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Second Look — Advocacy

If you missed these Headline News Now items the first time around, AAOS Now gives you a second chance to review them. Headline News Now—the AAOS thrice-weekly, online update of news of interest to orthopaedic surgeons—brings you the latest on clinical, socioeconomic, and political issues, as well as important announcements from AAOS.

FDA recalls MRSA test
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a Class I recall of Cepheid Xpert MRSA/SA Blood Culture Assay for Use with the GeneXpert Dx System. The manufacturer has received increasing numbers of complaints for false negative methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) results when compared to MRSA-positive results received from culture methods. All Cepheid MRSA/SA Blood Culture Assay products have the potential to generate infrequent rates of false negative MRSA results, which could result in incorrect treatment or delayed care for patients with MRSA infections. Customers are being instructed to conduct further antimicrobial susceptibility testing to determine the MRSA result when a MRSA negative/SA positive result is generated on the Cepheid MRSA/SA Blood Culture Assay. MRSA positive/SA positive results generated on the Cepheid MRSA/SA Blood Culture Assay can still be reported.

Industry involvement in CME
An article in the New York Times reports on the developing debate regarding industry funding of continuing medical education (CME). The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education recently announced that it would no longer grant credit to doctors for attending medical meetings that feature industry employees presenting product research. Although some experts say that such a move unfairly cuts physicians off from scientific knowledge, others suggest that the prohibition doesn’t go far enough. Total spending on CME courses peaked at $2.5 billion in 2007, with $1.2 billion paid for by industry.

Lawsuit fears lead to overtesting, overtreatment
According to information released in the Archives of Internal Medicine (June 28), more than 9 out of 10 physicians blame the fear of medical liability lawsuits for overtesting and overtreatment. A survey of 1,231 physicians in the United States asked the following two questions: Do physicians order more tests and procedures than patients need to protect themselves from malpractice suits? Are protections against unwarranted malpractice lawsuits needed to decrease the unnecessary use of diagnostic tests? Overall, 91 percent of doctors surveyed replied “yes” to both questions.

AAOS Now
August 2010 Issue
http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/aug10/advocacy3.asp

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