News Briefs: Clinical Practice Updates

This roundup includes the following brief clinical practice updates:

Drug manufacturer Pfizer Inc. has launched a program that will allow people who have lost their jobs and health insurance to keep taking the manufacturer's medications for free.

Pfizer's MAINTAIN (Medicines Assistance for Those Who Are in Need) Program will be open for enrollment through Dec. 31. According to a company press release, the program applies to eligible Americans who became unemployed on or after Jan. 1, 2009.

In addition to loss of employment, participants must meet three other eligibility requirements:

Participants will receive Pfizer medications for free for up to 12 months or until they become insured, whichever comes first. The company said that more than 70 of its primary care medicines will be available through the program.

Interested individuals can visit Pfizer's Web page or call (866) 706-2400 for more information.

The National Institutes of Health has added a new resource to its Web site for older patients. Medicare Basics for Caregivers provides a variety of information on Medicare benefits and resources available for people caring for an older relative or loved one. The site offers information about medical and hospital benefits, enrollment, billing, prescription drug costs, home health care, and other topics.

"Knowing how Medicare works can help a person make better financial decisions about care," said Marie Bernard, M.D., deputy director of the National Institute on Aging, in a news release. "A caregiver who is knowledgeable about Medicare can be an informed advocate for an older loved one who needs to access the benefits the program provides."

Fewer than 60 percent of the 18 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes had their blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure under optimum control in 2006, according to the 2008 National Healthcare Disparities Report (300-page PDF; About PDFs) recently released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ.

The study indicates that only 43 percent of black patients and 38 percent of Mexican-American patients diagnosed with diabetes had their blood sugar levels under control. That was in contrast to 61 percent of white patients with diabetes.

Diabetes is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States, according to the report, and the country spends $116 billion annually on medical care for people with the disease. In addition, 6 million Americans may have diabetes but have not been diagnosed.

Meanwhile, AHRQ has released plain-language guides for both consumers and clinicians comparing the efficacy, effectiveness and side effects of newer premixed insulin analogues to conventional insulin (human insulin) and other preparations used to control Type 2 diabetes.

A study (abstract) published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that primary care physicians counsel patients to quit smoking more often when they are prompted by electronic health records.

Clinicians in an intervention group received treatment-related reminders and a form that prompted them to offer smoking cessation interventions, including counseling referrals. At the end of the study, more patients in the intervention group (5.3 percent) had quit smoking than in the control group (1.9 percent).

Documentation rates of smoking status increased from 35 percent to 46 percent in the control group and from 37 percent to 54 percent in the intervention group.