NEWS  For most people, outpatient surgery means a quick medical procedure that allows the recently-operated-upon to recuperate at home instead of enduring a hospital stay.
But more and more often, outpatient surgeries are being performed in doctor’s offices, instead of hospitals or ambulatory surgical centers. Office-based surgeries are the fastest-growing segment of outpatient surgeries. Because of this unprecedented growth, they’re also the least regulated. Read More>>

NEWS  When the United States was first created, its founders guaranteed the fledgling nation’s citizens the freedom to worship in any way — and to any God — they wanted.
But for Native Americans, it took almost 200 years to secure that same right with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Toni Lodge, executive director for the NATIVE Project and NATIVE Health of Spokane, says she’s reminded of this “parallel universe” between Native Americans and every other American when it comes to health care.
“We weren’t allowed to practice our own religion until 1976,” she says. “Many assumed we had freedom of religion when we did not … It’s the same [with health care]. Many people assumed we had health care with [Indian Health Service, or IHS]. We did not.”
This year, all that changed. Read More>>

NEWS  Over the years, many have tried to make science interesting to kids. We watched Mr. Wizard explain the extraordinary within the mundane at his kitchen/laboratory counter. Beakman and his tall hair delivered facts through irrepressible eccentricity. Bill Nye told us, “Science is cool.”

None of it seemed to work. Read More>>

NEWS  In the future, older people across the country will be treated like senior citizens here in the Inland Northwest. Gentiva Health Services, one of almost 10,000 Medicare-certified agencies nationwide, is one of just 11 home health providers selected to help design the future of health care for aging Americans. And the company will be using programs it developed in the Spokane area. Read More>>

NEWS  Lacey Jones was sliding. A sophomore at Whitworth, Jones had transferred from Washington State to play softball, the sport she loved. She was practicing sliding one day in February 2002, gliding over the grass again and again, until her metal cleats dug into the turf and her ankle popped. The doctor told her it was broken, cast it and prescribed Vicodin, a commonly prescribed narcotic.
That’s when Jones began navigating the fine line between appropriately medicating her pain and abusing a drug. Read More>>

NEWS  A little more than three years ago, about 40 higher-ups from Rockwood Clinic gathered at Fotheringham House in Browne’s Addition for the clinic’s annual board retreat. That weekend, the assembly of board members, executive administrators and other health care officers made a fateful decision at the quiet bed and breakfast not far from downtown Spokane. Read More>>

NEWS  With a chill haunting the air of October, a handful of nurses came together for two days in Spokane and learned how to be doctors.
OK, they’re not quite doctors, but maybe something even better: At the end of seven semesters, these nurses will have doctorates. It’s almost an origin story for Spokane’s first superhero: the Super Nurse. Read More>>

ALT MEDICINE  Those who say migraines are just really bad headaches have never had one. A migraine — its introduction, its symptoms, its pain and its duration — is an altogether different beast. It comes on like fog to a bay, slowly, steadily and almost imperceptibly. Then you see it, the glitch in your vision experts call the “aura,” and you know what’s coming. The aura grows and, depending on the severity of the migraine, the sufferer can sometimes lose all of her vision, large swaths of her vision or maybe just her peripheral vision. Sight returns, only to be replaced by a sharp headache and nausea. Every light, no matter how dim, and every sound, no matter how quiet, causes pain. Hours, sometimes days, pass in this manner. Read More>>

NEWS  Brooks Ohlson grew up in Everett and completed his undergrad education at Western Washington University in Bellingham. After he was accepted to the University of Washington’s medical school, he was told he would be spending his first year in Spokane. He and his wife weren’t quite prepared for this news. Read More>>

INNOVATION  It was in a grocery store one day when a stranger approached Katy’s mother in tears. The stranger — who somehow knew that Katy had lived for eight years with anorexia — wanted to know where she could get help for her own child who had an eating disorder. Read More>>

INNOVATION  Starting this spring, some Spokanites will use Google not just to search the Web or check their e-mail, but to manage their health.

“The idea is to put health information in the hands of the consumers, the people who really need access to it and the people who should, legitimately, be controlling it,” says Inland Northwest Health Service’s Jac Davies. “We want to help people bring all [their health information] together in one place where they have easy access to it.” Read More>>

NEWS  Heather Audel-Neal remembers a specific moment from last March pretty well. She was sitting in a doctor’s office with her husband, awaiting the results from a fresh round of exams: blood tests, an MRI, a spinal tap. Read More>>

PEOPLE  When Ralph DeCristoforo was a graduate student at Washington State University, he wrote a report for a one-credit class. The report detailed the creation of a health care access project, a program to help the most vulnerable and uninsured get health care. Read More>>

NEWS  Consider the popcorn: A simple snack, spare in its ingredients and preparation; a low-fat alternative to the candy bars, donuts and ice creams of the world; an ancient snack, developed by Native Americans and passed down to the modern consumer; a magic food that grows before your eyes — popping at first slowly, then maniacally, before petering out to signal its buttery completion. Read More>>