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Department of State Health Services

The latest Department of State Health Services news from The Texas Tribune.

  • TribBlog: LBB: State Must Improve Care For Disabled

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The way Texas is currently providing care for people with disabilities — keeping all its state institutions in operation, despite increasing demand for community-based care — is not cost effective, and should be changed, according to an analysis released by the Legislative Budget Board on Wednesday. Full Story 

    Austin State-Supported Living Center employee Tamika Mays is shown with resident Rebecca Hadnot in 2011.
    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • A Stiff Cocktail of Budget Cuts

    By Texas Tribune Staff

    The Texas House has unveiled a $156.4 billion budget that's $31.1 billion smaller than the current two-year spending plan — a drop of 16.6 percent. The proposed budget came with $1.2 billion in recommendations for savings and new revenue from the Legislative Budget Board. Full Story 

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  • The Hispanic Paradox

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Many of the longest lives in Texas are lived in an unlikely place: along the impoverished border with Mexico, where residents often live until age 80 and beyond. Explanations for this so-called "Hispanic Paradox" range from theories about differences in the diet, faith and family values of first-generation South Texans to suggestions that natural selection is at play in immigration patterns. Full Story 

    Endoscopy tech Dora Facturan, right, prepares Maria Perez, 65, for a colonoscopy exam from Dr. Carlos Cardenas, back left, on December 8, 2010 at the Doctor's Hospital at Renaissance in Edinburg. South Texans lead some of the longest lives in the state.
    Credit: Gabe Hernandez

  • The Stroke Belt

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The proof of East Texas' live-hard, die-young culture is in the bread pudding — and the all-you-can-eat fried catfish, the drive-through tobacco barns and the doughnut shops by the dozen. In a community where heavy eating and chain smoking are a way of life, where poverty, hard-headedness and even suspicion hinder access to basic health care, residents die at an average age of 73, or seven years earlier than the longest-living Texans, according to a preliminary county-by-county analysis by the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Full Story 

    Residents of East Texas, and particularly minorities, often make lifestyle choices, like smoking and eating high-fat diets, that affect their life expectancy.
    Credit: Lawrence Jenkins

  • TribBlog: Steady Medi(caid)

    By Becca Aaronson

    Thirteen states expanded Medicaid or CHIP eligibility last year, and 14 states made improvements in enrollment and renewal procedures. Texas didn't fall into either of these categories, but the state held steady in 2010, while making improvements in technology to prepare for the roll-out of federal health care reform. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • Mental Breakdown

    By Erika Aguilar, KUT News

    Mental health providers are bracing themselves for brutal budget cuts. Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • Discharged?

    By Emily Ramshaw

    Advocates for shuttering Texas' institutions for people with disabilities say they have a big plus in their column this session: the state’s giant budget crunch. Full Story 

    Austin State-Supported Living Center employee Tamika Mays is shown with resident Rebecca Hadnot in 2011.
    Credit: Todd Wiseman

  • Mental Math

    By Brandi Grissom

    Texas sheriffs fear that the looming budget shortfall will turn the growing shortage of bed space for their psychologically disturbed inmates at state mental hospitals into a crisis. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • A "B" for Effort

    By Julie Chang

    One in 10 Asian-Americans has hepatitis B, a rate that is 20 times higher than the rest of the population — and is surely pronounced in Houston, which has the fourth-largest Asian population of any U.S. metropolitan area. But state public health officials struggle to get funding for vaccinations and outreach. Full Story 

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  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    M. Smith and Butrymowicz of the Hechinger Institute on charter schools and public schools making nice in the Valley, Ramsey's interview with House Speaker candidate Ken Paxton and column on the coming budget carnage, Hu on the Legislature's disappearing white Democratic women, Grissom on the sheriff who busted Willie Nelson, Hamilton talks higher ed accountability with the chair of the Governor's Business Council, Aguilar on the arrest of a cartel kingpin, Ramshaw on the explosive growth in the number of adult Texans with diabetes, Philpott on state incentive funding under fire and Galbraith on the greening of Houston: The best of our best from November 29 to December 3, 2010. Full Story 

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    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • Diabetic Shock

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The number of adult Texans with diabetes is expected to quadruple over the next three decades, a massive spike that demographers and health care experts attribute to the state’s aging population and obesity epidemic. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman

  • There Will Be Blood

    By Ross Ramsey

    Ask House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, and he'll tell you: The budget he and his fellow finance types will put forward in a few weeks confirms fears that carnage is looming. "We're making huge cuts," he told a Tea Party group last week. Full Story 

    State Representative Jim Pitts, representing District 10. District 10 includes Ellis County and Hill County, Texas.
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • A Conflict in Care?

    By Emily Ramshaw

    For years, the state paid private providers who care for people with disabilities to handle their clients’ case management. But an 11th-hour change inserted into the budget last session stripped them of that responsibility, giving it instead to quasi-governmental Mental Retardation Authorities — and potentially creating a conflict of interest. Full Story 

    Health care assistant Crystal Kreig plays a card game with Steve Parker (center) and Eulalio Alvarada (right) at a group home operated by D&S Residential, Inc. Companies like D&S used to handle case management for their clients, but a budget change sent that responsibility to local Mental Retardation Authorities.
    Credit: Caity Colvard