Mary Caffrey

A statement on hypoglycemia, an consensus document from cardiologists on diabetes and CVD, and guidelines on treating cholesterol.

The Commonwealth Fund report compared the status of health and healthcare for women in the United States to that of 10 other wealthy countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Australia.

Concerns over cost should lead FDA to recommend adjustments to these trials, which many say have led to unexpected knowledge and changed the field of diabetes care.

From chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy to value-based contracting, reimbursement issues dominated reader interest.

Leading cardiologist Mikhail N. Kosiborod, MD, FACC, FAHA, discusses how the FDA's 2008 guidance requiring cardiovascular outcomes trials has changed the treatment landscape in diabetes care and what expectations might look like going forward.

Technology and issues with reimbursement with of interest to authors writing for our diabetes journal this year.

Dublin, Ireland-based S3 Connected Health discusses the need to identify barriers to healthy behavior as well as factors that can promote healthy actions.

The COORDINATE-Diabetes seeks to explore what happens between development of clinical guidelines and their translation into clinical practice.

The relationship between diabetes management and preventing cardiovascular events was a theme throughout 2018, and this is reflected in the new standards.

In the past, data-gathering on pregnancy-related deaths has been irregular and review committees have not always addressed prevention.

The 2019 Standards of Care reflect an ongoing collaboration between the American Diabetes Association and the American College of Cardiology.

Many commentators disagreed with the argument that the call for a penalty to enforce the individual mandate could not stand apart from other parts of the law, such as protections to cover pre-existing conditions.

A federal judge in Texas ruled that the Affordable Care Act's individual coverage mandate is unconstitutional and that the rest of the law must also fall, likely setting up a fight in the Supreme Court and throwing into question the idea that consumers should have protection against discrimination by insurers for having pre-existing health conditions.

A forecast from the American College of Cardiology covers trends from therapy to technology to value-based care.

The report in Diabetes Care, the official journal of the American Diabetes Association, comes after reports of rising rates of diabetes and obesity among young adults and soaring insulin costs, which may mean diabetes is not being effectively treated.

A recap of the discussion at the Philadelphia meeting of the Institute for Value-Based Medicine®, an initiative of The American Journal of Managed Care®.

Competing breast cancer tests vie for attention from clinicians and payers at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

A batch of studies appearing in recent months have linked Medicaid expansion with lower death rates in renal failure, more efforts to quit smoking, and earlier detection of cancer. There are mixed outcomes in chronic disease, but an important clinical trial in Oregon shows that over the long haul, Medicaid expansion makes a difference.

The authors say while guidelines look at the benefits of statins to prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD), they do not adequately assess the harms. The new model takes this into account.

A commentator said a solution may come from the survey method: giving patients an opportunity to disclose medical information through an impersonal instrument.

CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced consumers buying health insurance through the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would be allowed to have heath savings accounts, and the agency will allow states to set their own subsidies and decide what type of health plan is eligible for subsidies. In addition, waivers would be evaluated against the Hyde amendment.

The authors noted that until recently, medications to control blood glucose were not expected to offer any benefit in helping patients avoid cardiovascular events.

Findings showed that children in primary care who received guidance on managing their weight over a year did as well as those who received treatment in major research clinics. The results are encouraging, given the rise in obesity around the globe.

Novo Nordisk plans to seek FDA approval for the GLP-1 receptor agonist in the first half of 2019.

A 2015 study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health made a change in blood pressure guidelines seem inevitable. But there is disagreement between the standards promoted by societies for family physicians and those for cardiologists, leading to confusion for those in daily practice.

In the keynote address at Patient-Centered Oncology Care® 2018, Barbara McAneny, MD, a New Mexico oncologist/hematologist and the current president of the American Medical Association (AMA), shared her diagnosis for the current crisis in US healthcare, as well as a prescription—a new real-time oncology payment model led by physicians.

The guidelines unveiled at the American Heart Association annual meeting discuss when patients at the highest risk could be treated with a PCSK9 inhibitor.

The report finds that another 1.7 million Americans have diabetes than would have been the case if rates had not increased.

If the trial is successful, venglustat could be the first treatment to target the mechanism of action in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (PKD), which affects 120,000 people in the United States.