Today’s Top Story
CMS releases details for Stage 3 of meaningful use.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released details of a proposed rule for Stage 3 of the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Incentive Programs. The agency states that the proposed rule is designed to offer providers additional flexibility, simplify the program, drive interoperability among EHRs, and increase focus on patient outcomes. The Stage 3 proposed rule’s scope is generally limited to the requirements and criteria for meaningful use in 2017 and subsequent years. CMS plans to address changes to meaningful use beginning in 2015 through separate rulemaking. CMS is accepting public comments through May 29, 2015. Read more…
Read the proposed rule…

Other News

HHS unveils initiative to reduce opioid dependence.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced an initiative to reduce prescription opioid and heroin-related overdose, death, and dependence. The initiative focuses on the following priorities:

  • Training and educational resources, including updated prescriber guidelines, to assist health professionals in making informed prescribing decisions and address over-prescribing
  • Development, distribution, and increased use of naloxone
  • Expanding the use of Medication-Assisted Treatment

HHS notes that opioid analgesics “have increasingly been implicated in drug overdose deaths over the last decade.” Read more…(registration may be required)
Read the HHS press release…
Read the issue brief (PDF)…

Obama administration releases action plan to address drug-resistant bacteria.
The White House has released a “National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria,” to outline steps for combatting drug-resistant bacteria. “Although its primary purpose is to guide activities by the U.S. Government,” the authors write, “the National Action Plan is also designed to guide action by public health, healthcare, and veterinary partners in a common effort to address urgent and serious drug-resistant threats that affect people in the U.S. and around the world.” The plan covers the following goals:

  • To slow the emergence and prevent the spread of resistant bacteria
  • To strengthen national one-health surveillance efforts to combat resistance
  • To advance development and use of rapid diagnostic tests for identification and characterization of resistant bacteria
  • To accelerate basic and applied research and development for new antibiotics, other therapeutics, and vaccines
  • To improve international collaboration and capacities for antibiotic-resistance prevention, surveillance, control, and antibiotic research and development

Read more…
Read the plan (PDF)…

Study: Bisphosphonate treatment for all older women who suffer DRF would reduce fracture burden, but at high cost.
Findings presented at the AAOS Annual Meeting suggest that routine treatment with bisphosphonates of all women over 65 who present with distal radius fracture (DRF) would significantly reduce the likelihood of hip fracture in that population, but the overall cost would be substantial. The research team developed a stochastic Markov chain decision tree model, and projected that such bisphosphonate treatment would avoid 94,888 lifetime hip fractures, at a cost of 19,464 atypical femur fractures and $19.5 billion total over the population lifetime, or on average $2,186,617,527 annually. Overall, the researchers estimate the cost to be $205,534 per hip fracture avoided. Read more…
Read the abstract…

Survey: Emergency physicians say too many tests ordered in EDs.
According to a survey published online in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine, many emergency physicians believe a substantial proportion of imaging studies are medically unnecessary. The authors surveyed 435 emergency physicians and found that more than 85 percent of respondents said too many diagnostic tests are ordered in their own emergency departments (EDs), and 97 percent stated that at least some of the advanced imaging studies they personally order are medically unnecessary. Primary perceived contributors to overordering were fear of missing a low-probability diagnosis and fear of litigation. Solutions that respondents most commonly believed would be helpful in the reduction of unnecessary imaging included medical liability reform (79 percent), increased patient involvement through education (70 percent) and shared decision-making (56 percent), feedback to physicians on test-ordering metrics (55 percent), and improved education of physicians on diagnostic testing (50 percent). Read more…
Read the abstract…

Medical identity theft on the rise.
An article in the St. Louis Business Journal looks at the issue of medical identity theft. The writers state that medical identity theft is currently the fastest growing identity crime in the United States, and argue that although “medical identity theft is most harmful to a consumer, organizations that handle personal health information can suffer costly legal ramifications as well as a tarnished brand if they are the source of the data breach.” In addition, a recent survey found that 48 percent of respondents said they would consider changing healthcare providers if their medical records were lost or stolen. Read more…

Last call for the 2015 AAOS/OREF/ORS Clinician Scholar Career Development Program!
March 31 is the last day to submit your application to participate in the Clinician Scholar Career Development Program (CSDP). The program is a joint project of AAOS, the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF), and the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS). CSDP seeks applicants in years PGY2 to PGY5 of orthopaedic residency, fellows, and junior faculty through year 3 who have the potential and desire to become orthopaedic clinician scholars (scientists and investigators). Up to 15 applicants will be selected to participate in the 1.5-day training workshop, with up to 10 additional participants sponsored by orthopaedic specialty societies. The 2015 AAOS/OREF/ORS CSDP will take place Sept. 17-19, 2015, in Rosemont, Ill. Please submit applications, along with curriculum vitae and a letter of support, by 11:59 PM CST on March 31, 2015 to: csdp@aaos.org
Learn more and submit your application…

OKOJ April updates now online!
Check out the new topics and video in the Orthopaedic Knowledge Online Journal (OKOJ) on the AAOS OrthoPortal website. The following topics have been recently added or updated: “Bony Increased-Offset Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty,” “Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute Compartment Syndrome in Children,” and “Pitfalls in the Treatment of Femur Fractures in Children and Adolescents.” Two new videos have also been made available: “Comparison of Range of Motion in Traditional Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty Versus Bony Increased-Offset Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty” and “Bony Increased-Offset Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty: Surgical Technique.” OKOJ now offers full-text, downloadable PDFs for articles in recent issues, with more on the way! View these topics and more…(member login required)