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Show The Salt Lake Tribune HEALTH & SCIENCE SCIENCE LEY Thursday, December 30. 1999 Millennial Shift Is Just a Routine Emergency For Most MajorProviders of Health Care MATTERS Manyparents have their infants sleep on their backs to reduce therisk of “crib death.” The precaution has reduced the numberof crib deaths dramatically in recent years,butit has also deformed the heads of many infants. Proper education of parents and physicians can help prevent both crib death and head deformity. BY MARC KAUFMAN THE WASHINGTON Pd POST WASHINGTON ” the 1 in 60 infants have misshapen jc. Ear position and heed ahape aie keya to diagnosis. Face (baby is sucking thumb) Sleeping in one pe over a long period cai Gravity flattens — Neck muscles may shorten ortighten abnormally. if the joints in the acle skull close too early, water balloon “Butthe bad news is that Y2K is Most lems have been eliminated, ex. perts say, even though the health. care industry was among the iast to address the issue. And medical devices such as pacemakers are not expected to create problems either. “T would not hesitate to be a like a Brain — develops normally head oes intoa feorted — patient-care risks at hospitals associated with Y2K computer pes infant's head deform aninfant's head. information for health-care providers, based in Minneapolis. 2 Upper soft spot closes chairman of the American Hospi- for longer than one week more than 5,000 American hospi- “You'll be able to play it for a tals. “Hospitals are always plan- aroundthat,” said Fred L. Brown, restin the same are awake, keep them on their stomachs as much as possible & Alternate infant's sleeping postion a rom right side to ion side toyack ® Abagof rice or commercial pad 1 year: Twosoft spots on rearsides close monthsof 2000,” Setterberg said. If computers in hospitals, nursing homes and doctors’ offices are not fully upgraded for Y2K, he said, they will not be able to prop- let infantssleep or 3 Wheninfants 3 months: knows whatthe full extent of Y2K failures in heaith care mightbe as they play out over the weeks and erly communicate with insurance companies and Medicare, making it difficult to file claims and get paid, “Tt will be like a record with a patient on New Year’s or any time First year Is critical Anewbom's skull naturally changes shape duringbirth, then returns to normalwithin a few weeks. The skull loses mostof its flexibility ascranial bones grow together. nota one-time event, and nobody will help keep an infantonhis side tal Association, which represents ning ahead for emergencies, and they've doneit with Y2K.” But analysts specializing in the health industry’s computer readiness for the year 2000 say unex- pected glitches may still occur — especially at smaller and financially strapped facilities, clinics and doctors’offices. The chairman of the President’s Council on Year 2000 Conversionreflected this fear when he singled outthe health industry for attention.In a general assessment of Y2K preparedness, John Koskinen said, “We are stil! concerned bad scratch,” i sure the Medicare and Medicaid programs are ready for 2000. Ach, g op in st cord to nGary Chri chtef informatio officer for the federal Health Care Financnting Admints.s tration, governme computer will be Y2K ready. But he doe esn't believe that all health-car PYome. viders can say the saen a “We've undertak an unprécedented outreach effort to provide ert education and technical suppy, ” to the provider communit Christoph said. But the resporise has not been uniform, and it temains unclear how manydoctors om ooLae made the neces. Setterberg said. aanPrieta that a few die get a little worse and the record will skip more. Andafter a while, it won't workatall.” waiting for something to break, then they’ll try to fix it,” he said. Setterberg of Rx2000 estimates thatonly 50 percentof health-care providers havetested their billing Forits part, the federal governmenthas spent $390-million during the past two years to make ableto file Medicare and Medicaid claims. while, but every time the Y2K glitch comes up, the problem will systems to makesure they will be in this country about readiness in aed ‘arly, misshapenheads usually can be ected without surgery 16 months: For 2 or 3 months,infant is repositioned de to lie on the side opposite the flattened areas. ‘@xercises and massages may beni ‘6 months: Child wears a custom: more emoved only for bathing and hours Presses on area Gaplets head to be reshaped . At 16 months (right) Society, a Washington-based, non- profit institute that has tracked health-care readiness,said in her Jatest assessment that “Health care in the United States will suffer from a