Barriers to hospice for children as perceived by hospice organizations in North Carolina.

Despite improving organization of hospice for children with life-limiting illnesses, services may be underutilized. We asked representatives of all 76 existing North Carolina hospice organizations about barriers to serving children. Representatives of 61 agencies responded (80%).

Increased prevalence of false positive hemoglobinopathy newborn screening in premature infants.

Background: The objective was to investigate the specificity of the hemoglobinopathy newborn screening in premature neonates as compared to term neonates.

Procedure: The screening results from infants suspected to have hemoglobinopathy disease identified by the Florida Newborn Screening Program for years 2002-2007 were compared to the corresponding confirmatory testing. The risks for false positives for preterm and full term newborns were calculated by Chi-square or the Cochran-Armitage test for trend.