News and Updates for Healthcare Professionals

NIH-supported study underscores the need for racially inclusive approach to address the opioid crisis in hard-hit areas.

Vertebroplasty is probably more effective than sham or usual care for vertebral compression fractures for reducing pain and improving function in older (Medicare-eligible) populations, but benefits are small. Benefits are smaller in sham compared with usual care controlled trials and larger in trials of patients with more acute symptoms.

NIH leadership highlight the results and progress of number strategies to find scientific solutions to address the nation’s opioid crisis.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force released today a final recommendation statement on screening for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. The Task Force recommends screening people ages 35 to 70 with overweight or obesity for prediabetes and diabetes. To view the recommendation, the evidence on which it is based, and…

The urgent need to ensure equity in the American healthcare system is the subject of a new AHRQ Views blog authored by members of AHRQ’s National Advisory Council. The COVID-19 pandemic has starkly illustrated healthcare’s existing racial and ethnic disparities. With that in mind, the blog post’s authors—Edmondo J. Robinson,…

As part of its ongoing efforts to acknowledge, examine, and report on less-explored factors such as social determinants of health, including forms of racism that have resulted in the generational injustices, on August 12 PCD will release an important collection:“ Advancing Health Equity, Eliminating Health Disparities, and Improving Population Health.”…

From September 2019 to September 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported nearly 90,000 overdose deaths in the United States. These latest data on the nation’s opioid crisis offer another stark reminder that help is desperately needed in communities across the land. NIH’s research efforts to address the…

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation’s 2020 Report to Congress (RTC). The Innovation Center is required by statute to report to Congress on its activities, at minimum, every other year. This is the Innovation Center’s fifth RTC and covers…

PATIENT IMPACT STATEMENT: FDA APPROVAL OF KERENDIA TO HELP SLOW KIDNEY DISEASE AND FAILURE ASSOCIATED WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Association of Kidney Patients, the largest kidney patient consumer and caregiver organization in the nation, today issued the following statement regarding the recent approval by the…

AHRQ has developed a new tool to help primary care practices screen and refer patients for social needs such as food or housing, so-called social determinants of health (SDOH) which, when identified, can help tailor care to patients’ circumstances. It is one of the Tools for Change developed as part…