News Briefs: Week of Sept. 6-10

This roundup includes the following news briefs:

The Agency for Healthcare Research Quality, or AHRQ, has released guidance aimed at optimizing online public reporting of health care professionals' performance. The AHRQ report, "Model Public Report Elements: A Sampler," provides an illustrative menu of public reporting elements included in Web-based performance reports from across the country.

The document provides examples that highlight five core elements of such resources -- landing page, presentation of measure ratings, consumer engagement tools, place for consumer input on website design, and other resources -- that are present on nearly all public reporting websites. Additional examples illustrate various website functional possibilities, such as sorting by performance, and demonstrate how to facilitate consumer use and how to engage consumers in their care.

The report notes that the examples included should be considered "better practices" or "common practices." Because such programs are relatively new, it is not yet possible to identify public reporting best practices, says the report. Rather, it adds, "it is likely that the most effective public reporting websites will be those that are, at least for a while, continually in a state of growth. These are sites that are actively reevaluating, refining and enhancing their offerings."

The California legislature has approved a measure that establishes criteria for patient-centered medical homes in the state.

The legislation, known as the Patient-Centered Medical Home Act of 2010, defines the medical home as a health care delivery model in which a patient establishes an ongoing relationship with a physician or other licensed health care professional "acting within the scope of his or her practice." According to the legislation, the medical home employs a physician-directed practice team to provide comprehensive, accessible and continual evidence-based primary and preventive care, while coordinating the patient's care across the health care system to maximize quality and health outcomes in a cost-effective manner.

To qualify as medical homes, practices must adhere to quality standards that seek to

The CDC is soliciting applications for the agency's Preventive Medicine Residency and Fellowship programs. Physicians are invited to apply for the residency program; veterinarians, dentists, nurses, physician assistants and international medical graduates may apply for the fellowship program.

According to a notice in the Sept. 3 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the programs are open to applicants with public health and applied epidemiologic practice experience who seek to become preventive medicine and population health specialists and public health leaders.

Residents and fellows spend their practicum year at CDC headquarters in Atlanta or at a state or local health department. Completion of the residency, which is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, qualifies graduates to apply for certification by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in public health and general preventive medicine.

Applications for the program class that begins in June 2011 must be submitted online by Sept. 15. Supporting documents must be postmarked for delivery to the program's office by Sept. 22.

Additional information regarding the programs, eligibility criteria and the application process is available online.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ, has released new evidence-based guides designed to help Spanish speakers understand and compare the risks, benefits and possible side effects of treatment for eight health conditions. Specifically, the guides cover

"Many Spanish speakers don't have access to credible, easy-to-understand information about health care conditions and their treatment options, and that can be a significant barrier to seeking medical care," said AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy, M.D., in a Sept. 7 news release. "These guides represent important resources that will help encourage patients to seek care and work with their doctors to discuss all of their treatment options."

AHRQ previously released Spanish-language guides on nine other topics, including oral medications for type 2 diabetes, pain medications for osteoarthritis, medications for adults with depression, and treatments for osteoporosis and prostate cancer. All of AHRQ's Spanish-language comparative effectiveness guides for consumers are available online.

A poll recently conducted by Harris Interactive and HealthDay found that many Americans are not accurately gauging their weight using the height-to-weight ratio known as body mass index, or BMI. The BMI measure is used to determine levels of overweight and obesity.

According to a Sept. 2 Harris Interactive news release, 30 percent of people who participated in the poll and who were overweight saw themselves as normal size; 70 percent of people who were obese thought they were merely overweight; and 39 percent of people who were morbidly obese described themselves as overweight, but not obese.

Most respondents said lack of exercise was the main cause of their weight problems. Food consumption -- namely, eating more than they should -- was the second most common response.

The poll was conducted online from Aug. 17-19 and included 2,418 adults ages 18 and older. Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading market research firms; HealthDay produces and syndicates evidence-based health news for consumers and physicians.

The parents of medical school matriculants in the United States have high levels of education, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC.
According to the AAMC's August Analysis in Brief (2-page PDF; About PDFs), roughly one-half of medical students' fathers have graduate degrees, compared with 12 percent of men in the overall U.S. population. Similarly, roughly one-third of medical students' mothers have a graduate degree, compared with about 10 percent of U.S. women overall.

The AAMC report, which examined the diversity of students attending U.S. medical schools between 1992 and 2008, says that not only are parents of these students more likely to have graduate levels of education, they also are less likely to have no college education compared with the general population.

However, levels of parental education among black and Hispanic/Latino students are lower than those among Asians and whites. Moreover, the analysis notes that an increase in medical students from families with higher socioeconomic backgrounds seen during that 16-year period was most noticeable among white students.