FEDERAL HEALTH UPDATE
Feb 12, 2010Produced by Kate Connelly Theroux in collaboration with the Institute of Federal Health Care (IFHC) To subscribe, please visit http://fedhealthinst.org/subscriber.cfm. Sponsored by
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Executive and Congressional News
Included among its provisions is
a three-month extension of COBRA health benefits. The bill also would
postpone for seven months a scheduled cut in the payments doctors receive
under Medicare.
The Let’s Move campaign will work to combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies and mobilizes public and private sector resources. Let’s Move will attempt to engage every sector affecxting the health of children to achieve its national goal and will provide schools, families and communities simple tools to help kids be more active, eat better and grow healthy. To support Let’s Move and facilitate and coordinate partnerships with states, communities and the non-profit and for-profit private sectors, the nation’s leading children’s health foundations have come together to create a new independent foundation – the Partnership for a Healthier America. This foundation will work in tandem with the federal government to build industry-specific solutions to fighting obesity that can be measured and tracked and facilitate new commitments towards the national goal of solving childhood obesity within a generation. Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America is overweight or obese. One third of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives; many others will face chronic obesity-related health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma. A recent study put the health care costs of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion per year. This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service. Let’s Move is designed to be comprehensive, collaborative, and community-oriented and to include strategies to address the various factors that lead to childhood obesity. It will foster collaboration among the leaders in government, medicine and science, business, education, athletics, community organizations and more. President Barack Obama kicked off the launch by signing a Presidential Memorandum creating the first ever Task Force on Childhood Obesity, which will include the Office of the First Lady, and the departments of Interior, Agriculture, HHS, Education, NEC and other agencies. Within 90 days, the task force is to conduct a review of every single program and policy relating to child nutrition and physical activity and develop a national action plan that maximizes federal resources and sets concrete benchmarks toward the First Lady’s national goal. For more information, please visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/the- Military Health Care News
The researchers found, however, that deployed troops returning home from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) were more likely to suffer increased short-term respiratory symptoms such as persistent cough or shortness of breath. Dr. Besa Smith from the Defense Center for Deployment Health Research, led the study in order to examine newly reported respiratory conditions in military personnel. Participants were from the Millennium Cohort Study, a 21-year longitudinal research initiative designed to investigate long-term health consequences related to military service. Two questionnaires were used to investigate respiratory symptoms, chronic bronchitis, emphysema and asthma — a baseline survey conducted between 2001 and 2003, and a follow-up survey conducted between 2004 and 2006. More than 55,000 service members participated in both survey assessments. Participants who deployed reported a 4 percent higher rate of newly reported, short-term respiratory symptoms; 14 percent of deployed personnel reported new symptoms while 10 percent of non-deployed personnel reported new symptoms. Although the difference may not appear great, it is statistically significant and compelling, considering that symptoms arose only in Army and Marine Corps personnel. Findings were not significant among Navy and Air Force personnel. This could be an indication that a correlation exists between these symptoms and land-based deployments. Other factors also associated with the increase in short-term respiratory symptoms include being male, being a consistent smoker, having a long, land-based deployment, and deploying to a location within Iraq. The second survey using survey data
followed over an additional three years and new data on air pollutants
found at operating bases throughout OIF and OEF will be analyzed.
This statute extended pharmaceutical Federal Ceiling Prices (FCPs) to TRICARE Retail Pharmacy Program prescriptions. DoD issued a final rule on March 17, 2009, implementing the law. On November 30, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ``ordered that the final rule is remanded for the DoD to consider in its discretion whether to readopt the current iteration of the rule or adopt another approach to implement 10 U.S.C. 1074g(f).'' As part of DoD's reconsideration, DoD solicits public comments on the implementation of the statute, DoD's resulting regulations, and the matters addressed for DoD's consideration in the Court's Memorandum Opinion. Written comments
must be submitted to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov by March 11, 2010 will be considered
and addressed in the final rule.
