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March 2, 2005 |
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Welcome to ACAAI eNews — a bi-weekly aggregated news service
from the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. To be
removed from this distribution list, please see instructions at
bottom. |
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Top
Stories |
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Regulatory Updates |
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Distance Learning |
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Association
News |
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Fellows-in-Training |
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Calendar |
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Archive |
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FIT Archive |
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Seventy-one percent of readers responding are concerned that
Section D of Sen. Clinton's proposed Family Asthma Act bill,
supporting the training of non-specialists to treat asthma,
could lead to suboptimal patient care. |
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Do
you favor the formation of the Allergy, Asthma and
Immunology Coalition?
What
topic should be a priority for the Coalition? |
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Distance Learning |
2004 ACAAI ANNUAL MEETING
Nov. 12-17, Boston
Link
From the 2003 ACAAI ANNUAL MEETING
Nov. 7-12, 2003, New Orleans
• Two Symposia Online
Link
• Plenary Sessions CD-ROM and DVD
Link
• Five Symposia Online
Link
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Calendar |
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MARCH
AAAAI Annual Meeting
March 18-22
San Antonio, Tex.
Tel: 414-272-6071
E-mail
Link
April
63rd Annual Course in Allergy & Clinical Immunology
University of Minnesota
April 8
Minneapolis
Tel: 612-626-7600
Link
JUNE
World Allergy Congress
June 26 – July 1
Munich, Germany
Link
JULY
23rd Annual Aspen Allergy
Conference
July 27-30
Aspen, Colo.
Contact: Kathleen Goldy
Tel: 303-282-0491
E-mail
Link
ONGOING
World Allergy Organization Society Meetings
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Top
Stories |
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FDA approves drug to treat infections from smallpox vaccine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved
Vaccinia Immune Globulin Intravenous (VIGIV), a product derived
from blood plasma that treats rare skin infections caused by the
smallpox vaccine. According to the FDA, VIGIV is made from the
plasma of donors who received booster immunizations against skin
infections caused by the virus used to make the vaccine.
ALA: better manage asthma, don’t
relocate
In response to a recent report ranking livable areas based
on the prevalence of asthma, the American Lung Association
published an article, advising patients to manage their asthma
better through things they can control, such as indoor air and
appropriate medical therapy, regardless of where they live.
Further, data gathered on a state-by-state basis can’t
accurately reflect asthma prevalence for individual cities, as
the survey suggests, the ALA says.
Expressing feelings in writing doesn’t
improve asthma
Expressing emotions through writing may be beneficial to a
patient’s health, but a study in Psychosomatic Medicine
says it does little to ease asthma symptoms. Scientists at the
Department of Veteran Affairs Health Care System and Stanford
University in California randomly assigned 114 adults with
asthma to write for 20 minutes for three weeks about either
stressful, positive or neutral experiences. Researchers found
that people writing about stressful experiences showed no lung
function improvements, compared with people who wrote about
positive or neutral events. |
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 A word from President Myron
Zitt, M.D.
As I stressed in my inaugural speech, the major
motivation for the ACAAI is and will always be the welfare
of our patients. Because optimal outcomes for the care of
patients with asthma and allergic diseases have been
achieved by our specialty, we have been staunch supporters
of legislation that will maintain patient access to
allergists and to the therapeutic modalities we recommend.
It is crucial that we develop strong bonds with our lay
organizations to help us with public education and with
the delivery of our messages to governmental and managed
care agencies. I am pleased to report that, to this end,
the College has worked closely with our major lay
organizations, AAFA, AANMA and FAAN in supporting
extremely successful projects related to public education,
research and legislative issues. As an example, one of our
most recent collaborative efforts resulted in the passage
of legislation to provide incentives to states for
allowing students to carry metered dose bronchodilators
and Epi-Pens in school.
With the ACAAI and AAAAI participating in an increasing
number of productive joint activities, the Academy
suggested that we meet with our leading lay organizations
to explore the feasibility of developing a formal
coalition. Both medical societies agreed that the
formation of a coalition with the lay groups could be of
benefit to improve communication and facilitate the
expression of a unified message with regard to issues
pertinent to our specialty. An additional Academy
objective that was not shared by the College was to:
A) Address economic issues, whereby medical societies
would coordinate such activities as the joint allocation
of funds from specialty societies to lay groups.
B) Supervise the fund-raising efforts by lay groups for
the purpose of supporting allergy training programs.
Because each of our patient advocate groups do not
necessarily have the same goals or objectives, or focus on
the same issues, the College also favored maintaining the
autonomy of lay organizations and/or their functions.
In spite of some differences in objectives, in order to
determine whether to proceed with the formation of a
coalition, a two-day “Strategic Planning Retreat,”
sponsored by the AAAAI and the ACAAI, and directed by an
independent facilitator, was convened in Washington, D.C.,
at the end of January. ACAAI Past President Michael Blaiss,
M.D., and Associate Executive Director Alan Leahigh joined
representatives of the AAAAI, AAFA, AANMA, FAAN, IDF and
ALAA and agreed to create the “Allergy, Asthma and
Immunology Coalition” for the purpose of working on behalf
of patients with allergic and immunologic diseases to
promote better health. While the group did not feel that
issues related to fund allocation or fund raising fell
under the purview of the coalition, the following goals
were approved.
