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Wisconsin has seen several hospital mergers in the last year. How could they affect patients?

Wisconsin Public Radio

Ashley Swanson, associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said hospital mergers — on average — increase prices, while having a negligible effect on patient care.

“It seems like they primarily increase prices when the merging hospitals are located close to one another,” she said. “But there is some relatively new evidence suggesting that cross-market mergers can sometimes increase prices as well.”

‘We put so much blood, sweat and literal tears into this place’: Derek and T.J. Watt have Pewaukee jerseys retired

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On a beautiful Friday night there was a gaggle of young kids tossing around a football behind the stands at Feuerstein Field. This being at Pewaukee High School, most of the youngsters were clad in jerseys of the Watt brothers: a Derek fan in an old No. 34 San Diego Chargers jersey tried to wrestle the pigskin away from a ball-carrier sporting T.J.’s No. 90 in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ black and yellow. There were several No. 99s looking on, representing J.J.’s time both at the University of Wisconsin and the Houston Texans.

Candidate Derrick Van Orden said earmarks would ‘open the door to corruption.’ In Congress, he’s seeking $73 million

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Pocan’s $24 million also covered 15 projects, including $3 million for a Dane County water filtration upgrade, $2 million to expand a Green County YMCA, and $3 million to build a new food pantry in Madison. It also includes a $2 million request for the University of Wisconsin-Madison to aid in PFAS contamination research.

Wisconsin ‘prime working age’ labor force participation among best in the nation

Wisconsin Public Radio

The rate at which Wisconsin’s “prime working age” adults are either working or looking for work is among the best in the country, according to a recent report from the University of Wisconsin-Extension.

“It speaks a lot to our work ethic,” said Matt Kures, the report’s author and a community economic development specialist for UW-Extension. “Traditionally, we have had high participation rates and I think that’s just kind of ingrained in us.”

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average cost of infant care in Wisconsin is $12,567 annually, or $1,047 per month. Laura Dresser, associate director of the COWS economic think tank at UW-Madison, said women in the workforce feel the effects of that most.

Moms tend to carry the burden of care disproportionately in families,” she said. “The years before the kid goes to school … are really expensive years to work.

Wisconsin football player Kamo’i Latu and former high school teammate settle civil suit in 2018 assault case

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Kamo’i Latu was a significant contributor in his first season at Wisconsin, starting 12 games and finishing fifth on the team in tackles. The rising senior safety from Honolulu is expected to play a key role in UW’s defense in 2023 under new head coach Luke Fickell.

It’s unclear, however, whether his involvement in a civil suit stemming from a sexual assault case in 2018 will in any way affect his status at UW.

This Green Bay business wants to help commercialize an innovative way to recycle plastic

Green Bay Press-Gazette

Noted: Green Bay is poised to become the home of the first commercial STRAP plant, which would take these kinds of plastics and make them into materials that can be used again.

This is done through a process called STRAP — which stands for solvent-targeted recovery and precipitation — developed from early work done by undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Now, George Huber, a professor in chemical and biological engineering at UW-Madison, is leading a team at the Center for Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics, or CUWP, working to take STRAP from the lab to a commercial setting.

The center is funded by a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and is made up of people from UW-Madison and five other universities, a national laboratory and more than 20 industrial partners.

Amid state budget debate and enrollment declines, campuses face uncertain futures

Wisconsin Public Radio

As Wisconsin lawmakers weigh their funding goals for higher education, two campuses are winding down due to declining enrollment and financial woes. We hear from Washington County officials aiming to save a struggling two-year college. Then, an education reporter brings us the latest news in Wisconsin higher education.

Musical ‘Hadestown’ at Marcus Center sings an old song with a powerful American accent

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Directed and developed by Rachel Chavkin, the musical “Hadestown” has two important Wisconsin connections. University of Wisconsin alum André De Shields won a Tony for originating the show-stopping role of Hermes on Broadway. And in Mitchell’s 2010 concept album version of “Hadestown,” Orpheus was sung by Justin Vernon, aka Mr. Bon Iver.

