Primary Care News and Research

Latest Primary Care News and Research

Patients with Type 2 Diabetes may face increased risk of Barrett's Esophagus

Patients with Type 2 Diabetes may face an increased risk for Barrett's Esophagus (BE), regardless of other risk factors including smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), according to research unveiled today at the American College of Gastroenterology's (ACG) 77th Annual Scientific meeting in Las Vegas.

23 Oct 2012

Primary care physicians miss hepatitis vaccine targets

Primary care physicians are failing to meet guidelines for hepatitis A virus and hepatitis B virus vaccination in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection, according to US research.

22 Oct 2012

Large companies eye on-site health clinics to lower health costs, up employee productivity

On-site health care clinics are increasingly being set up at large companies that are looking for new ways to reduce health care costs and boost employees' productivity. These facilities are being established by firms across all sectors to offer everything from urgent and primary care to biometric screenings to chronic disease management.

22 Oct 2012

First Edition: October 22, 2012

Today's headlines include the latest news about how health policies are playing on the campaign trail as candidates move into the home stretch.

22 Oct 2012

Simple five-question survey may lead to increased diagnoses of COPD

A simple, five-question patient-administered survey (COPD-PS) may lead to increased diagnoses of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

22 Oct 2012

Kaiser Permanente Research Affiliates receives prestigious designation from AHRQ

A new research collaboration led by Kaiser Permanente has received a prestigious designation from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to serve of as one of the nation's 11 Evidence-based Practice Centers.

20 Oct 2012

Mental Health experts examine classifications of children's illness; Eating disorders patients worry about coverage

The Wall Street Journal looks at the effort to include kids' problems in the newest revision of psychiatrists' diagnostic manual. Also, KHN offers a story about the debate over health insurance for people with eating problems.

20 Oct 2012

Common misconceptions about breast cancer risks

From the food we eat to the products we use, there are a lot of misconceptions about what may increase the risk of developing breast cancer. There are known factors, like genetics, that are well documented. But what about lifestyle issues like having a nightly cocktail or using deodorant? So, what is fact and what is fiction? Wendy Chen, MD, MPH, a breast cancer expert at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston says an overabundance of information can be confusing, and it often is incorrect to some degree.

20 Oct 2012

Study finds dramatic increase in acute throat infection admissions in England

The number of children admitted to hospital in England for acute throat infections increased by 76 per cent between 1999 and 2010, according to new research published today in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

20 Oct 2012

New tools for evaluating quality, value of health care from patient's perspective

An ongoing program is developing new tools for assessing health care quality from the most important viewpoint-that of the patient receiving care, according to a special supplement to Medical Care.

20 Oct 2012

Updated second edition of autism toolkit from AAP

To help pediatricians in diagnosing and managing autism spectrum disorders in children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is offering an extensively revised and updated second edition of its autism toolkit, "Autism: Caring for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Resource Toolkit for Clinicians." The toolkit will be launched Oct. 20 at the AAP National Conference & Exhibition in New Orleans.

20 Oct 2012

True scale of anti-psychotic usage in dementia may be under-estimated

The scale of the challenge to reduce the use of anti-psychotic drugs by people with dementia may be under-estimated, according to researchers from Aston University and the University of East Anglia, working with NHS Kent and Medway. There is a key public health challenge to reduce the prescribing of anti-psychotic drugs to people with dementia as they are thought to be associated with up to 1,800 deaths a year.

19 Oct 2012

Survey: Nearly 38% of lesbians less likely to have routine cervical cancer screening

Nearly 38 percent of lesbians polled in a national survey were not routinely screened for cervical cancer, putting them at risk of developing a highly preventable cancer, according to a University of Maryland School of Medicine study being presented at the 11th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.

19 Oct 2012

Quality of care drops if doctors dictate

Physicians who predominantly dictate patients’ medical notes have worse quality of care than their peers who use structured electronic health record documentation, show study findings.

19 Oct 2012

First Edition: October 19, 2012

Today's headlines include reports about how Medicare and women's health issues are playing in a number of House and Senate races.

19 Oct 2012

Collaborative care improves depression and anxiety outcomes

Collaborative care, a model that involves multiple clinicians working with a patient, significantly improves depression and anxiety outcomes compared to standard primary care treatment for up to two years, finds a new review by The Cochrane Library.

19 Oct 2012

Electronic health record use linked to higher quality care

The use of electronic health records is linked to significantly higher quality care, according to a new study- by Lisa Kern and her team, from the Health Information Technology Evaluation Collaborative in the US. Their work appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine-, published by Springer.

19 Oct 2012

Kaiser Permanente creates new electronic Exercise Vital Sign initiative

Kaiser Permanente has created a new electronic Exercise Vital Sign initiative to systematically record patients' physical activity in their electronic health records.

19 Oct 2012

Fathers' parenting behavior influences sexual behavior of their adolescent children

A new study by New York University professor Vincent Guilamo-Ramos and colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that fathers' parenting behavior influences the sexual behavior of their adolescent children.

17 Oct 2012

Type 2 diabetes screening: an interview with Dr Simon Griffin, MRC Epidemiology Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge

Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which the body does not make sufficient insulin or the insulin it makes doesn’t work sufficiently well to maintain a normal level of blood glucose and so the blood glucose rises.

12 Oct 2012