when four or more people are shot and/or killed in a single event at the same general time and location, not including the shooter). Despite disagreements on certain measures among Americans, gun violence can certainly be considered a public health issue in the U.S.   Before 1996, the Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) was charged with researching gun violence, much in […]

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Heart Health, Social Media and Healthcare
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Connecting with others can lead to success

by Andrea Baer, MS, Director of Patient Advocacy and Program Management at Mended Hearts   “I have been where you are, I know how you feel” – That’s a powerful statement. The sense of connectiveness and bonding that can happen is soothing, and often a key to successful recovery. Individuals who are going through a medical crisis or learning to change their lifestyle can find success in these connections. When my son was born in 2009 with a congenital heart defect, I was scared, alone and feared our future. I was given lots of medical information from healthcare professionals, but […]

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Affordable Care Act, Healthcare Reform
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Open Enrollment by the Numbers

Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act (ACA; aka Obamacare) coverage ended across the United States in mid-December, but the last few states ended their open enrollment period at the end of January. We wrote in November about the state of Open Enrollment, and discussed the impacts of confusion surrounding the healthcare law earlier this year. Now that the open enrollment period has ended, we’re able to look at the numbers of people who took advantage and those still left underserved. Even with enrollment period cut in half and other changes enacted by the Trump administration, nearly 11.8 million people signed […]

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Awareness, Health, Heart Health
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American Heart Month

February marks American Heart Month in the US.  Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women, affecting Americans of all backgrounds. In the United States, someone has a heart attack every 40 seconds and someone dies from heart-disease related causes every minute. During American Heart Month, everyone is encouraged to examine their heart health and take charge with heart-healthy behavior. There are a number of risk factors for heart disease. High blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol, and smoking are major risk factors for one’s heart health. Almost half of Americans (47%) are affected by at least […]

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About Us

Welcome to the NeedyMeds Voice! We look forward to presenting you with timely, provocative pieces on healthcare reform, patient advocacy, medication and healthcare access, and other health-related news. Our goals are to educate, enlighten, and elucidate; together, we will try to make sense of the myriad and ongoing healthcare-related changes in the U.S. today.