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October 2009
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Volume 3, Issue 19
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InforMed Society
Offical E-Newsletter of the Medical Society
Keeping you InforMed about the latest health care news!
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Thanks!
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Many thanks to members who joined us for DOKTOBERFEST! It was great fun, delicious food, fun band and great prizes!
Thanks for participating!
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PACeHR
Selects Technology Partners to Accelerate Arizona's EHR Adoption and Maximize ARRA
Stimulus Funds
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Alliance with e-MDs and
Noteworthy Medical Systems is key to realizing statewide heath information
exchange (HIE)
The Purchasing & Assistance
Collaborative for Electronic Health Records (PACeHR) today announced the
selection of e-MDs and Noteworthy Medical Systems, Inc.
as technology partners to provide accessible and affordable electronic health
records (EHR) to small and medium-sized group practices in Arizona. The partner
agreement will help drive EHR adoption and, thereby, enable clinicians to qualify for
financial incentives in accordance with the federal Health Information
Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, as well as strengthen
the foundation for statewide health information exchange
(HIE).
Complete Article...
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Physician job search strategy shifts as internet booms, economy busts
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When orthopedic surgeon John Kemp, MD, looked for a job
fresh out of residency 22 years ago, he used a lot of paper and stamps
mailing resumes to practices in areas of the country where he wanted to
work, not knowing if there was even a job available.
A year ago, when Dr. Kemp decided it was time to leave private
practice in Littleton, Colo., he turned to listings on the Internet --
no paper, no stamps, no guessing if someone had an opening. On Aug. 1,
he started as director of sports medicine at Avera Marshall Regional
Medical Center in Marshall, Minn.
Complete Article...
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"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
Vince Lombardi
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Visit us on Facebook and Twitter!
Search for "Maricopa County Medical Society" on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter at:
twitter.com/medicalsociety
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"GERIATRICS: Preparing for the Future"
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November 13-14, 2009
Desert Willow
Conference Center
The Arizona Geriatrics Society will host its 21st
Annual Fall Symposium. Early reduced registrations are available through Friday, October
16th. For more information and to register for the conference, call
the AzGS office at (602) 265-0211 or visit their website www.arizonageriatrics.org
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Spread the WORD about WIC!
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In
early August, the Arizona WIC program sent information to doctor's offices
throughout Arizona regarding changes to the WIC program. To augment the state's
efforts, the Maricopa County WIC program is doing several mailings to doctor's
offices within Maricopa County. This outreach effort will address the following
issues:
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Communicate the
benefits of partnering with WIC and provide contact information for the nearest
WIC clinic
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Build awareness
about the Breastfeeding Peer Counseling Program, a peer-to-peer program
available in Maricopa County that helps new moms to know the benefits of
breastfeeding, understand the challenges and receive support to successfully
breastfeed.
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Introduce the
changes in the new federal Food Package available to WIC clients beginning Oct.
1.
- Reinforce the need for physicians to completely fill out
the new medical documentation forms when referring a patient to WIC.
Please review this attachment for more information regarding this great County program!
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Senate Finance Committee passes Healthcare Reform Bill
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The Senate Finance Committee today passed a massive healthcare
reform bill in a mostly partisan vote that foreshadows continued
vociferous debate in Congress as both chambers continue to craft
legislation.
All 13 Democratic members of the committee, along with 1 lone
Republican, Sen. Olympia Snow (ME), voted for the bill. The remaining 9
Republican committee members cast nays.
"This is a balanced, commonsense plan for reforming healthcare,"
said Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus (MT), a Democrat,
adding, "It guarantees that no American goes broke because he gets
sick." Ranking committee member Sen. Charles Grassley (IA), however, summed
up Republican opposition today when he said the bill was "moving on a
slippery slope toward government control of medicine."
The bill takes the revolutionary step of requiring most Americans to
obtain health coverage, but it also offers subsidies to help the
cash-strapped pay for it. Likewise, the legislation would require all
but small employers to either cover their workers or pay a penalty into
a fund for subsidizing their coverage. The bill also creates
state-based markets for health insurance called exchanges, expands
coverage under Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program
(CHIP), and curbs health-plan practices deemed abusive, such as denying
coverage based on preexisting conditions.
Complete Article...
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Medicaid pay could be cut again when stimulus money runs out
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Federal stimulus funding has helped state Medicaid
programs avoid drastic reductions in eligibility and physician fees,
but program directors already are contemplating such cuts when the
additional federal support runs out at the end of next year.