low-grade ‘flu bug’ throughoutthe year 2000.” She said that many ofthe hun- dreds of thousands of health-care providers in the nation have upgraded their equipmentso thatit will not be affected by the shift to the year 2000, “but some smaller hospitals, clinics and doctors’ groups are not ready. Most of Eight months after he began wearing the barid, his head shape had greatly improved those not ready haveatleast dealt with systems that affect patient care, butit also appears that some Thomaswore the havenotdonethat.” band until he was 21 The Y2K, or year 2000, computer problem refers to the inability of some computers and software to properly read the date _~ thereby causing glitches that ipt their functioning. Many older computer systems use months old Cold Air MakesSinks A Natural Lab two-digit dates for years, and “(Peter Sinks is]just like a teacup. As the sun goes down, cold air drains into the basin. When the whole teacup isfilled, it overflows«and drains into other areas.” John Horei @ Continued from B-1 University of Utah meteorology professor recorded in Utah and second- eee coldestin the 48 contiguousstates, Alder said. The record low was minus69.7 degrees at Rogers Pass, Mont., on Jan.20, 1954. The Department of Energy awarded Clements a three-year, $54,000 fellowship to conduct his research. His experiment was aimed largely at determing how cold air pools in Peter Sinks. ‘There are two main causes. First is “radiative cooling,” in which the groundcoolstheair directly aboveit, both at the bottom ofPe- ter Sinks and along adjacent slopes. Second is the downhill flow of cold air from those slopes into the basin bottom. | Last Sept. 9 through 13, Clements led a team of 10 graduate students into Peter Sinks. They were jdined by Horel; by David Whiteman and Jerry Allwine from Pacific Northwest Laboratory;and by researchers from Campbeil i of Logan, which provided some meteorological equipent; and the Army's Dugway roving Ground, which is intersted in how inversions affect dis- fersion ofchemical and biological eapons, Clements said. + areas suchas health care.” it Anderson,director of policy for the Center for Y2K and The group conducted measure- Mnents from 6 p.m.to 11.a.m.on five fonsecutive nights. Peter Sinks’ bility to collect cold air was ppparent. « “Thefirst night we camped on the ridge line, and it was 45 de- igrees Fahrenheit,” Clements said. {Two hundred feetbelow,it was 17 he You could walk down and feelit.’ t impressed someinitially measure wind speed and direction, relative humidity and temperature. Anotherinstrument es- timated heatloss from the basin. Three helium-filled weather balloons on tethers were raised to measure temperature and wind speed anddirection up to 1,300 feet abovePeter Sinks. “Students sat in chairs to run these balloons,” Clements said. “We took shifts throughout the night. No one wanted to do the lowerballoonsites because it was so cold.” The measurements showed cold air started flowing downhill into the basin at 1 mph once the sun sank low enough at about 6 p.m. “It was a light breeze, like someone blowing a cold breath on you,” Clements said. Within a few hours, cold air filled the basin, the breezes into the basin stopped and cold air started spilling over the ridges into adjacent areas. Clements said the fact the downhill flows stopped after only a few hours suggests such flows maybe less importantin creating inversions than direct cooling of valley-bottom air by the valley computerspecialists believe that these systems would read “00” to mean 1900, causing problems. Over the past few years, Y2K experts have predicted possible health-care problems ranging from prescription-drug shortages to inoperative intensive-care equipmentto malfunctioning hospital telephone systems and elevators, But now the experts say longer-term problems in billing and medical records are the most likely results of the computer bug. “We all hope and believe that the health-care system will be functional in the first week of January,” said Gary Setterberg, senior vice presidentofthe Rx2000 Solutions Institute, a nonprofit clearinghouse floor. Doran said that during the VTMX project, similar measure- ments will be madeto determineif cold air flowing down the east slope of the Oquirrh Range con- "atetatePeten tributes to Salt Lake Valley inver- sions or flows over the inversion layers, Rebecca Hodges assisted with researchfor this story. FURNITURE COMPANY What made HEADLINES the day you were born? Many of us will never know. That's why The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News are offering those who enter this world a keepsake for generations to come. 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