News and Highlights
June 2009
Publications
Lawrence P. Casalino, MD, PhD, MPH, Chief of the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research, was the lead author of an article called “What Does It Cost Physician Practices To Interact With Health Insurance Plans?” published online on May 14 in Health Affairs. Dr. Casalino and his coauthors found that physician practice interactions with health plans cost $31 billion a year and amount to 6.9% of all spending for physician and clinical services. The study was co-funded by The Commonwealth Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization Initiative. Read the press release on the article. The study was reported in Houston Business Journal, HealthcareFinanceNews.com, ModernMedicine.com, and ScienceDaily.com. There was a link to the Science Daily report from a New York Times article called “If All Doctors Had More Time to Listen.” (Link says Weill Cornell Medical College study.) Dr. Casalino presented the results of his study at a meeting of the Institute of Medicine in May.
Dr. Casalino was also a coauthor of an article titled “Toward a 21st-Century Health Care System: Recommendations for Health Care Reform,” published in the April 7, 2009, issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
Heejung Bang, PhD, MS, Associate Professor of Biostatistics in Public Health, was the lead author of a study published online March 26, 2009, in Nephrology Dialysis Transplant titled “Screening for kidney disease in vascular patients: Screening for Occult Renal Disease (SCORED) experience.” The article, which was covered by a Medical College press release, confirms the usefulness of Dr. Bang’s previously developed checklist for predicting chronic kidney disease in patients with cardiovascular disease. Coauthors include Madhu Mazumdar, PhD, MA, MS, Professor of Biostatistics in Public Health and Chief of the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology; Phyllis August, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, and senior author Abhijit V. Kshirsagar, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study has been publicized by Insciences.org and RenalandUrologynews.com.
Sandy Saintonge, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Clinical Public Health; Heejung Bang, PhD, MS, Associate Professor of Biostatistics in Public Health; and Linda Gerber, PhD, MA, Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology in Medicine, were the authors of an article published in the March 2009 issue of Pediatrics titled “Implications of a New Definition of Vitamin D Deficiency in a Multiracial US Adolescent Population: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III.” The authors found that 1 in 7 adolescents are vitamin D deficient, and that African-American, female, and overweight teens are even more likely to be deficient in vitamin D. Dr. Saintonge presented the results of this study at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting. The study was covered by a Medical College press release and it garnered a great deal of attention in the broadcast, print, and online media. Among the news outlets reporting on their findings were WABC-TV, WCBS-TV, CNN Radio, The New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, Natural Products Industry Insider, The Center for Consumer Freedom, A & T Register, Reuters Health, HealthDay News, Kansas City Infozine, ScienceDaily.com, Mews-Medical.net, Physorg.com, NaturalNews.com, HealthNewsDigest.com, ModernMedicine.com, Ktvn.com, Brightsurf.com, and PersonalLibertyDigest.com.
Dr. Gerber was also a co-author on two additional recently published articles: “Circulating transforming growth factor-beta1 levels and the risk for kidney disease in African Americans” was published online in Kidney International on March 11, 2009. The lead author was Manikkam Suthanthiran, MB,BS, Professor of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Medicine in Surgery; and the senior author was Phyllis August, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine and Public Health. “Home-based blood pressure interventions for African Americans” was published in the May 2009 issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality & Outcomes. The lead author was Penny Feldman, PhD, Director of Visiting Nurse Service of New York and Associate Professor of Public Health.
An article by faculty and staff of the Weill Cornell Departments of Public Health and Pediatrics titled “HEAL NY: Promoting Interoperable Health Information Technology In New York State,” was published in the March-April issue of Health Affairs, a special thematic issue on health information technology. Lisa Kern, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medicine, was the lead author, and Rainu Kaushal, MD, MPH, Chief of the Division of Quality and Medical Informatics in the Department of Pediatrics and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Public Health, and Medicine, was the senior author. The other authors were Yolanda Barron, MS, Research Associate in Biostatistics; Erika Abramson, MD, Instructor in Pediatrics; and Vaishali Patel, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health. With the viewpoint that understanding the New York State experience in Health IT can help inform health IT policies nationwide, the authors conducted a longitudinal study of 26 communities funded with $53 million under the first phase of the Healthcare Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers Capital Grant Program (HEAL NY). They found that the grantees under the program, the regional health information organizations (RHIOs), were largely successful, with 100% of them functioning two years into the program and implementing interoperable health IT systems. This success rate contrasts with higher rates of RHIO closures in other parts of the country. The study was funded by The Commonwealth Fund. In conjunction with the issue’s release, Drs. Kern and Kaushal attended a briefing in Washington, DC. Read the medical college press release. The study was covered by Modern Healthcare, FierceHealthIT.com, HealthNewsDigest.com, and ScienceDaily.com.
