All Articles

• Integrated health systems form largest U.S. private-sector diabetes registry

  Group Health and 10 other integrated health systems, with more than 16 million members, have combined de-identified data from their electronic health records to form one of the largest, most comprehensive, and most geographically diverse diabetes registries in the nation. According to a new study published today in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Preventing Chronic Disease, the SUPREME-DM DataLink provides a unique and powerful resource to conduct population-based diabetes research and clinical trials.
• Genetic testing may not trigger more use of health services

  People have more and more chances to participate in genetic testing that can indicate their range of risk for developing a disease. Receiving these results does not appreciably drive up—or diminish—test recipients’ demand for potentially costly follow-up health services, according to a new study in the May 17, 2012 early online issue of Genetics in Medicine.
• ‘Choosing Wisely’ initiative may be a tipping point for costs and ethics

  Health professionals and their leaders have a moral duty to ensure their patients’ safety, personally and through system improvement.
• Team care of chronic diseases seems cost-effective

  The collaborative TEAMcare program for people with depression and either diabetes, heart disease, or both appears at least to pay for itself, according to a UW Medicine and Group Health Research Institute report in the May 7 Archives of General Psychiatry. Over two years, after accounting for the $1,224 per patient that the program cost, it may save as much as $594 per patient in outpatient costs.
• Opioid-prescribing safety: Finding real-world solutions for a nationwide epidemic

  Fatal overdoses involving prescribed opioids quadrupled from 1999 to 2009, climbing to almost 16,000 U.S. deaths annually—more than cocaine and heroin overdoses combined. What wasn’t clear was how to combat this growing threat.
• Breast cancer screening: A trio of innovators shines light on the evidence women need

  Serious questions remain about how best to balance screening’s benefits with its potential harms, including false-positive test results, overdiagnosis leading to invasive treatment for non-life-threatening conditions, and repeated exposure to radiation.
• Risk factors may inform breast cancer screening

  hoosing when to start regular breast cancer screening is a complicated decision for individual women and their providers. For most women, increasing age is the biggest risk factor for breast cancer, which is much more common at age 60 than at 40. But two new articles on other risk factors may inform guidelines and clinical practice about screening mammography from age 40 to 49.