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An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Medicare Program Focuses on Rural Patients

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For arthritis patients who live in farming communities, just getting to rheumatologist Lynne Peterson, MD’s, office in Bismarck, N.D., can take a lot of time and energy. “Because of the shortage of rheumatologists, patients living in rural areas tend to receive inadequate rheumatologic evaluation and care,” says Dr. Peterson, whose clinic is located at Sanford…

How to Get Your EHR Up … & Keep It Running

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Implementing a new electronic health record (EHR) system is no easy task—and one that a physician shouldn’t tackle alone. From the onset, you need to get buy-in from your practice’s colleagues. To do this, designate a physician champion to take charge of the effort. “This is a challenging position, because it’s difficult to convince people…

Express Scripts Tries to Rein in Pricey Inflammatory Drugs

Reuters Staff  |  

NEW YORK (Reuters)—Express Scripts Holding, the largest manager of U.S. drug benefits, on Thursday launched a program aimed at tightening spending on drugs for pricey inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. It is the latest Express Scripts effort intended to reduce spending on prescription drugs, such as last week’s announcement of a diabetes program. Early…

Hours Spent Record Keeping May Fuel Physician Burnout

Lisa Rapaport  |  

(Reuters Health)—For every hour doctors spend treating patients during a typical workday, they devote nearly two more hours to maintaining electronic health records (EHR) and clerical work, a small U.S. study suggests. Time spent in meaningful interactions with patients is a powerful driver of physician career satisfaction, but increased paperwork and time on the computer…

Diagnostic Criteria, Classification Lacking for Vasculitis; New Research in Treatment for Systemic Sclerosis

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LONDON—Despite the detailed terminology for describing vasculitis established by the Chapel Hill Consensus (CHC) in 2012, the field badly needs better classification and diagnostic criteria for the group of diseases, an expert said in a presentation at the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR 2016). It’s a topic that is now being…

Research on Ixekizumab in Psoriatic Arthritis and More Presented at EULAR 2016

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LONDON—Results from the extension phase of a Phase 3 trial for the IL-17A inhibitor ixekizumab in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) show that patients started on placebo, adalimumab and ixekizumab continued to show improvements in arthritis, dactylitis and ethesitis, said Philip Mease, MD, a rheumatologist at Swedish Medical Center University of Washington in Seattle.1 Dr. Mease presented the…

Pain Linked to Inflammatory Lesions in Knee Osteoarthritis

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Inflammation in the knee was found to be associated with development of pain sensitization in recent research with a cohort from the Multicenter Osteoarthritis Study (MOST). This research finding may indicate that targeting of inflammation could help reduce pain severity in knee osteoarthritis (OA). Tuhina Neogi, MD, PhD, says that her and her colleagues’ research,…

Crossing the Line

When Medical Workforce Grievances Lead to Strikes

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Picket Lines: June 27 was marked on my calendar as the day to watch. No doubt the union organizers shrewdly selected it to be their strike day because of its proximity to July 1, an auspicious date for teaching hospitals, when rookie interns and residents anxiously assume their heightened roles of responsibility within the medical…