Dr. Asma Muzaffar (‘11), Alex Rodriguez, and DentCare

New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez donated $250,000 to help launch the University’s DentCare program, which provides dental education and care to children in Head Start programs, public schools and day care centers in New York City. On July 23, he attended the unveiling of the College of Dental Medicine’s new mobile dental van, which will serve the Washington Heights community and surrounding areas. Check out page 8 of:

http://news.columbia.edu/files_columbianews/imce_shared/vol3501.pdf#

Pictured from left to right: Dolores Rivera, dental assistant; Elizabeth Rijo, dental hygienist; Decenia Pimentel, dental hygienist; Dr. Asma Muzaffar; Rodriguez; and Duhanna Grullon, dental assistant.

Our very own Dr. Muzzafar (‘11) had this to say about her work with DentCare:

“In 2000, a report of the Surgeon General noted that tooth decay is the most common chronic childhood disease. Tooth decay is almost completely preventable, and the pain, dysfunction–or, on extremely rare occasions, death–caused by dental disease can
be avoided.

In 2007, a twelve-year-old boy named Deamonte Driver died from an untreated tooth abscess that traveled to his  brain.  Deamonte couldn’t find a dentist who would provide a basic  procedure that would have cost $80 and saved his life. Instead, a  total of $250,000 was spent on hospital care and emergency  procedures that failed to save him.

As a provider for Community Dentcare, I work to keep these terrible  scenarios from happening. At Community Dentcare, dental care is provided to everyone irrespective of their insurance status or ability to pay. We visit schools, and we make sure that every child who has a parental consent form gets dental care. This often includes children from broken homes and shelters, as well as undocumented immigrants fearful of signing up with Medicaid.

I personally provide care for the children seen by the Mobile dental center. A study done in 1995 -1997 (Northern Manhattan  Survey)  and published in the American Journal of Pediatric Dentistry  revealed that the percentage of untreated decay in the population  served by the mobile dental center was 93.28% higher than the US national population at that time. Last year the  mobile dental center  provided dental services to approximately 3000 children in  Washington Heights, Harlem and some areas in Bronx. The center  focuses on providing dental care for children unable to access  dental services.

This Halloween while providing dental care we also did a skit for the children. I dressed up as  princess dentist snow white with a basket of fruits, water and milk. While the dental  assistant dressed up as candy witch with rotten teeth (since she  preferred soda over water, and candy over vegetables and fruits), the dental hygienist dressed up as rock star who sang songs about brushing twice a day for two minutes.”

Skolnick quoted in The New York Times

Take a look: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/business/smallbusiness/25health.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Sheryl Skolnick teaches the EMPH Master Class “Wall Street and Health Care: The Intersection of Cash and Care.”

Sparer and Somers on Medicaid and its role in Health Care Reform

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2009/07/10/medicaid-uniquely-prepared-to-deliver-on-health-care-reform/

Michael Sparer in the New York Daily News

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/09/17/2009-09-17_senates_new_health_insurance_proposal_is_step_forward_but_baby_steps_ny_experts_.html

Live Blogging: HIT Policy Committee

I am at the HIT Policy Committee Certification / Adoption Workgroup in Washington DC, blogging from my iPhone.

This two day workgroup meeting is going to discuss the certification process for federal HIT policy.

If you’d like to join, please visit here

More updates to follow. (hopefully with better pictures.)

Physician Heal Thyself?

The following appeared in The Washington Post Online.

As both a physician and ordained minister, I am often called upon to heal. Whether hearts or bodies, minds or souls, healing is central to both professions. Surprisingly, I heard my President echo the same thought and it struck a chord. He cautioned health-care providers not to see medicine as mere business, a practice model which is rife with hazard. Instead, he romanticized for some and made poignant for us all the call of medicine. Armed with a mix of ego and duty, he championed all stakeholders — specifically physicians — to own the problem so that we may move forward to create solutions.

Physicians take an oath. We are taught to first do no harm. Yet, the American system of health-care delivery is fraught with unchecked abuses and unsustainable damage has been suffered. In society, we aspire to live by the edict of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” However, the culture of American medicine is too fragmented, driven by excess, ignorance and complacency. Regrettably, these attitudes have cost efficiency and indulged appetites for pricier, quantitative medical care while sacrificing value. Our system hence is in dire need of more group-accountability, individual responsibility and focus on health promotion, wellness and quality.

Introducing Max Nathan Sale

Max Nathan Sale born June 18th around 2 pm. 8lbs 11oz a little over 20 inches.
Mom, baby…Chris, Darby and Emily are all doing superb

Glied nominated to Federal Post

From WhiteHouse.gov:

Sherry Glied, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services

Sherry Glied is Professor and Chair in the Department of Health Policy and Management of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She has extensive experience in health care financing and mental health policy research. From 1992-1993, she served as a Senior Economist for health care and labor market policy to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, under President Bush and President Clinton. Professor Glied was a participant in President Clinton’s Health Care Task Force and headed working groups on global budgets and on the economic impacts of the health plan. Her book on health care reform, Chronic Condition, was published by Harvard University Press in January 1998. She also has substantial experience in mental health policy, particularly around issues of child and adolescent mental health policy and financing.  Professor Glied is a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Network on Mental Health Policy and is co-author of Better but Not Well: Mental Health Policy in the US Since 1950, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2006. 

Alumni Summit for Public Health Leadership: June 3rd

Click here for more information about the Alumni Summit for Public Health Leadership.

Thoughts from ISPOR conference (D. Frame EMPH ‘09)

Comparative effectiveness research was the big topic at this meeting of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes researchers (www.ispor.org). Speakers at a Tuesday plenary session included Hal Sox, Annals of Internal Medicine editor and chair of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel charged with prioritizing areas for the $1.1 billion comparative effectiveness research funding in the stimulus package.

In some sense people here feel that the “comparative effectiveness” moniker is just attaching another word to what many researchers have been doing all along – finding ways to see how well health care interventions work once they are translated to the “real world” of clinical practice. This is not to say the administration’s policies will not make a difference, however. This kind of research is often conducted using large observational databases rather than a priori controlled trials, so there is a perception that more gaming of the results is possible – payers can get the answers they want from their analysis, while pharmaceutical companies can get the answers they want from competing analysis, sometimes using the same data source.

The big difference that government involvement can make, then, is breaking the stalemate on comparative effectiveness research by requiring projects it funds to be truly transparent: prospective registration of plans for how the analysis will be conducted, for instance, and requirements to make findings publicly available regardless of the result. It remains to be seen what the exact parameters of these projects will be, and whether they will vary across the agencies involved (the funding is split between AHRQ, NIH, and HHS).

The IOM panel’s report on national priorities for research is due out June 30th.