UW–Madison launches Chicano/a and Latino/a major program

Madison 365

Starting the fall semester, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will have the opportunity to pursue a major in the Chican@ & Latin@ Studies program. Up until now, only a certificate has been achievable in the program, as Chicana/o and Latina/o studies has been present at the university since 1988 in the College of Letters & Science.

An updated name is joined by what the director of Chican@ & Latin@ Studies, Professor Rubén Medina, sees as a surge in both faculty and opportunity. Medina spoke of the last decade having a significant impact in terms of increased capacity by expanding faculty and interest areas, along with increased interest in the Chican@ & Latin@ Studies certificate.

Universities in Wisconsin and beyond line up to serve those impacted by Cardinal Stritch University closure

Wisconsin Public Radio

Public and private universities in Wisconsin and beyond are vying to recruit students impacted by the upcoming closure of Milwaukee’s Cardinal Stritch University.

It’s been just more than two weeks since Cardinal Stritch President Dan Scholz announced the university will permanently close its doors next month. The university, which enrolled 1,365 students in the fall of 2021 according to federal data, said it was pursuing agreements with area universities to help students with unfinished degrees transfer to other schools.

With the need for nurses at crisis level, new apprentice program launches in Madison

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A job working at Madison-based UW Health while attending nursing school at Madison College. Full-time benefits and salaries. Paid time-off to attend classes. Free college tuition, books and supplies.

That’s the offer on the table for those aspiring to earn a nursing degree through a recently announced, first-of-its-kind apprenticeship program in Wisconsin launching this fall. The program is designed specifically to address staffing shortages in Wisconsin that Rudy Jackson, UW Health’s chief nurse executive, said have reached “crisis levels.”

Wisconsin kids could see a curfew for social media use under proposed legislation

Wisconsin Public Radio

It’s also not clear that social media use contributes to young people’s emotional struggles, said Heather Kerkorian, who researches the effects of media on children’s development and family interactions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“If we look at individual kids, some kids might benefit a lot from social media, some might be harmed by social media and most of them are not affected much,” Kerkorian said.

Wisconsin businesses want more workers, but barriers prevent many from joining the labor force

Wisconsin Public Radio

Laura Dresser, associate director of the COWS economic think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said another approach could be addressing the issues that prevent people from joining the workforce, like child care, transportation and mental health.

“The central question is: Do we support workers and … (build a) system that supports their engagement in the labor market, and, therefore, economic development in our communities? Or do we try and pretend that there’s just a lot of lazy people?” Dresser asked.

UW System president calls for financial assessments of 2-year campuses amid steep enrollment declines

Wisconsin Public Radio

As a former two-year state college prepares for its final classes, University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman is asking chancellors to assess the financial viability of the state’s 12 other branch campuses. The directive comes amid steep enrollment declines at nearly all of the two-year schools and hesitancy by some counties to make large investments in branch campus buildings without renewed commitments the schools won’t close.

Wisconsin funds UW System and technical colleges differently: One ranks 43rd nationally, the other ranks 5th

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Funding for Wisconsin’s public higher education systems is a tale of two stories, one that is funded eighth worst in the country and another that is fifth best, according to a new report.

The report found that the University of Wisconsin System ranked 43rd nationally for per-pupil funding in 2021. Conversely, only four other states funded their two-year community or technical colleges better than Wisconsin.

National report finds sharp decline in abortions in the U.S. since Dobbs decision

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Jenny Higgins, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Collaborative for Reproductive Equity and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, said the biggest takeaway from the report was that these declines were not balanced out by increases in the number of abortions happening in states where abortion access is less restricted.

“One of the things that people had expected after Dobbs was that states like California would get an influx of people … states with relatively few restrictions,” Higgins said. “What the #WeCount report shows is that we haven’t seen the flooding into those states.”

