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The MCMS Preferred Partner Program - We've Got You Covered!
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You're Invited to Attend AOMA's 94th Annual Convention
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April 13-17, 2016
Arizona Osteopathic Medical Association 94th Annual Convention -"We Are Family"
Hilton Scottsdale Resort & Villas
Scottsdale, Arizona
35.0 hours of AOA Category 1-A CME anticipated
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Physicians starting to get overwhelmed by clinical messaging
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Secure clinical messaging promises to improve communications between healthcare providers and promote continuity of care, but office-based physicians are starting to get overwhelmed with e-mail, just like the rest of us. It's a particularly serious problem for primary care physicians, according to a research letter published Monday, March 14, in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston examined electronic logs of messages to physicians at three large medical practices in Texas. They found that primary care doctors received a mean of 76.9 notifications per day through the electronic health record's messaging system. About 20 percent were related to test results. Specialists - present at only one of the three practices studied - got a mean of 29.1 notifications daily, the Baylor-UTHealth team reported.
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Arizona physicians seek Cuban drug to treat diabetic foot ulcers
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Two University of Arizona physicians want to bring a prescription drug developed in Cuba to the United States to treat diabetic foot ulcers. Such ulcers can lead to death in some diabetics.
Every 20 seconds, a person with diabetes undergoes an amputation resulting from a diabetic foot ulcer. The ulcers arise when a person with diabetes loses sensation in the foot and can't feel a blister forming. An infected wound can lead to limb amputation. UA's David Armstrong and Marvin Slepian recently traveled to Cuba to partner with medical colleagues to bring the drug called Heberprot-P to the United States. They hope the normalization of relations between the two countries will help speed clinical trials and lead to approval by the Food and Drug Administration. The drug is used in 27 countries. It fosters rapid wound healing and a 75 percent reduction in amputations, the physicians say. Dr. Armstrong said it costs more to treat severe diabetic wounds than the five leading cancers in the US. Later this month, Armstrong will speak to the Congressional Caucus on Diabetes about Heberprot-P and other research at the Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance at the UA.
Read more >>
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Resources to help providers improve access to hepatitis C treatment for their patients.
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HIVMA and IDSA have created a new online resource to house tools to help providers improve access to hepatitis C treatment.
Available on the website are:
- template letters for appealing adverse coverage decisions;
- clinical resources, including the IDSA and AASLD HCV clinical guidance and the IDSA HCV Maintenance of Certification module; and tools to facilitate engagement with state Medicaid programs and other third-party payers, including a recorded webinar on Improving Access to HCV Treatment in Your State.
View the resources >>
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Physicians spend one hour on EHR alerts per day
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Findings from a new study show that some physicians receive more than 100 notifications per day via electronic health record (EHR)-based inboxes, and dealing with this electronic burden requires more than an hour every day.
"Primary care providers (PCPs) received an overall mean of 76.9 notifications per day," write Daniel R. Murphy, MD, from Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Houston, Texas, and colleagues, stressing that some PCPs received as many as 113.5 notifications per day. The results of their study appear in a research letter published online March 14 in JAMA Internal Medicine. Excessive EHR-based notifications can overburden physicians and lead to potentially disastrous consequences. Unmanageable numbers of alerts not only make it difficult for physicians to filter out important information but also increase the chances that physicians will miss patients' test results. "Information overload is of emerging concern because new types of notifications and 'FYI' (for your information) messages can be easily created in the EHR (vs in a paper-based system)," the authors write. EHR-based notifications typically include messages from other healthcare providers, responses to referrals, requests for medication refills, and test results.
Read more >>
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DON'T MISS OUT ON INFORMED, ROUND-UP, AND OUR SOCIAL & EDUCATIONAL EVENTS IN 2016!
Please Remit Your 2016 Dues
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Please take the time to renew your Maricopa County Medical Society membership. You may do so by calling the MCMS membership office at 602-252-2015 and select option zero ("0") or by clicking here >> |
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Healthcare enters new cybersecurity era as hacktivists, organized crime, and foreign nationals take aim
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While there's evidence that organizations are better controlling data loss, today's attackers are becoming much more targeted and sophisticated.
