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• From “pre-cancer” to back pain: The tide is turning on overtreatment

  Is American medicine finally waking up to the harm caused by overtreating common health conditions? And is Group Health Research Institute (GHRI) on track in finding practical ways to improve care while reducing harms from too much treatment?
• Dementia risk tied to blood sugar level, even with no diabetes

  A joint Group Health–University of Washington (UW) study in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that higher blood sugar levels are associated with higher dementia risk, even among people who do not have diabetes. Blood sugar levels averaged over a five-year period were associated with rising risks for developing dementia, in this report about more than 2,000 Group Health patients age 65 and older in the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study.
• Supreme Court ruling on DNA matches Group Health ethic

  The court decided “a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent-eligible merely because it has been isolated.” Many people at public-interest research organizations like GHRI, universities, and the NIH cheered this decision.
• Dr. Evette Ludman reflects on her career, her diagnosis, and the GHRI endowment

  One year after GHRI Research Associate Evette Ludman, PhD, coached nurse navigators to help cancer patients with difficult treatment decisions, she discovered the work’s value in a very personal way.
• CT scans—with radiation and cancer risk—rose in children

  Use of computed tomography (CT) scans—and thus exposure to ionizing radiation—increased over 15 years in children at a set of nonprofit health care delivery systems in a new study. But currently available strategies could greatly reduce this cancer risk, according to the HMORN Cancer Research Network study, published in JAMA Pediatrics.
• Action to improve imaging safety earns Birnbaum Award

  This dedication to improving patient safety while maintaining clinical excellence earned a Group Health radiology team the 2013 Birnbaum Award, which honors Group Health staff who work with researchers to improve patient care.
• Young children who miss well-child visits are more likely to be hospitalized

  Young children who missed more than half of recommended well-child visits had up to twice the risk of hospitalization as children who attended most of their visits, according to a study published today in the American Journal of Managed Care. The study included more than 20,000 children enrolled at Group Health Cooperative.