Ben Chan, Matt Amodio, Aaron Rodgers and other ‘Jeopardy!’ winners with Wisconsin connections

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

One of the biggest “Jeopardy!” winners of all time, Amodio, a native of Medina, Ohio, earned a master’s degree in artificial intelligence from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2017. He won 38 contests on the show in July through October of 2021, and returned in 2022 to play an exhibition match against fellow mega-winners Amy Schneider and Mattea Roach before bowing out in the semifinals in the 2022 Tournament of Champions.

Why we celebrate: Essayists offer reasons for hope from Wisconsin, birthplace of Earth Day

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Greg Nemet continues the tradition of environmental scholarship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison through the La Follette School of Public Affairs, studying energy, climate change and public policy. He says despite a gloomy international report, the capacity to tackle problems has never been greater:

“If there were ever a time to have optimism about our collective capacity and will to address climate change, this is it.  This idea was threaded through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which emphasized that we can still effect transformational change that could stave off the worst possible outcomes and lead to a sustainable, equitable world. Globally, we’ve made considerable progress in a broad range of technologies that are making the transition to a low-carbon economy more affordable and feasible than ever.”

Wisconsin basketball to celebrate milestone and rally for a coach in need

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Everyone loves the “Duck” – as Howard Moore is nicknamed – and everyone, it seems, from the Wisconsin basketball family is coming together to take advantage of a reunion to try to help him. Moore, a former Wisconsin player and assistant basketball coach, is severely disabled after a car accident three years ago and his out-of-pocket, at-home-care costs are $450,000 a year.

New ‘iso cam’ reveals the effort and attitude of the Wisconsin players

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

UW head coach Luke Fickell for years has instructed his team’s video crew to train one camera – the iso cam – on a particular position group.

The highlighted group Thursday was the safeties and, as has been the case all spring, the players weren’t aware they had been in the spotlight until the post-practice review session.

Wisconsin college students turned out in big numbers on campuses for the Supreme Court race

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The line to vote last Tuesday at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire stretched on and on … and on some more.

The corner of a lunch room designated as the campus polling place for sleepy spring elections simply wasn’t enough in this year’s state Supreme Court race. UW-Eau Claire students cast ballots at a level close to last November and even higher than in the 2020 election, big races where the city clerk’s office relies on a university ballroom to meet voter demand.

Froedtert, ThedaCare plan to merge, hope to launch combined health system by end of 2023

Wisconsin Public Radio

In December, University of Wisconsin-Madison Economist Alan Sorensen told Wisconsin Public Radio that mergers may give hospitals more leverage in negotiations with insurance companies.

“Those negotiations are enormously important for the bottom lines of these companies,” Sorensen said at the time. “A lot of times what’s driving the mergers is that (hospital systems) feel like if they’re bigger, they’ll do better in those negotiations, they’ll have more bargaining power, they’ll be more indispensable to the insurance company.”

Six-week waits, 1 counselor for 8 rural districts: These are some of the hurdles facing youth mental health

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Universities across the state are beginning the process of embedding their school psychology graduate students into local public schools. That’s the case for UW-Madison, which is using a new $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to recruit and train 24 new school psychology graduate students, with an emphasis on students of color, into Madison’s public schools over the course of five years.

Do schools need to know when your last period was? Here’s what’s on student athlete forms and who sees it.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The forms are meant to stay in the provider’s office, as with other medical evaluation forms a patient might fill out during an exam, said David Bernhardt, a UW Health Kids general pediatrician, sports medicine physician at UW Health and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

“The form is not designed to go back to the school, so the history and the physical exam form are meant as a framework to guide the provider in getting information in an efficient way,” he said.

‘We’re testing the waters’: Researchers sample bears, deer for COVID to see how the virus spreads

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“It’s really dynamic. We can expect that there will be mutations that pop up and a lot of them won’t be very successful at being transmitted and maintained in populations of animals,” Thomas Yuill, a professor emeritus of pathobiological science, forest and wildlife biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Participating in clinical trials

Wisconsin Public Radio

Thousands of clinical trials underway in Wisconsin require thousands of volunteers – people whose ailments, desire for compensation or altruism motivate them to take part in medical research. We talk with Betsy Nugent, the director of clinical research for the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine.