Hundreds of physicians at the AAFP's Family Medicine Advocacy Summit spent a day meeting with members of Congress and their staffers to advocate for issues important to family medicine. The Academy awarded its annual Congressional Primary Care Champion Award to Reps. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., and Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., for co-sponsoring the Primary Care Patient Protection Act.

An analysis of study data led the CDC to publish an update to its "Guidelines for Preventing the Transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Health-Care Settings, 2005" in its most recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Data showed the annual US tuberculosis rates decreased from 10.4 per 100,000 population in 1991 to 2.8 in 2017, TB rates for health care workers were similar to those in the general population, and there was a low rate of tuberculin skin test conversion among health care personnel.

A study published in JNCI Cancer Spectrum linked an estimated 80,110 new cancer cases in US adults in 2015, or about 5.2%, to poor diet. The largest cancer burdens were associated with low whole-grain and dairy consumption, low consumption of vegetables and fruits, and high intakes of processed meats, red meat and sugar-sweetened beverages.

Every additional hour of moderate-to-vigorous activity was associated with 18 minutes earlier sleep onset, 10 minutes longer sleep duration and nearly 1% higher sleep maintenance efficiency at night among teens, researchers reported in Scientific Reports. The findings, based on data involving 417 15-year-olds, also showed that increased sedentary time during the day was associated with later sleeping and waking times but shorter overall nightly sleep duration.

A study published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism linked deficiencies in vitamin D as early as the first trimester of pregnancy with a higher risk of gestational diabetes mellitus. "Assessment of vitamin D status in early pregnancy may be clinically important and valuable for improving risk stratification and developing effective interventions for the primary prevention of GDM," researchers said.

Patients with diabetes who received care from an interdisciplinary team that included a family physician and a family medicine resident reduced their blood glucose levels, according to a study in the Southern Medical Journal. "We tested this model in a rural academic clinic, but it could be replicated in rural federally qualified health centers or other larger rural clinics and could even be suitable for adaptation in non-rural academic primary care clinics," said lead author Dana King, M.D.

Surveys by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health revealed that a significant proportion of rural residents have trouble affording or getting access to health care, despite the fact that 87% have some type of health insurance. Nearly half the respondents said they would not be able to pay an unexpected bill of $1,000.

States that expanded Medicaid coverage had 1.6 fewer maternal deaths per 100,000 women and a more than 50% decline in infant mortality from 2010 to 2016, compared with states that didn't expand Medicaid eligibility, according to a report from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. The report also showed reduced racial disparities in health care, as well as a greater decline in the rate of uninsured women ages 18 to 44 in states that expanded Medicaid.

Experts from the Congressional Budget Office who testified Wednesday during a House committee hearing on single-payer health care said the framework would likely increase the number of people with health insurance, but it would also increase government control over the health care system. With health care representing about one-sixth of the US economy, changes resulting from the shift to a single-payer system could be "potentially disruptive" and could have a significant impact on the economy, as well as health care access and quality, said CBO Deputy Director Mark Hadley.

A survey of 75 multispecialty medical organizations, integrated delivery systems and independent physician groups revealed that 56% of their revenue from federal programs in 2018 involved value-based models, compared with 45% in 2015, while 28% of their total commercial revenue came from risk-based contracts, up from 22% in 2015. The findings suggest expanded access to administrative claims data, consistent data submission and reporting, and improved care management and data analytics capabilities could facilitate additional risk sharing.

Train your team on the importance of the patient-physician relationship with this AAFP TIPS on continuity of care. With your team working together, you can maximize the impact a continuous patient relationship has on outcomes.