News Briefs: Week of April 19-23

This roundup includes the following news briefs:

CMS is beefing up its Medicare Provider Enrollment Chain Ownership System, or PECOS, in anticipation of heightened physician traffic leading up to "meaningful use" incentive payments for implementation of electronic health record systems.

Physicians must be registered with PECOS to be eligible for Medicare bonuses beginning in 2011.

According to information on the Federal Business Opportunities website, CGI Federal Inc. was awarded a government contract totaling about $1.6 million to upgrade the PECOS system.

President Obama has nominated pediatrician Donald Berwick, M.D., as the next administrator of CMS. Berwick currently is the president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a clinical professor of pediatrics and health care policy at
Harvard Medical School in Boston, and a professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"Dr. Berwick has dedicated his career to improving outcomes for patients and providing better care at lower cost," said Obama in a prepared statement. "That's one of the core missions facing our next CMS administrator."

Berwick also is adjunct staff in the department of medicine at Boston's Children's Hospital and a consultant in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has served as chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Berwick received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and has a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The Office of Civil Rights, or OCR, the HHS agency that oversees health privacy, outlines in the April 13 Federal Register how it intends to use data breach information it collects from health care professionals, hospitals and health plans.

HHS is required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act to inform the public about privacy and security violations affecting more than 500 people. In July 2009, the OCR began publishing public notices containing such information. To date, information about more than 60 events has been posted on its website, including events recorded by private physician and dental practices, hospitals, labs, clinics, and universities.

According to the OCR, it collects a minimal amount of personal data from breach events and "continues to take precautionary measures to minimize the risks of unauthorized access to the records and the potential harm to individual privacy or other individual rights."

Family physicians may want to inform their patients who are parents of young children about an upcoming Frontline report, "The Vaccine War," which will air at 9 p.m. EDT, April 27, on Public Broadcasting Service stations nationwide.

The episode chronicles the issue of parents, politicians and activists who are convinced that vaccines are responsible for various health problems, such as autism, despite mounting evidence to the contrary presented by the medical literature and the public health establishment.

Beginning April 21, visitors to the Frontline website can interact with medical experts who will respond to comments and answer questions. Visitors also can take a short survey and find out how their opinions about vaccines compare with survey results nationwide.

The FDA has added a boxed warning to the label for propylthiouracil to include information about reports of severe liver injury, acute liver failure and death associated with the drug, which is used to treat hyperthyroidism.

The agency warned physicians about the risks of liver injury associated with the drug in June 2009.

The agency said in a drug safety communication released April 21 that the new warning states that for patients starting treatment for hyperthyroidism, it may be appropriate to reserve use of propylthiouracil for those who cannot tolerate methimazole or for patients for whom radioactive iodine therapy or surgery is not appropriate.

Propylthiouracil also may be appropriate during, and just before, the first trimester of pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects with the use of methimazole.

FDA officials also advised physicians that propylthiouracil is not recommended for use in children, except in rare instances in which other alternative treatments are not appropriate.

Patients should not stop taking the medication unless so advised by their physician, the agency said. Patients should contact their physicians if they develop fever, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, tiredness, itchiness, dark colored urine, or yellowing of the skin or eyes while taking propylthiouracil.