Thomas Van Hoof, MD, has been appointed associate dean of the Office of Continuing and Community Education at the Health Center at the University of Connecticut, and from this article, he sounds like the right person for the job:

“Interactive education methods, targeted to individual needs and learning styles, combined with system-based interventions such as clinician and patient reminders, educational outreach, and performance feedback, are a powerful combination,” he says.



“We do not always fully leverage the potential of education.”

He also serves as an associate professor in the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care.

This article on MedPageToday is a pretty good needs assessment for cardiac exam CME:

“Cardiac examination skills do not improve after the third year of medical school and may decline after years in practice, which has important implications for medical decision making, patient safety, cost-effective care, and continuing medical education,” they reported in the March 27 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

To help patients achieve better outcomes when it comes to transplants, Interlink Health Services has an interesting business model, according to The Portland Business Journal:

Hillsboro-based Interlink, which split from a larger company three years ago, plays in a space dominated by mammoth health plans, including United Health Care, Cigna and Aetna Health Insurance. It steers clients to transplant centers with the best outcomes. In exchange for higher patient volumes, the transplant centers grant discounts to Interlink clients.

CME is also integral to its model:

Besides ensuring quality at transplant centers, Interlink provides extensive educational materials for its clients to distribute to members awaiting transplants. Continued education for transplant providers is also an important part of the business because medical standards for transplants change over time.



“It’s something that sets [Interlink] apart, its transplant-related continuing medical education, both for its own case managers and for transplant providers. It has put together online education modules that qualify for continuing education credits,” said Elizabeth Seely, associate executive director, Ohio State University Hospital and the Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, part of the Interlink network.

I think we may be seeing more of this kind of thing, as healthcare payers start realizing the obvious when facing rising healthcare costs: Better outcomes for the patient equal better value and less expense for the payers.

And you thought it couldn’t happen: Here’s a story in the Triangle Business Journal about Scienta Healthcare Education, an accredited CME provider spun out from a communication company. And it’s not about wrong-doing, or scandals, or influence. Just a nice business story about how the company works. Let’s see some more of this type of press about the CME business.

This is worth finding out more about: According to the Center for Public Integrity, FDA Staff Travels on Drug Industry Dollars,

Groups tied to FDA-regulated industry paying for agency officials’ trips. From the site:

Through an apparent loophole in agency rules the Food and Drug Administration has allowed its employees to receive more than $1.3 million in sponsored travel since 1999 from groups closely tied to pharmaceutical and medical device companies.



FDA policy bars employees from taking trips paid for by the drug, medical device and other companies the agency regulates or by their trade groups. But the Center for Public Integrity has found nonprofit associations that draw their members, their boards and even some of their funding from medical and pharmaceutical-related companies paying for the travel of hundreds of FDA employees.




The sponsor of the most trips was the Drug Information Association, which footed the bill for more than 600 trips taken by FDA employees. The nonprofit group made up of pharmaceutical and medical device employees, academics and government regulators boasts 13 members on its board of directors who work or have worked for the industry or its consulting groups.

It goes on to say that universities and other organizations also sponsored FDA employees on trips to conferences.

Many of the private organizations sponsoring FDA employees’ trips defend the practice, saying that they help provide a forum for learning about policies.



“To get all those parties into discussions will lead to greater productivity,” said Robert Best, president of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering.

I expect our friends over at Health Care Renewal will be sinking their teeth into this one.

From Cities.expressindia.com:

The CVTS department has one functioning operation theatre and a six-bedded well-equipped cardiac surgical equipment. Now going a step further, the department has shown how advanced they are by performing the first awake cardiac surgery and minimal access (video assisted) cardiac surgery at the live workshop and Continuing Medical Education (CME) programme organised by Sassoon Hospital and Indian Medical Association.

That seems to be the new trend, according to this article in the Journal News. Docs in high-risk specialties are flocking to courses like Byrne’s malpractice course at the University of Richmond Law School, it says. From the article:

“I’m shocked at what is part of my life that nobody ever taught me about,” said Dr. Shannon Weatherford, an obstetrician in Richmond who is taking the Saturdays-only class. “Four years of medical school and four years of residency, and there’s nothing about the business of medicine and the legal aspects. This is just a single, terrific opportunity to get educated on something I should know about.”



