A new CareQuest Institute and Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors (ASTDD) Best Practice Approach Report encourages state/territorial oral health programs and stakeholders to identify community barriers to care and consider teledentistry as part of the solution. The practical Report includes guidelines and recommendations, best practice criteria, myriad resources, and several examples of teledentistry in use across the country.
Based on the collective engagement from the audience of providers, policymakers, advocates, and oral health stakeholders across the industry, below are the top five most popular CareQuest Institute publications.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released two reports which may be of interest to health center providers:
A study of health insurance data for more than 7.2 million people showed a nearly 70% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s in the next six years among those who took sildenafil (Viagra) versus those who did not. Viagra was originally designed as a heart drug because of its main action of improving blood flow by relaxing or widening blood vessels. Doctors then discovered it was having a similar effect elsewhere in the body, including the arteries of the penis, and it was developed into a successful treatment for erectile dysfunction. It is also been used in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension. Experts think it could have other uses too. It is important to note that observed associations like this, even on a huge scale, are not the same as proof of a causative effect. Researchers state the correlation shown as well as other indicators in the study are enough to identify sildenafil as a promising candidate drug for Alzheimer’s disease.
According to new research conducted by Johns Hopkins and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 56% of American adults ages 18 to 25 are overweight or obese. Using data from a nationally representative sample of 8,015 people in that age bracket, the researchers compared average weights over the past four decades. In that time, that population’s average body mass index, a measure of body fat based on a person’s height and weight, had increased by 4.6 points – from 23.1 (considered normal weight) to 27.7 (considered overweight). That shifted the number of overweight young adults from about 18% in the late 1970’s to nearly 24% by 2018.
The National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center (OHRC) recently published the “Oral Health Resource Bulletin: Volume 47.” The bulletin contains briefs, guidelines, manuals, standards, reports, and videos published in 2020 and 2021. Topics include the COVID-19 pandemic, data and surveillance, policy, professional and education practice, program development, public awareness and education, and systems integration. Resources include a toolkit on community water fluoridation, a user’s guide on teledentistry, and more.
The Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DRC), a project of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI), under a cooperative agreement with the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), announced the release of the combined “2019-2020 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) Child and Family Health Measures.” The combined 2019-2020 NSCH is the fourth multi-year dataset since the redesign of the NSCH in 2016 and includes data from 72,210 children ages 0-17 years. The combined 2019-2020 NSCH downloadable data sets and codebooks with constructed variables displayed in the DRC Interactive Data Query will be available in early 2022.
The National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services (NACRHHS) published their October 2021 Policy Brief on the new provider designation, the Rural Emergency Hospital.
In December 2020, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 20211 (Public Law 116-260), which, in Section 125, created a new Medicare provider type called the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH). The REH will be a new rural hospital type that does not provide inpatient care but will provide 24-hour emergency services. By creating the REH, Congress has established the first new rural provider type in over 20 years since the Critical Access Hospital (CAH) was created in 1997 under the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (Public Law 105-33). The REH comes as a response to an ongoing period of hospital closures in rural communities and to the concerns of access to emergency services in rural areas. In the brief, the Committee notes the implications the REH program to offer an innovative way for rural communities to integrate care and services sectors.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is among federal partners and stakeholders that have joined a new initiative to strengthen primary health care nationwide. The effort, launched by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), follows a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report that documented the weakening of primary care and called upon the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take a leadership role in ensuring high-quality primary care for all. Judith Steinberg, MD, MPH, a leader in primary healthcare transformation and former chief medical officer at HRSA Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC), will lead development of an HHS plan to strengthen primary healthcare with the aim of improving health outcomes and advancing health equity.
The plan, which will be presented to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra for his review, will include the role of HHS in leading this effort and specific actions to be taken across HHS.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published two reports on rural health care, including the annual report on rural health accomplishments: Improving Health in Rural Communities: FY 2021 Year in Review as well as CMS recognizes the more than 57 million Americans who live in rural areas and face several unique challenges that can differ dramatically among the different kinds of rural areas across the country. These reports will assist in identifying and addressing some of these challenges.
Improving Health in Rural Communities: FY 2021 Year in Review
In its annual report, CMS demonstrates its commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of individuals living and working in rural areas. Rural, frontier, tribal, and island communities face structural barriers to achieving equitable health outcomes, including practitioner shortages, hospital closures, and long travel distances to access care. CMS is committed to working with rural communities to address these barriers and build on existing advancements to achieve optimal outcomes for all rural Americans.
Through its Rural Health Strategy, CMS is working with federal partners, community organizations, and Tribes to achieve equity in access to care, quality of care, and health outcomes for rural individuals.
The activities and accomplishments outlined represent CMS’s commitment to designing programs and policies that affect rural, frontier, and tribal communities in fiscal year (FY) 2021. They are presented across 10 focus areas: the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); the Federally Facilitated and State Marketplaces; Medicare Payment and Policy; Practitioner Workforce; Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Enrollment, Payment, and Policy; Long-Term Services and Supports; Maternal Health; Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders; Models and Demonstrations; and Quality and Equity.
Examining Rural Hospital Bypass for Outpatient Services
CMS has also recently published a report on rural hospital bypass. This report provides an overview of a study, which sought to explore the drivers of rural hospital bypass for outpatient services. This national mixed methods study explores the relationship between hospital outpatient services and inpatient utilization to address the extent of rural hospital bypass, patient characteristics, and utilization of outpatient services.
For more information, visit https://go.cms.gov/ruralhealth or contact RuralHealth@cms.hhs.gov.
Paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
