Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Nov. 20, 2023

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Nov. 20, 2023.

EHR Intelligence (11/21, Nelson) reports, “Health care executives are thinking about more than AI, according to a recent Medical Group Management Association... poll that found improving EHR usability is medical group leaders’ top health IT priority.” The poll found that “of 424 applicable responses, 35% of medical group leaders reported EHR usability as their top health IT priority.” Meanwhile, “the second most common answer was patient communications and access (26%), followed by revenue cycle management...and billing systems (21%).”

MedPage Today (11/20, George) reports, “Protein indicators of subclinical peripheral” health “in plasma were linked with markers of Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegeneration, cross-sectional proteomic analyses showed.” The data indicated that “greater protein-based risk for cardiovascular disease, heart failure mortality, and kidney disease was associated with plasma biomarkers of amyloid-beta, phosphorylated tau181 (p-tau181), neurofilament light (NfL, a measure of neuronal injury), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP, a measure of astrogliosis), even in people without cardiovascular or kidney disease.” Meanwhile, “proteomic indicators of body fat percentage, lean body mass, and visceral fat also were tied to p-tau181, NfL, and GFAP.” The findings were published in the Annals of Neurology.

The AP (11/17, Stobbe) reported, “The U.S. flu season is underway, with at least seven states reporting high levels of illnesses and cases rising in other parts of the country, health officials say.” On Friday, the CDC “posted new flu data...showing very high activity last week in Louisiana, and high activity in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico and South Carolina. It was also high in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory where health officials declared an influenza epidemic earlier this month.”

NBC News (11/17, Edwards) reported, “Influenza type A, specifically H1N1, is predominant.” Additionally, RSV cases are on the rise: “so far this season, the overall hospitalization rate from RSV is 7.3 per 100,000 people, the CDC reported.” In response to rising RSV cases, “on Thursday, the CDC and FDA said the agencies had worked to release an additional 77,000 doses of Beyfortus,” an injection “meant to prevent RSV infection.”

Reuters (11/20, Aboulenein) reports, “The U.S. government on Monday will start taking orders for another round of free COVID-19 tests for delivery across the country, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson said.” Those “households that had ordered four free tests through COVIDTests.gov when they were offered again in September are eligible to order four more, while those that did not can submit two orders for a total of eight free tests.”

CBS News (11/20, Tin) reports, “The Department of Health and Human Services, which supplies the tests out of its stockpile of previously-purchased kits, said last week that 56 million tests have been delivered so far this season.”

TCTMD (11/17, O'Riordan) reported, “Not all patients with severe hypercholesterolemia are the same—that’s the message from a large analysis of a racially and ethnically diverse U.S. population showing that some of these individuals are at a higher risk for all-cause mortality than others.” Investigators found that “males, older people, and those with various comorbidities, including hypertension, diabetes, and prior MI, for example, were all at a significantly elevated risk of mortality over longer-term follow-up.” The findings were published in Circulation.

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