Allhat isn't "all that"?

Check out the New York Times article "The Minimal Impact of a Big Hypertension Study"; an excerpt:

The findings, from one of the biggest clinical trials ever organized by the federal government, promised to save the nation billions of dollars in treating the tens of millions of Americans with hypertension — even if the conclusions did seem to threaten pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer that were making big money on blockbuster hypertension drugs.

Six years later, though, the use of the inexpensive pills, called diuretics, is far smaller than some of the trial’s organizers had hoped.

Click here to access the NYT article.

Health beliefs

From the Reuters article:

Older African Americans more likely to rate their health as poor compared with older white Americans, even though when the two groups "are functioning extremely well, new research suggests.
...
The most likely explanation for the racial disparities seen in the current study, Spencer said, is that older African Americans have a different way of thinking about their health than do older whites. It's also possible, she added, that the accumulated affects of racism could be driving down their perception of their own health.

Click here to access.

We need hits!

Check it out:

Disclosure: I do not own any stock in this company.

Wartime lessons impacting trauma care

From the San Diego Union article:

Some of the war-zone techniques are forcing trauma specialists to rethink practices that have been standard for years.

“We are learning at warp speed,” said Dr. Michael Sise, a clinical professor of surgery and chief of the trauma unit at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest. “This is the fastest transfer of wartime learning in history.”
...
The rapid assimilation of battlefield lessons largely is being driven by health providers who also are military reservists. Upon returning from deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan, they apply newly learned techniques to their civilian jobs, Sise said. The information spreads quickly among hospitals through the nation's highly networked trauma-care system.

Click here to access.

Kickback or incentive?

From the Associated Press article:

All the doctors had to do was show up, enjoy a free dinner at an elegant Rochester, N.Y., area restaurant specializing in steaks, chops and top-shelf wines, and pocket $100 on the way out the door.

Health insurance companies had invited the physicians to hear a pitch about the benefits of prescribing generic drugs instead of their pricier, name-brand competitors.

Click here to access.

ACCME increases fees

Click here to access.

The uninsured and Emergency Department utilization

From the JAMA article:

Available data do not support assumptions that uninsured patients are a primary cause of ED overcrowding, present with less acute conditions than insured patients, or seek ED care primarily for convenience.

Click here to access the abstract. Senators McCain and Obama each have free-text articles on their respective health care plans published in this October 22/29, 2008 issue of JAMA.

Responses to the ACCME Summer 2008 Calls-for-Comment

Click here to access.

Health care solution contest announced!

Win $10 million dollars! From the AP article:

It may not involve rocket science, but a new X Prize Foundation competition for health care reform could pose the institute's most daunting challenge yet.

The California-based foundation, which helped launch the first private manned space flight in 2004, is teaming with the insurer WellPoint Inc. to try to fix the U.S. health care system.

The companies have announced an open competition to devise solutions that improve health care cost and quality, and they're dangling a prize of at least $10 million for the winner.

Click here to access.

"The State of Health Care Quality"

Check out NCQA's report; click here to access.

Culture and cancer

Check out the Wall Street Journal article "In Some Cultures, Cancer Stirs Shame"; an excerpt:

In Mrs. Wong's native China, people often keep illnesses like cancer a secret. That tradition continues even here in America, where her family settled in the 1950s. Years ago, Mrs. Wong's infant daughter developed a brain tumor and her own mother insisted she tell no one. When the baby died, the grandmother tried to dissuade Mrs. Wong from attending the funeral, so great was the stigma.

Click here to access; it was published on October 4th (sub. req.).

New guidelines to reduce side effects of NSAIDs

From the Washington Post article:

Three leading medical associations have created guidelines to help heart disease patients cut their risk of ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding from the condition's most common treatments -- antiplatelets and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin.

The American College of Cardiology, the American College of Gastroenterology and the American Heart Association guidelines call on doctors to better assess the patient's risk factors before treatment starts.

Click here to access.

Manipulation of data?

From the New York Times article:

Pfizer’s tactics included delaying the publication of studies that had found no evidence the drug worked for some other disorders, “spinning” negative data to place it in a more positive light, and bundling negative findings with positive studies to neutralize the results, according to written reports by the experts, who analyzed the documents at the request of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

One of the experts who reviewed the documents, Dr. Kay Dickersin of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, concluded that the Pfizer documents spell out “a publication strategy meant to convince physicians of Neurontin’s effectiveness and misrepresent or suppress negative findings.”

Pfizer issued a statement Tuesday denying that it had manipulated Neurontin data, saying “study results are reported by Pfizer in an objective, accurate, balanced and complete manner, with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the study, and are reported regardless of the outcome of the study or the country in which the study was conducted.”

Click here to read the NYT article.

Another psychiatrist in the headlines

From the New York Times article:

One of the nation’s most influential psychiatrists earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers between 2000 and 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of this income to his university, and violated federal research rules, according to documents provided to Congressional investigators.

Click here to access.

A systems approach...

Check out the open access article "Physician attitude toward depression care interventions: implications for implementation of quality improvement initiatives"; click here to access.

SACME posts Responses to the ACCME Calls for Comments

Click here to access.

A gap in empathy?

From the New York Times article "Taking Time for Empathy":

Listening to transcripts and recordings of 20 conversations between men with lung cancer and their doctors, Dr. Diane Morse of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and her colleagues identified 384 “empathic opportunities” in the discussions — moments when a doctor might respond with a few words to address patient concerns ranging from fear of illness and death, to mistrust about care and the health care system, to confusion about treatment.

They found that the physicians missed 90 percent of opportunities to respond empathetically to their patients.

Click here to access.

Eli Lilly and Merck to disclose payments to physicians

From the New York Times article:

Amid a national debate over the influence of industry money on medical research and practice, two pharmaceutical giants say they will begin publicly reporting payments they make to outside doctors.

Click here to access.

Joint Commission issues alert

"Preventing errors relating to commonly used anticoagulants"; click here to access.

Mobile Resource Centers on Epocrates

From Epocrates:

Recent study data from Manhattan Research, reported that nearly three-fourths of physicians say that they would like more specialty-specific drug references, clinical applications, and medical tools/alerts available to them on their PDA.

Epocrates is listening to our users and answering their call with the launch of Mobile Resource Centers! These new Epocrates Mobile Resource Centers (mRC) provide healthcare professionals with access to valuable information to stay up-to-date on diagnoses and treatments in selected clinical areas. The Centers provide practical and highly-relevant content, including breaking news, research findings, conference highlights and related continuing medical education courses.

If you'd like to learn more, email Lisa Wray at lwray@epocrates.com.

Disclosure/disclaimer: I have no financial relationship with Epocrates and am not making a recommendation, just sharing news.