Goal 1: Improve communication between lay
organizations, and between lay organizations and the
specialty societies
Objectives
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Establish a council of lay organizations to better
align initiatives and facilitate collaboration. |
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Facilitate more formalized interaction and clear lines
of communication between lay organizations and
specialty societies on shared goals, advocacy issues,
and educational initiatives. |
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Improve
and promote systems for educating patients on the
benefits of lay organization membership. |
Goal 2: Move toward a
unified voice for the Allergy/Immunology Specialty
Objectives
| A.
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Partner
on advocacy issues related to allergy/immunology. |
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Partner
on educational outreach to the public on the role of
Allergy/Immunology specialty in caring for patients
with allergic and immunologic diseases. |
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Align
the lay organizations with various specialty society
initiatives to impact health care financing (i.e., HHS,
COGME, NIH). |
The Coalition is to be
composed of two representatives from each of the six
separate lay organizations and one or two physicians from
each of the specialty organizations. Two co-chairs, one
from lay groups and one from the ACAAI or the AAAAI will
be appointed to one-year terms with a rotating schedule to
allow for fair representation. As the Coalition is not a
governing body, decisions will be made by consensus,
subject to parent organizational boards’ approval.
The Coalition plans to convene at the annual meetings of
the AAAAI in March and the ACAAI in November and also will
plan two conference calls during the year.
As each lay organization has distinct missions and
objectives, each must be able to determine its own course
of action, particularly as it relates to its economic and
political well-being, without medical society
interference. As the ACAAI enjoys an excellent
relationship with its lay groups, and is pleased with the
success of previous collaborative efforts, it will
continue to work independently with each organization.
However, the College also will be an active participant in
the Asthma and Immunology Coalition, and looks forward to
the unification of organizations working on behalf of
patients with allergic and immunologic diseases to promote
better health.
With the help of its lay organizations, nobody does it
better than the allergist.
Myron Zitt, M.D.
President, ACAAI |
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Regulatory Updates |
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Subcommittee begins debate about Medicare pay
The House Ways and Means health subcommittee recently held
its first hearing about overhauling Medicare's physician payment
formula. Physicians representing several groups warned that the
projected 5.2-percent cut in Medicare reimbursements next year,
as well as estimated cuts in subsequent years, could be
devastating to patients’ access to care.
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Association
News |
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Register by
March 15 for Nationwide Asthma Screening Program
ACAAI members who are interested in participating in the 2005
Nationwide Asthma Screening program must register by March 15.
Registration forms are posted on the ACAAI member Web site at
www.acaai.org
and information is available by calling the Help Line at (312)
558-1175.
Allergists participating in the 2005 program will have help
reaching Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing demographic
group, representing about one in 10 Americans and a population
at high-risk for asthma. New Spanish-language materials and
brochures are available, along with tips on how to target
Hispanics and other diverse ethnic and cultural groups and
their media.
Once members complete a registration form, the College
provides a Site Selection Checklist with information about
choosing a site and securing equipment for a screening. A
manual and kit of public education materials for conducting a
program is provided after allergists report a screening
program date and location.
Screenings are best scheduled for May, which is Asthma and
Allergy Awareness Month and the month the College conducts
national publicity about the screening program. More than
80,000 adults and children have participated in the national
screening program since it was first launched in 1997, and
half of those have had symptoms suggesting referral for a
professional diagnosis.
Allergy Practice Tip: The
Great Wait
Advice from The Patient-Centered Allergy Practice
Lots of allergy practices worry about wait time – how long a
patient sits in the waiting room. But measuring cycle time –
how long a patient spends in the practice altogether, from
check-in to check-out – is equally important. Good patient
care is efficient from start to end.
According to The Patient-Centered Allergy Practice, the
median “cycle time” for an allergist is 35 minutes for
established patients and 94 minutes for new patients getting
skin tests.
These tips are drawn from The Patient-Centered Allergy
Practice, a CME Series in Practice Management, provided by
Physicians Practice, endorsed by the American College of
Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, and supported through an
education grant from sanofi-aventis. |
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Fellows-in-Training |
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Welcome to the Board Review Corner prepared by Thao Ngoc Tran,
M.D., a representative of ACAAI’s fellows-in-training (FITs) to
the Board of Regents. The Board Review Corner is your chance to
test your Board preparedness.
To refer to a previous Board Review Corner, click the “Archive”
link in the left column.
Immunology Review Corner: Chapter 38 of the 6th edition
of Middleton’s Allergy Principles and Practice, edited by
N. Franklin Adkinson, et al. Review questions were written by
fellows-in-training Drs. John Norvell, Karla Lowe and Michael
Rupp.
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