May 2009

(05/29/2009)  --  An overall decline in the provision of maternity care by family physicians has been well documented, but a recent study in the Annals of Family Medicine reports that the percentage of prenatal care provided by FPs is falling even more dramatically in rural areas. More

(05/29/2009)  --  The CDC has taken another step toward developing a vaccine against the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus, but several steps remain before the agency will determine whether to move forward with a national immunization program. More

(05/27/2009)  --  The Obama administration has released details of a fiscal year, or FY, 2010 budget proposal that calls for reforming the current Medicare payment system by aligning payment incentives with improvements in quality and efficiency. More

(05/27/2009)  --  The United States should adopt the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH, as a centerpiece of its health care system to improve quality and reduce costs, according to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who spoke May 20 during the AAFP's Family Medicine Congressional Conference in Washington. More

(05/27/2009)  --  More than four in 10 Americans have experienced at least minor problems with coordinating care among different physicians, and one in six has had "major problems" coordinating health care services. That's according to a new survey issued by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Harvard School of Public Health and National Public Radio. More

(05/27/2009)  --  A report from the nonprofit research organization RAND Corp. and the University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA, says that new recommendations to further limit the work hours of medical residents would cost the nation's teaching facilities about $1.6 billion a year to hire additional personnel to fill in for residents coming off work shifts. That's a high price to pay for the uncertain effects that adopting the recommendations would have on reducing fatigue-related medical errors in many clinical settings, say Academy leaders and other medical education experts. More

(05/22/2009)  --  Physicians and other health care professionals might be giving vaccinations for seasonal influenza well in advance of the flu season this year. Daniel Jernigan, M.D., M.P.H., deputy director of the CDC's Influenza Division, said during a May 20 media briefing that the agency is considering an early rollout of the seasonal influenza vaccine in the hope that a vaccine for the novel H1N1 influenza will be ready in the fall. More

(05/20/2009)  --  I'll call her Mary. She's a patient at our residency clinic who has diabetes, but she doesn't have health insurance. She recently came in complaining of dizziness, nausea and abdominal pain. When we checked her blood sugar level, we found it was sky-high -- well over 500. She said that's what she had suspected, but she couldn't be sure because she just couldn't afford to buy test strips anymore to check her blood sugar. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More (Members Only)

(05/20/2009)  --  The AAFP has endorsed a primary care bill that seeks to rebuild and strengthen the nation's primary care infrastructure by providing scholarships, loan forgiveness, deferral of loan repayments and grants for practices to incorporate the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH. More

(05/20/2009)  --  In response to a discussion paper issued by the Senate Finance Committee, the AAFP and two other primary care physician organizations have told the committee that in 2010, total Medicare payments for primary care physician services should be increased by at least 10 percent more than those made to nonprimary care physicians and other providers. The three groups also have recommended increases of an additional 5 percent each year for the subsequent four years. More

(05/19/2009)  --  Like many students graduating from the nation's colleges of osteopathic medicine, Richard Gray has chosen family medicine as his specialty. In fact, Gray, an AAFP student member from Fort Worth, Texas, and other soon-to-be doctors of osteopathic medicine, are an important part of the primary care workforce, says an Academy physician workforce expert. More

(05/19/2009)  --  Supplies of pediatric hepatitis B vaccines are expected to remain tight through the summer, but CDC officials said in a May 5 status update letter that supplies will be sufficient through the end of the year, "if providers continue to order vaccine judiciously." More

(05/19/2009)  --  There's no question that diabetes is epidemic in America today. According to the CDC's most recent estimate, more than 23 million Americans had diabetes, diagnosed or undiagnosed, in 2007. In addition, an estimated 57 million more American adults had prediabetes that year. More (Members Only)

(05/15/2009)  --  HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urged Congress to enact a health care reform plan that provides a medical home for every American while shifting the nation's treatment paradigm from a sickness-based to a wellness-based system. More

(05/14/2009)  --  Several major players in the nation's health care industry have vowed to strive for savings of at least $2 trillion during the next 10 years by implementing a number of measures designed to save costs and improve the quality of care. These consensus measures -- long championed by the AAFP -- include the alignment of quality and efficiency incentives among providers, care coordination, the use of health information technology, and adherence to evidenced-based best practices. More

(05/13/2009)  --  An independent evaluation team under contract with the Academy to analyze data from TransforMED's national demonstration project, or NDP, on the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH, took the unusual step of releasing a preliminary report with findings the team said were too important to keep under wraps. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More

(05/13/2009)  --  Like dogwood in the spring, the Duke University Family Medicine Residency in Durham, N.C., is blooming -- just two years after the residency's faculty and administrators completely redesigned the program to emphasize community-based medicine and other innovative models of care. More

(05/13/2009)  --  The AAFP is distributing a children's book and DVD this month to 36,000 active members and more than 450 residency programs. The waiting room materials are intended to encourage patients to talk to their family physicians about fitness and increase patient counseling. The end goal is to reduce childhood obesity. More

(05/13/2009)  --  Public and private payers should fund comparative effectiveness research that seeks to bridge information gaps that currently exist with some treatment methods, said AAFP Board Chair Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., during a May 7 congressional briefing on the topic. More

