Medicaid renewals began April 1;   Members should verify contact information with DHSS, watch for renewal information  The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) has resumed the standard eligibility renewal process for Medicaid and CHIP recipients as of April 1, 2023, as required by federal law. Annual renewals were not required from March […]

NEW CASTLE (June 16, 2023) – The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services’ Division of Medicaid and Medical Assistance announces that it has extended Medicaid postpartum health care coverage from 60 days to 12 months after the end of a pregnancy. This expansion is made possible through a State Plan Amendment approved by the Centers […]

Georgetown, DE – This past week the Delaware Department of Correction (DOC) recognized Correctional Officers and medical professionals for saving the life of a Sussex Correctional Institution (SCI) inmate who experienced a sudden life-threatening cardiac arrest earlier this year. On August 14, 2022 a 62 year-old inmate was working in the SCI kitchen when he exhibited […]

Attorney General Kathy Jennings announced on Monday that a Maryland resident was arrested for allegedly stealing the identity of a registered nurse (“RN”), and then trying to use those credentials to fraudulently obtain employment in Delaware nursing homes.  “The licensing system for healthcare professionals is crucial to patient safety,” Attorney General Jennings said.  “The Delaware Department of […]

Insurers approved to offer plans with benefits equal to or greater than the forthcoming state plan Insurance Commissioner Trinidad Navarro announced today that the Department of Insurance has approved Delaware’s first private Paid Family Medical Leave plans. These filings, reviewed by independent actuaries and against state requirements, provide options for businesses who wish to purchase […]

Free one-on-one counseling saved Delawareans $3.8M in 2023 As Medicare Open Enrollment approaches, the Delaware Department of Insurance and its Medicare Assistance Bureau (DMAB) are sharing their annual consumer information update. From October 15 to December 7, consumers can join, switch, or drop a Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (Part D) or Medicare Advantage Plan. DMAB’s […]

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES: Division of Public Health

Eco Equity is one of only a few Europe-based investors in medicinal cannabis from Africa and the Caribbean, an area in which the UK is missing an opportunity, according to CEO Jon-Paul Doran.

Dispatch teams gave hotline callers life-saving medical treatment advice over the phone on October 7. One such woman told children where to hide from terrorists.

Reichman University launches a new medical school to address Israel's doctor shortage, with hands-on training from day one.

Responsibility for the funding of cancer medication is set to be taken over by the Health Ministry from the Malta Community Chest Fund • Minister announces Paola Health Hub set to launch operations this week

to write medical report

Title: Need Advice on Medical Pot for Cancer Care? Don't Ask Local Dispensary
Category: Health News
Created: 8/17/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/18/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: You Can Drink Coffee With Your Thyroid Medication: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 6/13/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 6/13/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: Too Much Radiation From Medical Imaging?
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2009 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2009 12:00:00 AM

Title: Most Medications OK During Breast-Feeding, Report Says
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2013 9:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2013 12:00:00 AM

Title: Worse Outcomes Seen When Patients Leave Hospital Against Medical Advice
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2013 12:36:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2013 12:00:00 AM

Title: Michigan Senate OK's Medicaid Expansion
Category: Health News
Created: 8/30/2013 11:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/30/2013 12:00:00 AM

Title: Ebola: A Medical Drama Unfolds
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2014 11:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/25/2014 12:00:00 AM

Title: Fewer Painkiller Deaths in States With Medical Marijuana: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 8/25/2014 4:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2014 12:00:00 AM

Title: Lack of Protective Gear Leaves Medics at Risk in Ebola Outbreak: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2014 2:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2014 12:00:00 AM

Title: Exercise May Be Good Medicine for Irregular Heartbeat
Category: Health News
Created: 8/24/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/25/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: Medical Groups Endorse Early Exposure to Peanut Products for High-Risk Infants
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/27/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: FDA Approves Second Drug in New Class of Cholesterol-Lowering Medications
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: How Reliable Are Medical Studies? Half of Findings Couldn't Be Replicated
Category: Health News
Created: 8/27/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: Medical Marijuana's Pain Relief May Work Better for Men
Category: Health News
Created: 8/24/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/25/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: More Americans Can Afford Medications Under Obamacare: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 8/26/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: Exercise Is Good Medicine for Advanced Colon Cancer
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2019 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2019 12:00:00 AM

Title: For Medicare Patients, Costs of MS Drugs Rise Sevenfold Over 10 Years
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2019 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/29/2019 12:00:00 AM

Title: Not So Sudden: Many Seek Medical Help 2 Weeks Before Cardiac Arrest
Category: Health News
Created: 8/25/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/25/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: How Your Medicines Make Their Way Into Rivers, Lakes and Bays
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2021 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/23/2021 12:00:00 AM

Title: Alternative Medicine Popular Among Seniors, But Most Don't Tell Their Doctors About It
Category: Health News
Created: 7/27/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 7/27/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: Medical Marijuana for Pain Is Linked to Slight Rise in Heart Trouble
Category: Health News
Created: 8/23/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/23/2022 12:00:00 AM

Title: 'Virtual' Museum Visits Are Good Medicine for Seniors
Category: Health News
Created: 8/16/2022 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/16/2022 12:00:00 AM

Background:

Nested within a growing body of evidence of a gender pay gap in medicine are more alarming recent findings from family medicine: a gender pay gap of 16% can be detected at a very early career stage. This article explores qualitative evidence of women’s experiences negotiating for their first job out of residency to ascertain women’s engagement with and approach to the negotiation process.

Purpose:

Providing medication abortion in the primary care setting is a promising way to increase access to abortion, a threatened service in many States. This study aimed to characterize primary care clinicians’ interest in prescribing medication abortion, what barriers they face in adding this service, and what support they need.