Organized criminals scoped their sights on healthcare somewhere around 2012 and found that stealing patient data enabled them to monetize that information in a number of ways. Since then attacks have grown increasingly sophisticated. And attackers are launching more attempts now than ever. Perhaps coincidentally that's also when the stream of lost unencrypted hardware began slowing down, said Kurt Long, CEO of application security specialist FairWarning. "That's not to say that laptops don't still get lost, but the peak years for that were 2008-2012," Long determined. "I don't know that lost laptops were all that damaging. It could be in the bottom of the Hudson River. We don't know where that data went." But since healthcare organizations have to publicly disclose those incidents, whether the information was actually exposed to criminals or not, the industry swallowed a steady diet of headlines about data breaches.
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17th Annual Southwest Nephrology Conference
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The Southwest Nephrology Conference planning committee invites and encourages all medical providers to attend this year's conference in early March. The program agenda includes a track of courses specifically designed to engage primary care providers with colleagues that represent other medical specialties such as nephrology, transplant medicine, cardiology, and endocrinology. This unique opportunity promotes cross-specialty collaboration by means of professional education that is presented by a panel of experts and open discussion with the audience. For example, with increasing kidney transplant recipients and living donors being managed by primary care providers, we have incorporated a case-based presentation on some of the issues primary care providers might encounter.
Chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes constitute a "triple threat" of interrelated risk multipliers. Our conference invites a more holistic vision of disease prevention, care, and treatment. That vision includes building bridges between physicians, providing medical education for scientists and healthcare providers, scientific and medical research projects, and population-level community health education.
Please join us on March 11-12, 2016 at the beautiful We-Ko-Pa Resort & Conference Center on the Fort McDowell Yavapai Reservation near Fountain Hills, Arizona. For more information, go to the conference website at www.swnc.org or call (602) 840-1644.
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VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY:
Medical students need your supervision performing physicals at upcoming TOPS events.
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TOPS, or a Team of Physicians for Students, was founded in the 1970s by MCMS member and sports medicine specialist and family physician, Paul Steingard, DO. From his many years in private practice, he identified a tremendous need for young athletes to be screened and provided free physicals, including cardiac tests and consultations. Since its inception, over 40,000 youths from 8th grade to community college have received the FREE screenings. Other notable sponsors are Midwestern University, which joined the cause in 1998, and the Arizona Heart Institute, which provides the ECGs and Echo cardiograms, around 2006.
Physician volunteers to supervise medical students are needed at the following upcoming events:
April 2, 2016
7:30 am - 4:30 pm
Sunnyslope High School
All shifts are available.
Breakfast, snacks, and lunch will be provided for volunteers.
Parking is at the western part of the campus. Look for the signs leading you to the TOPS volunteer entrance from the parking lot.
April 30, 2016
7:30 am - 1 pm
Youngker High School, Buckeye
Any hours you can volunteer are greatly appreciated.
Breakfast, snacks, and lunch will be provided for volunteers.
Parking is at the westernmost part of the campus. Look for the sings leading you to the TOPS entrance.
The event covers general liability for the facility, but not for the physicians. However, there is legislation that helps protect physicians who volunteer for events such as this health fair.
Read the statue >>
To volunteer, please contact Ross J. Kosinski, PhD, Dean of Students, Midwestern University by calling 623-764-0511 or email him to rkosin@midwestern.edu. |
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Arizona company to hire, further expand Phoenix operations with recent FDA device approval
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved W.L. Gore & Associates Inc.'s medical device to treat certain aneurysms when other treatments in the past would cause sexual dysfunction.
The treatment is designed to conquer the effects of previous treatments, which included reduced blood flow to the pelvic area, cramping pains in the buttocks and inflammation of the large intestine. Based in Flagstaff, W.L. Gore has been expanding its operations in Phoenix over the past four years. That expansion will continue as its Gore Excluder Iliac Branch Endoprosthesis, or IBE, device is manufactured in Phoenix, said Ryan Takeuchi, Gore Aortic Business leader. The expansion will create the need to hire more engineers. Of Gore's 10,000 employees worldwide, 2,000 work in the company's Flagstaff headquarters and another 500 are in the Phoenix operations, where Gore has more than 400,000 square feet, he said. "We have a commitment to continue to grow in Phoenix," he said.
