The South Dakota Public Health Association
South Dakota Legislature
2010 Legislative Session
· Support a Board of Regents effort to create a graduate level School of Public Health at one or more of the State’s institutions of higher learning.
· Support national efforts to strengthen professional preparation and ongoing education for public health professionals.
· Advocate for partnerships with schools of public health to provide distance learning opportunities for SD public health professionals.
· Advocate for the expansion of public health opportunities within current SD health professional education programs, such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy.
· Promoting worksite strategies that address several health issues (e.g., smoking cessation, stress management, cholesterol reduction) as well as healthy weight management issues.
· Strengthening the school's nutrition and physical activity policies while implementing a high-quality health promotion program for school staff.
· Endorsing health promotion initiatives that target populations early and often, focusing on very young children and pregnant women. Promoting prenatal maternal health by providing pregnant women with access to quality prenatal care that includes anticipatory guidance about appropriate weight gain and physical activity guidelines to help ensure a healthy pregnancy and delivery and a healthy start for their infants.
· Encouraging professional development by training child care providers on establishing culturally sensitive, positive nutrition practices and integrating activities that increase children’s exposure to moderate to vigorous physical activity during their time in care.
The 2010 SD Legislative Session began on January 12. SDPHA will be tracking relevant healthcare and public health related bills. The weekly updates to members will begin January 29 and sent out to members each Friday thereafter. Look for the emails!
Download the current list of public health and health related bills.
The complete list of all session bills is at:
http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2010/BillList.aspx
· Enhance public health programming that targets the needs of minorities and rural families for specific interventions.
· Encourage training on cultural competency and health disparity issues for all providers in the state working with underserved populations.
· Improve access to care for minority and underserved populations, especially through the reduction of financial, language, and transportation barriers.
· Development and widespread adoption of health care quality and efficiency measures. Comprehensive sets of quality measures are needed to reflect the full continuum of health care.
· Assessment and enhancement of the capacity of health care organizations to provide better care more efficiently by rewarding providers for quality and outcomes rather than volume. Payment systems should reward excellence and improve patient safety. Payment reform that rewards clinicians for spending adequate time with patients and encourages a greater focus on prevention, primary care, and wellness will improve health outcomes and lower costs.
· Emphasis on prevention and early intervention of and care coordination for chronic conditions. Health plans lower costs with chronic condition management through health education programs by expanding health plan and employer incentives for enrollees to live healthier lives, and by increasing provider education and screening of patients.
· Establishing “health in all policies” by evaluating and addressing the health impact of all policies across all governmental agencies and sectors of the economy.