Background:

Certain health-related risk factors require legal interventions. Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) are collaborations between clinics and lawyers that address these health-harming legal needs (HHLNs) and have been shown to improve health and reduce utilization.

Introduction:

High-quality primary care can reduce avoidable emergency department visits and emergency hospitalizations. The availability of electronic medical record (EMR) data and capacities for data storage and processing have created opportunities for predictive analytics. This systematic review examines studies which predict emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and mortality using EMR data from primary care.

Objective:

In this study, we sought to comprehensively evaluate GPT-4 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer)’s performance on the 2022 American Board of Family Medicine’s (ABFM) In-Training Examination (ITE), compared with its predecessor, GPT-3.5, and the national family residents’ performance on the same examination.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionize family medicine, offering a transformative approach to achieving the Quintuple Aim. This article examines the imperative for family medicine to adapt to the rapidly evolving field of AI, with an emphasis on its integration in clinical practice. AI's recent advancements have the potential to significantly transform health care. We argue for the proactive engagement of family medicine in directing AI technologies toward enhancing the "Quintuple Aim."

The article highlights potential benefits of AI, such as improved patient outcomes through enhanced diagnostic tools, clinician well-being through reduced administrative burdens, and the promotion of health equity by analyzing diverse data sets. However, we also acknowledge the risks associated with AI, including the potential for automation to diverge from patient-centered care and exacerbate health care disparities. Our recommendations stress the need for family medicine education to incorporate AI literacy, the development of a collaborative for AI integration, and the establishment of guidelines and standards through interdisciplinary cooperation. We conclude that although AI poses challenges, its responsible and ethical implementation can revolutionize family medicine, optimizing patient care and enhancing the role of clinicians in a technology-driven future.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is certainly going to have a large, potentially huge, impact on the practice of family medicine. The specialty is fortunate to have leading experts in the field to guide us along the way. One such team of forward thinkers provides insights into where AI can take the specialty. Another article reports on how well AI performed on the American Board of Family Medicine In-Training Examination. In addition to AI, we have 3 articles that investigate the intersection of social needs and the practice of medicine. Four clinical review articles cover nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, headache treatments, single maintenance and reliever therapy for asthma, and the use of cannabis in the setting of chronic pain. The clinical research articles cover point-of-care hemoglobin A1c testing, continuous glucose monitoring, and screening for HIV. Another group of articles examines the profession of family medicine, covering topics ranging from how women family physicians negotiate their first jobs to the words we use to define primary care.

The analysis of extractables and leachables and subsequent risk assessment is an important aspect of the determination of biocompatibility for many medical devices. Leachable chemicals have the potential to pose a toxicological risk to patients, and therefore it is required that they be adequately characterized and assessed for potential safety concerns. One important consideration in the assessment of leachables is the choice of a suitable simulating solvent intended to replicate the use condition for the device and its biological environment. This aspect of study design is especially difficult for blood-contacting medical devices due to the complexity of simulating the biological matrix. This publication reports a comparison of the extracting power of different binary solvent mixtures and saline in comparison with whole blood for a bloodline tubing set connected to a hemodialyzer. Ten different known extractables, spanning a range of physicochemical properties and molecular weights, were quantified. The results indicated that for low-molecular-weight analytes, a suitable exaggeration for whole blood can be obtained using a low-concentration ethanol/water mixture (20%), and in general, extracted quantity increases with the concentration of alcohol cosolvent. For polyvinylpyrrolidone, the opposite trend was observed, as solubility of the polymer was found to decrease with increasing alcohol concentration, resulting in lower extracted quantities at high alcohol concentrations. Analysis of ethanol/water concentrations in the extract solutions post extraction indicated no change in solvent composition.

Extract

It is of utmost importance that medicines are available at all times for our patients. Historically, medication unavailability has typically, if not exclusively, affected low- and middle-income countries [1]. More recently however, drug shortages have also been reported in high-income European countries [2]. Drug shortages have negative health consequences for patients [3], and a profound economic impact, with the need to resort to more expensive alternatives and demands on healthcare professionals’ time to find, prescribe and dispense alternatives [4].

Over the past 20 years, quantitative proteomics has contributed a wealth of protein expression data, which are currently used for a variety of systems pharmacology applications, as a complement or a surrogate for activity of the corresponding proteins. A symposium at the 25th North American International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics meeting, in Boston, in September 2023, was held to explore current and emerging applications of quantitative proteomics in translational pharmacology and strategies for improved integration into model-informed drug development based on practical experience of each of the presenters. A summary of the talks and discussions is presented in this perspective alongside future outlook that was outlined for future meetings.

The precision medicine initiative has driven a substantial change in the way scientists and health care practitioners think about diagnosing and treating disease. While it has long been recognized that drug response is determined by the intersection of genetic, environmental, and disease factors, improvements in technology have afforded precision medicine guided dosing of drugs to improve efficacy and reduce toxicity. Pharmacometabolomics aims to evaluate small molecule metabolites in plasma and/or urine to help evaluate mechanisms that predict and/or reflect drug efficacy and toxicity. In this mini review, we provide an overview of pharmacometabolomic approaches and methodologies. Relevant examples where metabolomic techniques have been used to better understand drug efficacy and toxicity in major depressive disorder and cancer chemotherapy are discussed. In addition, the utility of metabolomics in drug development and understanding drug metabolism, transport, and pharmacokinetics is reviewed. Pharmacometabolomic approaches can help describe factors mediating drug disposition, efficacy, and toxicity. While important advancements in this area have been made, there remain several challenges that must be overcome before this approach can be fully implemented into clinical drug therapy.