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MIT Medical director outlines improvements in care

MIT Medical's 389 staff members handle 130,000 patient visits a year from students, staff, faculty, alumni and their family members. These patients see primary care clinicians and a host of specialists or are referred to the area's world-class teaching hospitals.

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1. Benefits director outlines changes, answers questions on new options
   05-22-2007 · Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
   Tricia Fay, director of benefits, answers some questions regarding upcoming improvements to medical services and health insurance benefits.
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2. New study of Concerta showed significant improvement of ADHD symptom management in adults
   10-26-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Adults with ADHD treated with CONCERTA OROS methylphenidate HCl extended-release tablets showed significant improvements in ADHD symptom management compared to adults taking placebo, according to study results presented today at a major psychiatric medical meeting.
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3. U of MN study finds that primary medical care for children with autism needs improvement
   04-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Children with autism do not receive the same quality of primary care as children with other special health care needs, according to research from the University of Minnesota Medical School.
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4. 'QI' projects may -- or may not -- improve patient safety and outcomes
   09-05-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Mandatory classes that aim to improve the quality of medical care seem to successfully teach doctors new concepts but don't necessarily improve patient outcomes, suggests a thorough review of articles that examine quality improvement (QI) curricula.
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5. Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
   02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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6. Geriatric care intervention appears to provide some benefits for low-income seniors
   12-11-2007 · EurekAlert!
   A home-based geriatric care program for low-income seniors resulted in higher-quality medical care, improvement in quality of life and fewer emergency department visits, but did not appear to prevent decline in physical functioning, according to a study in the Dec. 12 issue of JAMA.
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7. Osteoarthritis patients treated with acupuncture show improvement
   10-30-2006 · EurekAlert!
   A new study published in the November 2006 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism examined the use of acupuncture as an extension of routine medical care and whether the effects of treatment last after therapy is discontinued.
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8. Testing times: Detecting HIV in resource-limited settings
   11-28-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Integrating HIV testing programs into primary medical care can help achieve early diagnosis of HIV infection, even in relatively poor areas, research published in the online open access journal AIDS Research and Therapy has shown.
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9. 'The Diabetes Educator' publishes systematic reviews for diabetes management
   12-17-2007 · EurekAlert!
   Medical researchers have studied many aspects of diabetes to provide self-management recommendations, but how do doctors and patients know what works and what doesn't? The American Association of Diabetes Educators has systematically reviewed the research relating to diabetes self-care behaviors, defined what works and what doesn't work and published the findings and conclusions in a special issue of their journal, the Diabetes Educator.
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10. Do Jerusalem's Arabs and Jews receive a different quality of medical care?
    01-25-2008 · EurekAlert!
    Every permanent resident of Israel is entitled to basic health insurance, no matter what their nationality, but studies indicate that Arabs residing in Israel tend to have a higher prevalence of diabetes compared to the Jewish population. Why is that? What should be done about it? Recent research published by SAGE in the January/February issue of American Journal of Medical Quality examines those questions.
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