Sexually Transmitted Infections: Recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued recommendations on behavioral counseling to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and recommendations about screening for individual STIs.

Understanding the context of health for persons with multiple chronic conditions: moving from what is the matter to what matters.

Purpose: An isolated focus on 1 disease at a time is insufficient to generate the scientific evidence needed to improve the health of persons living with more than 1 chronic condition. This article explores how to bring context into research efforts to improve the health of persons living with multiple chronic conditions (MCC).

Methods: Forty-five experts, including persons with MCC, family and friend caregivers, researchers, policy makers, funders, and clinicians met to critically consider 4 aspects of incorporating context into research on MCC: key contextual factors, needed research, essential research methods for understanding important contextual factors, and necessary partnerships for catalyzing collaborative action in conducting and applying research.

Enhancing the primary care team to provide redesigned care: the roles of practice facilitators and care managers.

Efforts to redesign primary care require multiple supports. Two potential members of the primary care team-practice facilitator and care manager-can play important but distinct roles in redesigning and improving care delivery. Facilitators, also known as quality improvement coaches, assist practices with coordinating their quality improvement activities and help build capacity for those activities-reflecting a systems-level approach to improving quality, safety, and implementation of evidence-based practices.

Projecting US primary care physician workforce needs: 2010-2025.

Purpose: We sought to project the number of primary care physicians required to meet US health care utilization needs through 2025 after passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Methods: In this projection of workforce needs, we used the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to calculate the use of office-based primary care in 2008. We used US Census Bureau projections to account for demographic changes and the American Medical Association's Masterfile to calculate the number of primary care physicians and determine the number of visits per physician.

Reduction of N-terminal methionylation while increasing titer by lowering metabolic and protein production rates in E. coli auto-induced fed-batch fermentation.

A standard fed-batch fermentation process using 1 mM isopropyl-β-D: -thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) induction at 37 °C in complex batch and feed media had been developed for manufacturing of a therapeutic protein (TP) expressed in inclusion bodies (IBs) by E. coli BL21 (DE3) driven by T7 promoter. Six unauthentic TP N-terminal variants were identified, of which methionylated TP (Met-TP) ratio was predominant.

Early evaluations of the medical home: building on a promising start.

Objectives: To systematically review the current evidence on the patient-centered medical home (PCMH, or medical home), which aims to reinvigorate primary care and achieve the triple aim of better quality, improved experience, and lower costs.

Study Design: Systematic review of quantitative evidence on the PCMH.

Methods: Out of 498 studies published or disseminated from January 2000 to September 2010 on US-based interventions, 14 evaluations of 12 interventions met our inclusion criteria: (1) tested a practice-level intervention with 3 or more of 5 key PCMH components and (2) conducted a quantitative study of one of the triple aim outcomes or of healthcare professional experience.

Screening for chlamydial infection: an evidence update for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Background: Chlamydial infection is the most common sexually transmitted bacterial infection in the United States, with an estimated 3 million new cases annually. In 2001, the U.S.

Primary care physicians' perceptions of the effect of insurance status on clinical decision making.

Purpose: Americans who do not have health insurance receive fewer health services and have poorer health status than those who have insurance. To better understand this disparity, in this study we characterize primary care physician's perceptions of what effect, if any, patients' insurance status has on their clinical decision making during office visits.

Methods: Twenty-five physician members of CAPRICORN, a primary care practice-based research network in metropolitan Washington, DC, completed a brief paper-card survey instrument immediately after each patient encounter during 2 half-day office sessions.

Variation in participation in health care settings associated with race and ethnicity.

Objective: To use the ecology model of health care to contrast participation of black, non-Hispanics (blacks); white, non-Hispanics (whites); and Hispanics of any race (Hispanics) in 5 health care settings and determine whether disparities between those individuals exist among places where they receive care.

Design: 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data were used to estimate the number of black, white, and Hispanic people per 1,000 receiving health care in each setting.

Setting: Physicians' offices, outpatient clinics, hospital emergency departments, hospitals, and people's homes.

The association of Title VII funding to departments of family medicine with choice of physician specialty and practice location.

Background: Title VII predoctoral and departmental grants for departments of family medicine are intended to increase the number of family and primary care physicians in the United States and increase the number of practices in rural and underserved communities. This study assessed the relationships of Title VII funding with physicians' choices of practice specialty and location.

Methods: Non-federal direct patient care physicians who graduated from US medical schools from 1981-1993 were identified in the 2000 American Medical Association Masterfile.