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Physicians should note recent HIPAA guidelines for apps
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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released guidance for developers working on healthcare applications with physicians who may need to follow HIPAA guidelines. Rather than a list of rules, the document consists of six scenarios with comments about whether or not the developer in each case must abide by HIPAA. Although the document is intended for those who work directly with technology, it is important for physicians to understand as well, in order to help patients make choices, be clear about the role they are required to play in the process of choosing and using health-related apps, and to be aware of what developers may or may not know about HIPAA. Any time there are multiple stakeholders, there is the potential for complexity. Although many apps could improve health and may help those with chronic conditions enjoy a higher quality of life, regulations and precedents are still being established. The scenarios HHS offered as guidance may seem like common sense, however, they are useful in clarifying possible situations for people who are unlikely to be familiar with HIPAA ̶ such as an app developer with a background in computer science, not healthcare.
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We need a startup for that: Healthcare companies pitch their problems to entrepreneurs
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Laurent Rotival sees two problems facing the healthcare industry: baby boomers and millennials. Baby boomers are so numerous they're putting pressure on healthcare systems to accommodate their needs as they age, and millennials are just as needy in their demands for quick, easy, technologically-enabled healthcare.
"You've got the baby boomers...all entering the 60+ range, so you have an enormous need for healthcare interaction," he said. "Then you've got the millennials who have absolutely no tolerance for solutions that are not designed around them. They want convenience, they want things to be enabled on their smartphones." Whatever the services, they want "everything to be personalized to their requirements." Rotival is the CIO and senior VP of Cambia Health Solutions, the parent company of health insurance company Regence Blue Shield and other healthcare companies. Like Rotival, other healthcare execs see big obstacles in healthcare in the future. And they all want startups to help them out with solutions. Yesterday, March 14, Cambia hosted a "reverse pitch" for established healthcare companies seeking startups at Cambia Grove, the company's collaborative workspace for healthcare innovation in Seattle. Rather than startups pitching to investors, the idea behind a reverse pitch is for companies to pitch their challenges for startups to solve.
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Arizona Oncology ranked number one in community-based cancer care and among the top two statewide cancer care centers
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Ranking Arizona: The Best of Arizona Business has released its 2016 "Cancer Treatment Centers" rankings. Arizona Oncology received the distinction of second highest in the state and ranked number one in community-based cancer care in Arizona.
Results are based on voters' opinion, not annual revenue or number of employees. The Best of Arizona Business is the largest opinion poll in Arizona. Voters give the annual publication recommendations based on quality of service and recommendations for doing business. "Arizona Oncology is dedicated to providing patients with high-quality cancer care," said Jerry Lucas, M.D., practice president, Arizona Oncology. "By offering advanced, integrated care in communities where patients live, we can help patients and their families have a better experience while battling cancer and help to contain costs of cancer care. We aim to remain number one and to continue to provide the best care possible to all patients who walk through our doors." Arizona Oncology, one of the largest medical groups in Arizona devoted exclusively to cancer care and a practice in The US Oncology Network, treats more patients with cancer than any other healthcare provider in the state. The physicians, nurses and staff at Arizona Oncology wish to thank those who took the time to vote and recognize Arizona Oncology's commitment to advancing cancer care for patients.
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Dr. Joseph Sirven: the other March Madness
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every third week of March, graduating medical students open an envelope that literally determines the rest of their careers. Known as Match Day, this event marks a culmination of applications and interviews resulting in a personal ranking of post-medical school training programs-called residencies- that a medical student submits to the National Residency Matching program.
Similarly, residency-training programs also submit a similar list of their top choice graduates to fill their programs. Using a software algorithm, the program pairs medical students to residencies. This all happens on Match Day and has been happening since 1952-- the same year that the men's college basketball Final Four tournament began. The match is a binding agreement so the stakes are high. And every doctor remembers Match Day as a rite of passage. I remember sitting in a New Orleans bar phoning my wife to tell her we were moving to Minnesota, quietly saying goodbye to Mardi Gras and Cajun cooking. How does this affect you? Well, this computer algorithm determines the influx of new doctors to your neighborhood every July. If you consider that most resident trainees stay in the location where they train, you can see the considerable influence this matching program has on shaping a town's medical workforce.
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