Population Health
The American Medical Association voted at its annual meeting to expand its existing policy on gun safety to include support for waiting periods and background checks for all firearm purchasers. The previous policy supported them, but only for purchasers of handguns; the update parallels policies endorsed by other health organizations.
Data shows that 24 million more people would become uninsured by 2021 if the Affordable Care Act is repealed following the 2016 election, according to a new report.
To help more people with prediabetes access the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Diabetes Prevention Program, the American Medical Association has adopted a policy during its annual meeting to encourage private and public health plans to include the DPP as a covered benefit for their beneficiaries.
In the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history, and with more than 6,000 deaths already in 2016 from gun violence, the American Medical Association has adopted policy calling gun violence in the United States "a public health crisis," requiring a comprehensive public health response and solution.
Support for women's health care, along with family planning resources, has been dramatically scaled back, in part because of funding restrictions placed on women's clinics that, in addition to other services, provide abortions. Also, both states declined to expand Medicaid. Those decisions, many advocates say, are putting a squeeze on the health care system's ability to educate women about Zika's risks and minimize its impact.
The joint enterprise has been successful beyond anyone's expectations, according to Russ Mohawk, president and CEO of Health Plans and Population Health Services for the Inova Health System.
In an effort to get or keep a good performance rating from the federal government, transplant centers have been labeling some patients "too sick to transplant" and dropping from the waitlist some who may been viable candidates, researchers found. In addition, despite removing more sick patients from the waiting list, one-year survival rates for patients who received transplants didn't improve.
The experiment begins Wednesday at the VA's operations in Palo Alto, California. Veterans can visit 14 "MinuteClinics" operated by CVS in the San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento, where staff will treat them for conditions such as respiratory infections, order lab tests and prescribe medications, which can be filled at CVS pharmacies. Whether the partnership will spread to other VA locales isn't yet clear.
Amid a raging opioid epidemic, many doctors and families in the U.S. have been pleading for better treatment alternatives. One option now under consideration by the Food and Drug Administration is a system of implanted rods that offer controlled release of buprenorphine -- a drug already used in other forms to treat opioid addiction.
The best way to engage with patients is to knock on a hospital room door, walk in, wash your hands and then sit down and speak with the person in that bed.