August 2009

(08/26/2009)  --  The nation's supply of Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, vaccine should see a much-needed upsurge in the coming weeks, thanks to the Aug. 19 FDA approval of GlaxoSmithKline's Hiberix as a booster dose for children ages 15 months to 4 years. More

(08/26/2009)  --  Nearly $1.2 billion soon will be available to help the nation's hospitals, physicians and other health care professionals purchase and use electronic health records, or EHRs, according to an Aug. 20 announcement from Vice President Joe Biden. Money from the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health, or HITECH, Act priority grant programs, which are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will start flowing in 2010. More

(08/26/2009)  --  No serious adverse events have been reported during the first two weeks of clinical trials involving vaccine against the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus, according to federal officials. More

(08/26/2009)  --  The AAFP and the Massachusetts AFP are expressing their "concern and dismay" about Harvard Medical School's recent elimination of funding for its Division of Primary Care. In an Aug. 5 letter to Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier, M.D., the two organizations ask the Boston-based medical school to "reaffirm its commitment to primary care." More

(08/26/2009)  --  As the scramble to get physicians onboard with electronic health records, or EHRs, garners headlines across the country, another piece of the high-tech puzzle has been gaining ground -- the health information exchange. A health information exchange moves health information "from point A to point B and back again," according to Jennifer Covich, chief operating officer of the eHealth Initiative. More

(08/25/2009)  --  Although the CDC estimates that 600,000 cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, occur each year in the United States, only 2 percent of American adults received the tetanus toxoid, reduced diphtheria toxoid and acellular pertussis vaccine, or Tdap, from 2005 through 2007, the agency says. To address this problem, the AAFP has launched a new initiative, Vaccination Matters: Help Protect Families From Whooping Cough. More

(08/21/2009)  --  The AAFP Congress of Delegates will meet Oct. 12-14 in the Grand Ballroom West of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. The Congress will convene in conjunction with the AAFP Scientific Assembly, which will meet Oct. 14-17. More

(08/19/2009)  --  Nestled near the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute, or VTC, in Roanoke is gearing up for next year. Specifically, the school of medicine is getting the word out to recruit its first class of 42 students for fall 2010. More

(08/19/2009)  --  The CDC told its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, in late July that it hoped to have 120 million doses of vaccine for the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus available by October. Manufacturing issues, however, have slowed production of the new vaccine, and federal officials now expect only about 45 million doses to be available by mid-October. More

(08/18/2009)  --  Seventy percent of American children are at increased risk for bone and heart disease because of low levels of vitamin D, according to a recent study published in Pediatrics. "In adults, there has been an increased interest in associations between low vitamin D levels and all sorts of cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, so we decided to look at this in children," said study leader Michal Melamed, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, N.Y., in an interview posted on the university's Web site. More

(08/18/2009)  --  Family physicians should be aware that the FDA recently issued a number of warnings about various products such items as tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, blockers; hand sanitizers; body-building products that include steroids; and botulinum toxin drug products. More

(08/11/2009)  --  The AAFP Foundation's Peers for Progress program aims to establish or extend the evidence base for peer support as a core component of diabetes care around the world and to build a network of peer support programs. Now, the program's directors are hoping a revamped Web site will help it reach those goals. More

(08/11/2009)  --  The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, has updated its recommendations for poliovirus vaccination to help clarify how to use combination vaccines and timing of the vaccine. ACIP recommended in 1999 that all poliovirus vaccine administered in the United States be an inactivated poliovirus vaccine, or IPV, starting in January 2000. More

(08/11/2009)  --  TransforMED LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Academy of Family Physicians, has launched Delta-Exchange, a social networking site that primary care physicians can use to speed up their progress toward practice transformation and the patient-centered medical home. More

(08/10/2009)  --  Starting Aug. 10, members of the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors, or AFMRD, and others can visit a redesigned Web site that includes better search functions and more updates. The Web site's makeover aims to make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate. More

(08/10/2009)  --  The medical cost of treating the nation's obesity epidemic is growing rapidly -- right along with Americans' waistlines. A study from the CDC and the Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, N.C., estimates that costs attributable to obesity could be as high as $147 billion in 2008, up from $78.5 billion in 1998. More

(08/07/2009)  --  A number of public figures, including William Shatner, Debbie Reynolds, Jim Carrey, Charlie Chaplin, Ella Fitzgerald and David Letterman, once were homeless. In fact, life circumstances -- including job losses, economic reversals and foreclosures -- can make anyone homeless, according to William Ellert, M.D., of Scottsdale, Ariz. When the homeless have medical needs, family physicians can provide the most comprehensive care, he said. More

(08/07/2009)  --  Residents and medical students recently got a crash course on health care reform from former AAFP EVP Robert Graham, M.D., who now is board chair of the Alliance for Health Reform. "We spend 16 percent of our gross domestic product on health care," said Graham during the AAFP's National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students in Kansas City, Mo. More

(08/05/2009)  --  The AAFP's National Research Network, or NRN, is recruiting practices for its new subnetwork, the Collaborative Care Research Network, or CCRN. The new network is designed to investigate and evaluate the integration of mental health services in primary care settings. More

(08/05/2009)  --  Residents and medical students have busy schedules, but politicians may be even busier. For advocates who get a chance to communicate with their legislators, they usually only have minutes to impart their message, said Stephanie Vance, co-founder of Advocacy Associates in Washington. Vance was one of the featured speakers during the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students July 30-Aug. 1 in Kansas City, Mo. She urged her audience to make time to follow the news and understand how government affects health care. More

(08/05/2009)  --  Delegates to the National Congress of Family Medicine Residents and the National Congress of Student Members in Kansas City, Mo., chose new leaders on Aug. 1 to represent them in the coming year. More

(08/05/2009)  --  Future family physicians want the AAFP to take "bold action" to help double the number of U.S. medical students entering family medicine residencies by 2020. They also want the AAFP to work on getting more federal funding for family medicine residencies, more debt-reduction options for residents and GME financing that sticks with residents as a way to encourage training in rural areas. More

(08/05/2009)  --  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has selected AAFP member Carlos Jaen, M.D., Ph.D., of San Antonio, to serve on a national advisory committee responsible for overseeing the future of personal health records and the technology necessary to create them. More

(08/04/2009)  --  The United States could save billions of dollars in its cash-strapped health care system by cutting through the administrative red tape that entangles physicians, hospitals and patients every day, according to a new report released by the Healthcare Administrative Simplification Coalition, or HASC. More