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2024 JUN 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Data detailed on Biotechnology - Pharmacogenomics have been presented. According to news [...]

2024 FEB 1 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Women's Health Weekly -- Current study results on chronic kidney disease have been published. According to news reporting [...]

2024 JAN 6 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Researchers detail new data in Opioids. According to news reporting originating in [...]

Objective. To assess the influence of relational climate on quality of diabetes care. Data Sources/Study Setting. The study was conducted at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA AH Employee Survey (AES) was used to measure relational climate. Patient and facility characteristics were gathered from VA administrative datasets. Study Design. Multilevel panel data (2008-2012) with patients nested into clinics. Data Collection/Extraction Methods. Diabetic patients were identified using ICD-9 codes and assigned to the clinic with the highest frequency of primary care visits. Multiple quality indicators were used, including an all-or-none process measure capturing guideline compliance, the actual number of tests and procedures, and three intermediate continuous outcomes (cholesterol, glycated hemoglobin, and blood pressure). Principal Findings. The study sample included 327,805 patients, 212 primary care clinics, and 101 parent facilities in 2010. Across all study years, there were 1,568,180 observations. Clinics with the highest relational climate were 25 percent more likely to provide guideline-compliant care than those with the lowest relational climate (OR for a 1-unit increase: 1.02, p-value Conclusions. Relational climate is positively associated with tests and procedures provision, but not with intermediate outcomes of diabetes care. Key Words. Diabetes, primary care, quality of care, relational climate, Successful diabetes quality improvement strategies often involve enhancing team functioning. Expanding roles, building multidisciplinary teams, and collaboratively providing care are a common quality improvement formula (Wagner 2000; Shojania et al. [...]

Objective. To compare the effects of two sequential policy changes--the addition of a high-potency statin to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) formulary and the release of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) cholesterol guidelines--on VA provider prescribing. Data Sources/Study Setting. Retrospective analysis of 1,100,682 VA patients, 2011-2016. Study Design. Interrupted time-series analysis of changes in prescribing of moderate-to-high-intensity statins among high-risk patients and across high-risk subgroups. We also assessed changes in prescribing of atorvastatin and other statin drugs. We estimated marginal effects (ME) of formulary and guideline changes by comparing predicted and observed statin use. Data Collection/Extraction Methods. Data from VA Corporate Data Warehouse. Principal Findings. The use of moderate-to-high-intensity statins increased by 2 percentage points following the formulary change (ME, 2.4, 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.2 to 2.6) and less than 1 percentage point following the guideline change (ME, 0.8, 95% CI, 0.6 to 0.9). The formulary change led to approximately a 12 percentage-point increase in the use of moderate-to-high-intensity atorvastatin (ME, 11.5, 95% CI, 11.3 to 11.6). The relatively greater provider response to the formulary change occurred across all patient subgroups. Conclusions. Addition of a high-potency statin to formulary affected provider prescribing more than the ACC/AHA guidelines. Key Words. Veterans Affairs, quality of care, cardiovascular disease, provider interventions, pharmaceuticals, Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are among the most important tools in medicine for lowering the rates of cardiovascular disease. In spite of this, the quality and effectiveness of statin prescribing are [...]

2020 MAR 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Current study results on Opioids have been published. According to news reporting [...]

2019 MAY 23 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Women's Health Weekly -- Investigators discuss new findings in Heart Disorders and Diseases - Heart Disease. According to [...]

2018 JUL 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Current study results on Autoimmune Diseases and Conditions - Sjogren's Syndrome have [...]

2018 MAR 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Data detailed on Digestive System Diseases and Conditions - Irritable Bowel Syndrome [...]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has approved a medical research partnership with DeepMind, a leader in artificial intelligence research, to address the global issue of patient deterioration during hospital [...]

BALTIMORE--Primary androgen deprivation therapy (PADT) does not prolong survival as much as radical prostatectomy (RP) among men with localized prostate cancer (PCa), a new retrospective analysis has confirmed. The results [...]