Washington, D.C.-based URAC establishes quality standards for the health care industry. The accreditation is based on the Web site’s health content, policies and procedures, disclosure, external linking and privacy, according to a news release. Humana Military already has URAC accreditation for case management; disease management in asthma, diabetes and heart failure; Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — privacy category; health network and health utilization management. Humana Military has a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, through its TRICARE program, to provide managed-care services for 3 million active-duty and retired service members and their families in 10 states and Puerto Rico. Veterans Health Care News
VA will choose 100 of the ideas and invite their authors to submit full proposals. Federal and contract employees of the Veterans Health Administration and the department’s Office of Information and Technology have until Feb. 21 to submit their ideas, comment on them and vote on the best proposals, said Dr. Gerald Cross, acting VA under secretary for health. Under the terms of the contest, employees may enter health IT ideas in a variety of categories, such as engaging veterans in their care, helping medical providers, increasing transparency and improving workflow. For more information, please visit http://www.ehealth.va.gov/
The report includes information about its rural health initiatives, efforts to address emerging needs in traumatic brain injury and mental health care, progress on electronic healthcare records, expanding Vietnam veterans benefits for Agent Orange exposure, providing access for priority group 8 veterans, expanded the Disability Evaluation System (DES) pilot program, expanded programs for separating servicemembers, expanding women veteran programs and establishing a Gulf War Task Force. To read the full report, please visit http://www1.va.gov/opa/vadocs/
On Feb. 9, 2010, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced its national Medical Simulation Center for Excellence will be located at Orlando. The simulation center
initially will create 12 jobs with potential for more as the home base
for VA’s medical simulation training programs. VA personnel from across
the country will come in for training, and the center will interact
with the numerous other simulation centers throughout Central Florida.
Under the terms of the agreement, Plexis Healthcare Systems, payer solution and claims processing technology company , will serve as a subcontractor to CSC to provide the VA Financial Services Center (FSC) with software for a healthcare claims processing system. The FSC will use the system to perform medical claims processing for a variety of the Veterans Health Administration’s healthcare programs. Plexis Healthcare Systems has held the incumbent claims software contract with the VA FSC since 2003. Under the new agreement, Plexis’ Quantum Choice™ will be implemented enabling the FSC to fully administer multiple lines of business on a single platform utilizing a browser-based application. VA healthcare benefits programs such as the Millennium and Hero Bills, Purchased Care and other traditional fee-based service lines are scheduled for initial production use by Q3 of 2010. The VA estimates annual transactional volume projections, across all programs to be approximately 40 million claims at a total cost in excess of one billion dollars per year. Health Care News
This money supports one of several components in HHS’ comprehensive prevention and wellness initiative, Communities Putting Prevention to Work, which is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The funding — provided to 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and six Pacific territories — will focus on efforts to help communities and schools reduce obesity, increase physical activity, improve nutrition and decrease smoking. It will support healthy choices through a variety of methods including using media to support healthy food and beverage choices and increased physical activity, and increasing access to safe places to be active. Awards also will support efforts to increase tobacco cessation through quit-lines and media campaigns, and additional funding was provided to 13 states to support special initiatives. Awards to states and territories are in three major categories:
Awards for other Communities Putting Prevention to Work initiatives, including community-based health promotion initiatives, will be announced in the coming weeks. To learn more about
Communities Putting Prevention to Work, visit http://www.cdc.gov/
These procedures are the greatest contributors to total radiation exposure within the U.S. population and use much higher radiation doses than other radiographic procedures, such as standard x-rays, dental x-rays, and mammography. CT, nuclear medicine, and fluoroscopic imaging have led to early diagnosis of disease, improved treatment planning and image-guided therapies that help save lives every day. However, like all medical procedures, CT, nuclear medicine, and fluoroscopy pose risks. These types of imaging exams expose patients to ionizing radiation, a type of radiation that can increase a person’s lifetime cancer risk. Accidental exposure to very high amounts of radiation also can cause injuries, such as skin burns, hair loss and cataracts. Health care decisions made by patients and their physicians should include discussions of the medical need and associated risks for each procedure. While there is some disagreement over the extent of the cancer risk associated with exposure to radiation from medical imaging, there is broad agreement that steps can and should be taken to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure. Through the FDA’s regulatory oversight of medical imaging devices, such as CT scanners, and through collaboration with other federal agencies and health care professional groups, the FDA is advocating the adoption of two principles of radiation protection: appropriate justification of the radiation procedure and optimization of the radiation dose used during each procedure. The three-pronged initiative the FDA is announcing will promote the safe use of medical imaging devices, support informed clinical decisionmaking, and increase patient awareness of their own exposure. The FDA intends to issue targeted requirements for manufacturers of CT and fluoroscopic devices to incorporate important safeguards into the design of their machines to develop safer technologies and to provide appropriate training to support safe use by practitioners. In addition, the
FDA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are collaborating
to incorporate key quality assurance practices into the mandatory accreditation
and conditions of participation survey processes for imaging facilities
and hospitals. These quality assurance practices will improve the quality
of oversight and promote the safe use of advanced imaging technologies
in those facilities.
