E-DMN - November 26, 2007

November 26, 2007

WSU Among Top 10 Presenters
AHIC urges HHS to Require Doctor Prescribing
No Other Evidence
DEA Final Rule A Win For Patients
EMR In Physician Practice
Robert Zalenski Honored For CAPE Program
NEJM Examines Presidential Perspectives

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WSU Among Top 10 Presenters

For the third consecutive year, the Wayne State University Multiple Sclerosis Center was named among the top five U.S. multiple sclerosis centers at the annual meeting of the largest AHMS academic body. More than 5,000 attendees participated in the meeting earlier this month in Prague from all over the world.

More than 50 U.S. university and hospital-based academic neurology departments and MS centers presented papers at the meeting. The top five centers in terms of the numbers of papers presented included: State University of New York-Buffalo with 16 papers, WSU with 12 papers, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, with 11 papers, Mayo Clinic with 10 papers and the Neuroimmunology Branch, a National Institutes of Health branch, with 9 papers.

Six of WSU’s 12 papers were investigator initiated, and six were as a result of multi-center phase II and III clinical trials. Several related publications are already in press or being peer-reviewed for publication. Omar Khan, M.D., professor of Neurology, is director of the Multiple Sclerosis Clinical Research Center & Neuroimaging Laboratory at Wayne State University School of Medicine.

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AHIC Urges HHS To Require Doctor Prescribing

Members of the American Health Information Community voted unanimously at their Nov. 13 meeting to recommend to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt that the Bush administration seek federal legislation to mandate that physicians seeking payment under the Medicare program use electronic prescribing systems. The motion was made by AHIC member Scott Serota, president and chief executive officer of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. AHIC was established by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt in 2005 to advise him on healthcare information-technology policy. AHIC was holding its 17th meeting in Chicago at the annual convention of the American Medical Informatics Association. Serota's motion came after fellow AHIC member Craig Barrett, the chairman of the board of computer-chip maker Intel Corp., vented his frustration at the slow pace of physician adoption of healthcare IT. "We've discussed this on or off for 17 meetings," Barrett said, waving his hand at Serota and CMS Administrator Kerry Weems, who were sitting next to each other across the table. "You have the purchasing power. You have the control to say, these are the standards, you won't be reimbursed unless you do it this way. In the business world, this would have been a done deal 17 meetings ago. Slam dunk. Get on with it."

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No Other Evidence

We are supposed to practice "evidence based medicine" and yet there is no evidence that e-prescribing does anything except raise the costs of prescribing and raise the costs of the RX prescribed. NO OTHER EVIDENCE, either that of improved quality, improved patterns of prescribing, (unless you own a drug company), better patient outcomes, etc.has been shown. AMAZING! How do I respond to that issue? Why don't they compel hospitals to provide EMR compatible results for the exorbitant rates they charge for x-rays, labs, etc?

Rob Jackson, MD

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DEA Final Rule A Win For Patients

“The Final Rule to amend the DEA’s regulations of Schedule II drugs will give patients better access to the prescription drugs they need and continue to minimize the risks controlled substances pose to public health and safety,” said Rebecca Patchin, MD, AMA Board Member.

“Physicians need the oversight and ability to write stable patients a reasonable amount of prescriptions that contain directions for dispensing controlled substances on future specified dates. The Final Rule will allow physicians to continue this well-established clinical practice and decrease the likelihood that patients will run out of drugs that provide critical relief from moderate to severe chronic pain.

“The AMA and our specialty societies have worked hard to encourage the DEA to take action on this issue and address the needs of chronically ill patients.”

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EMR In Physician Practice

MSMS offers a series of case studies of diverse physician practices to capture the actual experience of Michigan physicians as they made the decision to use an electronic medical record (EMR) system, and then implemented it.

These case studies aim to address a gap in the EMR research: there are definitive general studies of adoption and there are consultants and vendors well qualified to assist physicians with the technical and operational details of selecting, installing, and maintaining an EMR, but there are no stories of diverse physician practices in Michigan that give physicians a vivid sense of the decisions, changes in operations, benefits, and drawbacks to adopting an EMR system.

We hope that these case studies are rich and varied enough for a physician to say of at least one, "Yes, that's like my practice and that's where I am right now in my thinking about EMR."

Click here to read an introductory summary, and the 14 case studies. For further information, contact Rebecca Blake at MSMS at 517-336-5729 or rblake@msms.org.

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Robert Zalenski, MD, Honored For CAPE Program

The Center to Advance Palliative-Care Excellence (CAPEWAYNE) received the prestigious Crystal Rose Award from the Hospice of Michigan (HOM) on September 28th, 2007. The ceremony took place during the Crystal Rose Ball on board the Ovation Yacht. Past recipients of the award include the Ford Motor Company and Penske Corporation. Dr. Robert Zalenski, the Center's Director, received the award on behalf of the leadership team of CAPEWAYNE, including Drs. Stellini, Campbell, Schim, and Raspa. HOM has been a major supporter of the funding and development of the new Wayne State University Palliative Medicine Fellowship.

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NEJM Examines Presidential Perspectives

"Election 2008: Presidential Politics and the Resurgence of Health Care Reform," New England Journal of Medicine: In the NEJM perspective, Jonathan Oberlander, an associate professor of social medicine and of health policy and administration at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, examines the health care proposals of Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. According to Oberlander, the plans proposed by leading Democratic candidates rely on a "pay-or-play" employer mandate to achieve universal coverage. Democrats' plans also would "avoid any explicit budgeting of health care spending or centralized cost controls"; are financed largely by reversing tax cuts adopted by the Bush administration; and "contain provisions designed to reassure Americans" that they retain the ability to make their own choices about coverage. Proposals introduced by Republican presidential candidates call for deregulation of insurance markets, investments in health information technology and expansion of health savings accounts (Oberlander, NEJM, 11/22).
"The Fate of SCHIP -- Surrogate Marker for Health Care Ideology?" NEJM: In the perspective, NEJM national correspondent John Iglehart discusses the SCHIP debate and efforts by lawmakers over the past several months to pass a bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization and expansion bill. Iglehart also discusses President Bush's veto of SCHIP legislation, the administration's objections to expanding the program and possible future action on the program (Iglehart, NEJM, 11/22).

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