The Privacy of Reproductive Health Care Data: A Critical Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Update.

On April 26, 2024, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Final Rule titled "HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy.

Deprescribing in cognitively vulnerable older people: development and validation of STOPPCog criteria.

Objective: To validate STOPPCog, a list of explicit criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in cognitively vulnerable older adults.

Design: A Delphi consensus survey of an expert panel comprising academic geriatricians, old age psychiatrists, general practitioners, and clinical pharmacists.

Setting: Ireland.

Elevating Cancer Care Standards Worldwide: An Analysis of Global Initiatives and Progress.

Cancer remains a widespread and significant global health issue, with consequential impacts on individuals, families, and societies across the globe. Although there have been noteworthy advancements in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and study of cancer, the impact of this disease continues to be significant on health care systems and people worldwide. Furthermore, there are still differences in obtaining the advantages of modern cancer treatment, which can partly be attributed to the lack of standardized standards for providing top-notch cancer care.

The impact of age, sex, and gender on polypharmacy and potential prescribing cascades: Lessons from five databases.

Background: Few studies describe how gender-related factors may contribute to polypharmacy and prescribing cascades. Describing these patterns using cross-national comparisons can improve the robustness of findings and provide lessons on the importance of considering age, sex, and gender in pharmacological research. The aim of the study was to explore the intersection of age, sex, and gender with polypharmacy and co-prescribing suggesting a potential prescribing cascade.

The US Organ Transplantation System: HRSA's Modernization Initiative.

The 1984 National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) saw to the establishment of a national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). As envisaged by the law's congressional sponsors, the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was to institute a "central registry linking donors and potential recipients." In addition, the Secretary was to see to the institution of a "scientific registry of organ recipients" as well as "designate and maintain an identifiable unit in the Public Health Service to coordinate Federal organ transplant programs and policies.

Diabetes and the risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality among older adults: an individual participant data analysis of five prospective studies.

Background: Guidelines and studies provide conflicting information on whether type 2 diabetes (T2D) should be considered a coronary heart disease risk (CHD) equivalent in older adults.

Methods: We synthesized participant-level data on 82,723 individuals aged ≥65 years from five prospective studies in two-stage meta-analyses. We estimated multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of T2D (presence versus absence) on a primary composite outcome defined as cardiovascular events or all-cause mortality.

Pharmacological Pain Treatment in Older Persons.

Pharmacological pain treatment in older persons is presented by a multi-disciplinary group of European pain experts. Drugs recommended for acute or chronic nociceptive pain, also for neuropathic pain and the routes of administration of choice are the same as those prescribed for younger persons but comorbidities and polypharmacy in older persons increase the risk of adverse effects and drug interactions. Not all drugs are available or authorised in all European countries.

Irish national real-world analysis of the clinical and economic impact of 21-gene oncotype DX® testing in early-stage, 1-3 lymph node-positive, oestrogen receptor-positive, HER2-negative, breast cancer.

Purpose: The treatment landscape of Oestrogen receptor-positive (ER-positive) breast cancer is evolving, with declining chemotherapy use as a result of Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score® testing. Results from the SWOG S1007 RxPONDER trial suggest that adjuvant chemotherapy may benefit some premenopausal women with ER-positive, HER2-negative disease with 1-3 positive lymph nodes (N1), and a Recurrence Score® (RS) of ≤ 25. Postmenopausal women with similar characteristics did not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy.

The association between medication use and health-related quality of life in multimorbid older patients with polypharmacy.

Purpose: To explore the association between medication use-related factors and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in older hospitalised multimorbid patients with polypharmacy.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used the intervention arm data of the OPERAM trial (hospitalised patients ≥ 70 years with polypharmacy). HRQoL was assessed using the visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS) and the EQ-5D index score of the EuroQol questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L).

ASCO Domestic Quality Programs.

A growing sense of the need to define good-quality cancer care has emerged in the past decade of the 20th century. The goals were to assess, improve, and reward quality. Animated debates between cancer care delivery academic and community organizations, governmental agencies, and insurance companies have led to multiple initiatives and pilot projects.

A descriptive analysis of drug-drug interactions and corresponding adverse drug reactions in multimorbid older inpatients: findings from the SENATOR trial.

Purpose: Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are prevalent among multimorbid and polymedicated older adults and can increase the risk of adverse drug reactions (ADRs), hospital admissions, and mortality. This study describes the incidence and prevalence of 66 clinically relevant DDIs and analyses the occurrence of 12 corresponding predefined ADRs in older inpatients enrolled in the SENATOR trial.

Methods: The sub-study of the SENATOR trial that involved 1537 multimorbid older inpatients, recruited from 2016 to 2018 in six academic teaching hospitals in Belgium, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Spain respectively, and analysed 66 potentially clinically significant DDIs.