States faced unprecedented financial pressures in fiscal 2009, which
ended on June 30 for most states. They experienced a surge in new
Medicaid enrollees and a historic decline in tax revenues. States coped
by trimming or freezing Medicaid fees and restricting benefits, among
other actions, according to a ninth annual survey of state Medicaid
directors released Sept. 30 by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health
Management Associates.
Medicaid enrollment grew by 5.4% in fiscal 2009 -- the highest rate in
six years -- while total program spending increased by 7.9%, the
fastest pace in five years. The enrollment spike was the
main reason spending grew, according to report co-author Vernon K.
Smith, PhD, principal with Health Management Associates. "As more
people lost their jobs and lost their health coverage, more people
became eligible."
Complete Article...
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Resident duty hours: Does more sleep mean safer care?
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"Oh, I forgot all about
that," Monal Joshi, MD, responded to a question from a senior resident
during morning report. The internal medicine intern, entering the 25th
hour of a 30-hour shift at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago,
had overlooked a patient's test result.
The slip was quickly caught by a supervisor, and no harm was done. But was the resident's momentary lapse due to fatigue?
Dr. Joshi had at least two hours of sleep the night before -- pretty good for when she's on call.
Some other members of the five-person Rush internal medicine
residency team looked worse for wear as their shifts neared the end one
day last spring. Third-year medical student Shikha Wadhwani rested her
hand on her head, blinking slowly and yawning widely, as the others
went through their reports.
Complete Article...
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Infectious disease hospitalizations on the rise in the U.S.
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Infectious disease hospitalizations in the United States increased
by more than 6% between 1998 and 2006, according to a report in the
October 1st Clinical Infectious Diseases.
However, hospital deaths due to infections have been declining.
"Infectious
diseases, many of which may be preventable, are still a major
contributor to healthcare expenditure, morbidity, and mortality," Dr.
Krista L. Yorita Christensen from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Atlanta, told Reuters Health in an email. "Certain groups
are at increased risk for infectious disease hospitalization, and
patterns vary by socio-demographic factors such as age, sex, and
race/ethnicity."
Dr. Christensen and her
colleagues used data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample for 1998-2006
to analyze the epidemiology and trends of infectious disease
hospitalizations in the United States.
The
annual hospitalization rate for infectious diseases increased by 6.4%
during this interval, the authors report, from 152.5 (per 10,000
population) in 1998 to a high of 166.7 in 2005. (The 2006 rate was
162.2 per 10,000 population.)
Complete Article...
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CBO Report raises estimate of savings from medical malpractice reform
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Medical-liability reforms such as capping noneconomic damages and
tightening the statute of limitation for filing a suit would trim $54
billion from the federal deficit over 10 years, largely by curbing
defensive medicine, according to a report released Friday by the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Overall, tort reform would reduce the nation's healthcare spending
by 0.5%, the report stated. Forty percent of these savings would stem
from lower malpractice insurance premiums for providers. The rest of
the savings would result from lower use of healthcare services, as
providers would order fewer tests and procedures intended simply to
avoid a lawsuit.
The CBO estimate of tort reform's potential to reduce the deficit is
roughly 10 times greater than what it projected last December (a
reduction of $54 billion instead of $5.6 billion). At that time, the
agency said that evidence about the extent of defensive medicine - and
how tort reform could reduce it - was murky. However, more recent
research suggests that "lowering the cost of medical malpractice tends
to reduce the use of health care services," according to the latest CBO
report.
Complete Article...
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Are old drugs the future of personalized medicine?
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Shaping the future of personalised medicine is not all about
developing expensive new drugs - it will also mean revisiting older,
cheaper medicines armed with new genetic knowledge. Recent
discoveries of genetic clues as to why medicines work better in some
patients than others suggests combining new tests with old drugs will
be a cost-effective approach - attractive to governments and insurance
companies, experts say.
"There are two
sides to personalised medicine - there is work in looking for new gene
clues for the design of new drugs, and we are also doing a lot of work
on currently used medications," said Colin Palmer, head of
pharmacogenomics at Dundee University.
"We're trying to get rid of the one-size fits all approach ... and create more effective drugs tailored to the individual."
Few
believe it is possible to make all drugs work for all patients all the
time, but experts say the current situation - where many patients do
not get any benefit - demands action.
It's
easy to see why. According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers
earlier this year, patient response rates to medicines "can be very low
- varying from 20 percent to 75 percent, depending on the drug".
Complete Article...
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Serving medicine, serving the community
since
1892...
InforMed
Society is published by the Maricopa County
Medical Society.
Copyright
© 2009
Questions
or Comments, please email us at: InforMed@mcmsonline.com |
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