Much of the interest in the course was sparked by soaring premiums and growing insurance losses from malpractice claims that have led to calls for tort reform (though some critics have accused insurers of overstating these losses).




The Association of American Law Schools knew of no other law school that has opened a malpractice course to practicing physicians. But Columbia Law School in New York invites both law and medical students to an ethics class that raises malpractice issues. In addition, about a dozen medical schools around the country prepare their students with some sort of malpractice instruction, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

These courses are accredited for CME, the article says, and despite some natural hostility, the law students and docs have much to learn from each other in the classroom, instead of the courtroom. In addition, in New York, medical liability insurance companies are required to provide risk-management courses, each of which is good for a 5 percent insurance premium discount, and for CME credit, it says.

I’ve heard that pharma isn’t very interested in providing commercial support for these types of business-related education, but it seems like there is a need here that more CME providers could fulfill. Where the funding would come from, I don’t know, though.

According to The Bay of Plenty Times, a recent survey found that New Zealand’s GPs are fed up with all the paperwork that’s sapping their time and making it hard to get that elusive work-life balance. And, it says,

The couple say it is difficult to make time for holidays with their four children, with locums hard to find, and to make time for the required continuing medical education…On top of the consulting time, GPs have hours of administration to do, and many serve on committees and health groups.



“On top of that, they have to study to keep up with changing medical practice advances.”




At Bayfair Doctors, all GPs are encouraged to take a day off, which most use for work to keep their professional registration up to date, says practice manager Sharron Harris.

New Zealand isn’t alone in this burnout among GPs. I’ve read similar complaints from GPs in the U.S., and how the number of new GPs entering practice is much smaller than those who are exiting due to retirement or burnout. There needs to be some way to make time for CME in all the things they have to do; Bayfair’s plan is at least a step in the right direction.

There’s an interesting article in the Annals of Family Medicine: Facilitating Collaboration Among Academic Generalist Disciplines: A Call to Action, by Jean S. Kutner, MD, MSPH, John M. Westfall, MD, MPH, Elizabeth H. Morrison, MD, MSED, Mary Catherine Beach, MD, MPH, Elizabeth A. Jacobs, MD, MPP and Roger A. Rosenblatt, MD, MPH, MFR

ABSTRACT

To meet its population‘s health needs, the United States must have a coherent system to train and support primary care physicians. This goal can be achieved only though genuine collaboration between academic generalist disciplines. Academic general pediatrics, general internal medicine, and family medicine may be hampering this effort and their own futures by lack of collaboration. This essay addresses the necessity of collaboration among generalist physicians in research, medical education, clinical care, and advocacy. Academic generalists should collaborate by (1) making a clear decision to collaborate, (2) proactively discussing the flow of money, (3) rewarding collaboration, (4) initiating regular generalist meetings, (5) refusing to tolerate denigration of other generalist disciplines, (6) facilitating strategic planning for collaboration among generalist disciplines, and (7) learning from previous collaborative successes and failures. Collaboration among academic generalists will enhance opportunities for trainees, primary care research, and advocacy; conserve resources; and improve patient care.

Fairly deep into this story on Cleveland.com about a possible theft of some plague vials from a lab (scary enough) comes this, about obtaining and moving human pathogens, pre-9/11:

Members of Congress also were shocked to learn that those who moved potentially deadly biological “select agents” from place to place didn’t have to report the transfers.



Researchers were known to swap the stuff at scientific meetings. Flying back from fieldwork, they packed petri dishes and test tubes of it in their suitcases or carried it in their clothing. Sometimes they taped samples to their bodies to keep the germs at their preferred temperature.




There was even a humorous name for the technique - traveling “VIP,” or “vials in pocket.”




No one meant to be cavalier. The researchers genuinely believed that personally transporting samples was the safest way to go. It kept the material out of the hands of careless or nefarious shippers, and - contrary to public perception - posed little risk to fellow passengers.

I’m going to have to tune in for the next installment in this series: It’s fascinating, and frightening.