(05/13/2009)  --  Health care stakeholders are scrambling to help the federal government define key health information technology terms used in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or ARRA, with a special focus on what constitutes "meaningful use" of health IT. More

(05/13/2009)  --  A report recently issued by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute concludes that government incentives intended to spur the use of health information technology are a "small carrot" when compared with the amount of money it will cost hospitals and physician practices to implement and maintain electronic health records, or EHRs, during the next five years. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More

(05/13/2009)  --  Acknowledging that the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus is not as virulent as health officials feared initially, the CDC has updated its guidance on the use of antiviral medications to treat and prevent H1N1 infections. Anne Schuchat, M.D., interim deputy director for the CDC's Science and Public Health Program, said in a May 9 press briefing that the vast majority of Americans infected with the virus have had self-limited respiratory illness. More

(05/12/2009)  --  The FDA has issued a final rule in the April 29 Federal Register that requires manufacturers of OTC pain relievers and fever reducers to include organ-specific warnings about potential safety risks on the medications' labels. The new labeling requirements will take effect within a year and are designed to inform consumers about the risk of severe liver damage when using acetaminophen and the risk of stomach bleeding when using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen and ketoprofen. More

(05/08/2009)  --  A number of resolutions chapter representatives took up during the 2009 National Conference of Special Constituencies April 23-25 in Kansas City, Mo., focused on ways to support the family medicine workforce pipeline and to address family physician workforce issues. More

(05/08/2009)  --  Chapter special constituency representatives who attended the AAFP's 2009 National Conference of Special Constituencies, or NCSC, April 23-25 in Kansas City, Mo., churned through a hefty agenda of education-related issues. One measure that sparked spirited discussion dealt with procedural training for family medicine residents. Other proposals asked the Academy to step up opposition to additional limits on residents' work hours and to call for increasing family medicine residents' exposure to the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH. More

(05/07/2009)  --  The FDA is requiring safety label changes -- including a boxed warning -- and a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy for all botulinum toxin products. The agency said it took the action because of reports that the effects of the products may spread from an injection site to other parts of the body. More

(05/06/2009)  --  The AAFP's National Conference of Special Constituencies, or NCSC, approved several public health-related resolutions during its April 23-25 meeting in Kansas City, Mo., including a proposal that would broadly expand the AAFP's current recommendations for HIV screening. More

(05/06/2009)  --  Despite a nationwide shortfall of certified emergency physicians, family physicians face numerous hurdles when seeking work in emergency departments. To address that problem, delegates to the 2009 National Conference of Special Constituencies, or NCSC, April 23-25 in Kansas City, Mo., adopted a resolution that calls on the AAFP to advocate to the American Hospital Association and other organizations that board-certified family physicians are qualified to staff ERs. More

(05/06/2009)  --  A new high-definition and digital broadcast, online and wireless network is providing consumers with expert health care content that features AAFP President Ted Epperly, M.D., of Boise, Idaho, and President-elect Lori Heim, M.D., of Vass, N.C. More

(05/06/2009)  --  The Senate Finance Committee has issued a policy options paper for health care reform that would provide a bonus payment of least 5 percent for Medicare primary care services during the next five years and a 1 percent increase in the overall physician payment rate in 2010 and 2011. This would bring the overall increase for primary care services to 6 percent in 2010 and 2011 under the draft proposal. More

(05/06/2009)  --  The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, or PCPCC, has issued a resource guide to help physician practices integrate health information technology, or health IT, into the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH. The 42-page guide, "Meaningful Connections, A Resource Guide for Using Health IT to Support the Patient-Centered Medical Home," lists capabilities, functionalities and core examples to help physicians integrate health IT into their practices. More

(05/06/2009)  --  According to the CDC, physicians can use rapid diagnostic tests to begin evaluating patients with influenza A (H1N1) symptoms, but updated guidelines from the agency stress that results from such tests should be interpreted with caution. More

(05/06/2009)  --  The FDA is warning consumers to stop using many Hydroxycut weight loss products because they can cause liver and other serious health problems, possibly leading to death. More

(05/05/2009)  --  The federal government should establish a cooperative extension service modeled after that used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help primary care physicians transform their practices into patient-centered medical homes, according to a family physician who spoke at an April 23 forum in Washington. More

(05/04/2009)  --  The NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, is offering physicians and other health care professionals an online screening tool and other free resources intended to help them assess patients' tobacco, alcohol, and illicit and nonmedical prescription drug use and to intervene with those at high risk of abusing these substances. NIDA's first Physicians' Outreach Initiative, called NIDAMED, includes an online screening tool, a comprehensive resource guide for clinicians, a quick reference guide and a patient-tested postcard. More

(05/01/2009)  --  The Government Accountability Office announced in a recent press release that it has appointed 13 people to a new advisory body established under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Two AAFP members are among the individuals appointed to the Health Information Technology Policy Committee. More

(05/01/2009)  --  AAFP Board Chair Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., recently urged Congress to adopt the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH, as the centerpiece of the nation's health care reform efforts because a primary care-based health care system will lead to higher quality and lower costs. More