The program, called Pumps for Kids, Infants, and Neonates (PumpKIN), hopes to complete the needed animal studies and other tests in artificial environments so that the most promising devices will be able to gain approval from the FDA to begin clinical testing. NHLBI’s funding will support the next phase of the PumpKIN program by enabling further testing and further development of these devices. The contractors that received the awards are Harvey S. Borovetz, Phd., University of Pittsburgh, Mark Gartner, PhD., Ension, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, Bartley P. Griffith, M.D., University of Maryland, Baltimore, and Robert Jarvik, M.D., Jarvik Heart Inc., New York, N.Y. To initially address the problem, NHLBI launched the Pediatric Circulatory Support Program in 2004 by funding the development of five novel circulatory support devices for infants and young children with congenital and acquired cardiovascular disease. The devices supported in that program provide suitable circulatory support for newborns, older infants, and children who weighed less than 55 pounds and experienced heart failure due to congenital and acquired cardiovascular disease. The devices that were developed were designed to supply adequate blood flow to prevent organ damage while minimizing the risk of blood vessel damage, infection, breakdown of red blood cells, excessive bleeding, brain damage, and dangerous blood clots. The devices are intended to support circulation in pediatric patients for one to six months, be sufficiently small and reasonably portable, and be able to be routinely positioned and functioning in less than one hour. For more information, go to www.nhlbi.nih.gov.
The new indication is for reducing the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke or the need for a procedure to treat blocked or narrowed arteries in patients who have never been told they have heart disease but are nevertheless at increased risk of a cardiac event. Specifically, this includes men 50 years of age and older and women 60 years of age and older who have an elevated amount of a substance known as high sensitivity C-reactive protein in their blood and at least one additional traditional cardiovascular risk factor such as smoking, high blood pressure, a family history of premature heart disease, or low amounts of high-density lipoprotein or HDL cholesterol, the so-called “good cholesterol.” This new indication does not support the use of Crestor in individuals who have an elevated high sensitivity C-reactive protein but no traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Crestor is in a class
of drugs called statins, which work by stopping an enzyme called HMG-CoA
reductase from making cholesterol. High amounts of low-density lipoprotein
or LDL cholesterol, the so-called “bad cholesterol,” is a known
risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, and heart disease.
DSM is the tome used by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to diagnose different conditions and to guide research. Unlike its predecessor, DSM-4, the new DSM-5 would not formally recognize sex and Internet addictions; would create a new category for "risk" disorders for people possibly heading towards developing full psychosis or dementia; and would create a new disorder, "temper dysregulation with dysphoria" (TDD) to incorporate both mood and behavioral disturbances, partly a response to current overdiagnosis of juvenile bipolar disorder. Other issues were also addressed, including creating an overarching category known as "autism spectrum disorders" to encompass autism, Asperger's syndrome and other similar conditions. This term is already widely used. And "mental retardation" would be changed to "intellectually challenged." The proposed draft will be available for public comment until April 20. The final document is expected to be released in 2013. The DSM-4 was published in 1994. One of the major changes in the proposed volume will be a move toward "dimensional assessments" for mental disorders, meaning that strict, immutable categories will be replaced by a reliance on continuums and that "cross-cutting" symptoms — those that span several different disorders — will be included in the criteria. This new diagnostic guidance gives "careful consideration" to how mental health disorders might vary according to race, gender and ethnicity. View and comment on the proposed
changes by visiting the American
Psychiatric Association.
The Abbreviated Pandemic Influenza Plan Template for Primary Care Provider Offices is a planning tool developed based on input from stakeholders (PCPs, PCP office managers, hospitals, local and state public health departments, and local and state emergency management agencies) during a CDC-sponsored meeting in August 2009. It is intended to assist PCPs and office managers with preparing their offices for quickly putting a plan in place to handle an increase in patient calls and visits, whether during the 2009-2010 influenza season or future influenza seasons. It provides key considerations for PCP offices and is a summary of a forthcoming planning document, the Pandemic Influenza Organizer, which is expected to be released in late spring 2010. Offices are encouraged to use this template as a guide to develop the framework for a pandemic influenza plan, and begin to integrate the plan into their community's plan. Reserve/Guard
Reports/Policies
Legislation
Hill Hearings
Meetings / Conferences
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If you need further information on any of the items in the Federal Health Update, please contact Kate Connelly Theroux at (703) 447-3257 or by e-mail at katetheroux@fedhealthinst.org. To subscribe, please visit http://fedhealthinst.org/subscriber.cfm. To unsubscribe, please send an email to newsletter@fedhealthinst.org with UNSUBSCRIBE as the subject. Back issues availiable at Federal Health Update Archives. |
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