Joseph J. Fins, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Medicine in Psychiatry and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, was the author of an article in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences titled “Being Conscious of Their Burden: Severe Brain Injury and the Two Cultures Challenge” (Volume 1157, March 2009, pp. 131-147). The article was included in an issue with the theme of Disorders of Consciousness. The issue editors were Nicholas D. Schiff, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience and Public Health at Weill Cornell, and Steven Laureys, MD, PhD, Clinical Professor in the Department of Neurology, University of Liège, Belgium. Writing 50 years after the publication of C. P. Snow’s Two Cultures and The Scientific Revolution, Dr. Fins in his paper considers the many cultures that have to intersect to sustain and deepen the advances in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with disorders of consciousness. To bridge this “two-culture divide,” the paper contextualizes scientific developments in this field within work in medical ethics and the humanities. The author asserts that this line of inquiry cannot go forward responsibly absent input from the humanities and an appreciation of the lived experiences of patients and families who confront the quotidian and existential challenges of severe brain injury.
Yuhua Bao, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Health Policy, was the lead author of an article in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society called “Achieving Effective Antidepressant Pharmacotherapy in Primary Care: The Role of Depression Care Management in Treating Late-Life Depression.” Martha L. Bruce, PhD, Professor of Sociology in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, was the senior author and Bruce R. Schackman, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Health and Chief of the Division of Health Policy, was a co-author. The study found that evidence-based depression care management models are highly effective at improving antidepressant treatment in older primary care patients.
Inmaculada de Melo-Martin, PhD, MS, Associate Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, was the author of four recent articles: “Vulnerability, Ethics, and Biomedicine: Considering our Cartesian Hangover” was published in the April 11, 2009, issue of Lancet (pp. 1244-45). The article explores a continuing intolerance of uncertainty in some practitioners of contemporary scientific medicine. “Assisted Reproductive Technology in Spain: Considering Women’s Interests,” was published in Cambridge Quarterly of HealthcareEthics(8 [3] 2009: 1-8). An article Dr. de Melo-Martin wrote with Caren Heller, MD, MBA, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medicine for the April 2009 issue of Academic Medicine (pp. 424-432) was titled “Clinical and Translational Science Awards: Can They Increase the Efficiency and Speed of Clinical and Translational Research?” The authors explored the role and limitations of academic CTSA centers in overcoming barriers to clinical and translational research and facilitating and increasing its efficiency and speed. An article titled “ Monterrey, C-Section Capital of Mexico: Examining the Ethical Dimensions,” written with M. Sañudo, was published in the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, (2 [1] [2009]: 148-164).
Mary Simmerling, PhD, Assistant Dean of Research Integrity and Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, was the primary author for the paper "Researching Disabled Children: Abundant Caution Does No Harm?," which was presented at the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Academy of Childhood Disability in Vilnius, Lithuania on June 4, 2009. The article describes describe the ethical challenges in research involving disabled children, and suggest that protections from potential harms of inclusion must be balanced by careful consideration of the potential harms of exclusion.
Heather Taffet Gold, PhD, Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Health Policy, was the lead author of an article published online June 10, 2009, in Cancer, titled “Cost effectiveness of pharmacogenetic testing for UGT1A1 before irinotecan administration for metastatic colorectal cancer.” The article will appear in print September 1, 2009. The senior author was Bruce R. Schackman, PhD, Chief of the Division of Health Policy and Associate Professor of Public Health; the other authors were Michael J. Hall, MD, MS, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Victoria Blinder, MD, MSc, medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and former Fellow in Public Health Research. The authors analyzed the trade-offs between the effectiveness and costs of using a genetic test before administering the drug irinotecan for metastatic colorectal cancer. They found that more comparative effectiveness research is needed to determine when the test adds value to treatment planning. They estimated that up to $22 million should be spent to ascertain best practices. The study was funded by the American Cancer Society and the Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERT) of AHRQ.
Dr. Schackman was also a co-author of an article titled “ HIV preexposure prophylaxis in the United States: impact on lifetime infection risk, clinical outcomes, and cost-effectiveness,” published in the March 15, 2009, issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The study found that antiretroviral drug prophylaxis may significantly reduce HIV infections in high-risk populations. The study was widely reported in the media.
Xi Kathy Zhou, PhD, MS, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics in Public Health, was a co-author of an article published in the April 2009 issue of Cancer Prevention Research titled “ Levels of prostaglandin E metabolite and leukotriene E(4) are increased in the urine of smokers: evidence that celecoxib shunts arachidonic acid into the 5-lipoxygenase pathway.” The study, whose authors included several faculty members of Weill Cornell Medical College and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, was described in a medical college press release. It also received publicity in ScienceDaily.com and MedicalNewsToday.com
Jared A. Leff, MS, Research Data Specialist in the Division of Health Policy, was a co-author of an article published in April 2009 in the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography titled “Review of complications in a series of patients with known gastro-esophageal varices undergoing transesophageal echocardiography.” Mr. Leff played an integral part in setting up tools for data collection and analysis for the study.
