Staff News Writer

The AMA urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to streamline the competing laws and regulations that threaten access to care in a letter. Physicians providing care to Medicare patients could face a “tsunami” of regulatory penalties over the next 10 years, potentially seeing payments cut by more than 13 percent by the end of the decade.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released tightened guidance on use of personal protective equipment (PPE) for U.S. health care workers to ensure they are better prepared to treat Ebola patients.

The Joint Commission has released a new chapter on patient safety systems in the 2015 Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals. The purpose is to inform and educate hospital leaders about the importance and structure of an integrated patient-centered system that aims to improve quality of care and patient safety.

A Chicago-area physician has achieved a 90 percent control rate for his hypertension patients in the past year by working with his medical assistant, nurse and other staff members to execute standardized blood pressure protocols in the practice.

Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, director of the University of Chicago Medicine’s program in integrative sexual medicine, discussed her work to help identify, treat and prevent sexual health problems in female cancer patients at the AMA’s recent Inspirations in Medicine event.