Cath Lab Digest

The American Medical Association (AMA) is opposing the Conditions of Participation of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) that would allow podiatrists to hold leadership positions at hospitals.

As part of the proposed reforms for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), podiatric physicians would be eligible to attain leadership positions in hospital staffs.
The rule would change the requirements that hospitals and critical access hospitals must fulfill to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. Under current requirements, hospitals are permitted to assign management positions to MDs, DOs or, when permitted by state law, doctors of dental surgery or dental medicine.

Offloading and immobilization are key in the initial treatment for diabetic Charcot foot but the current staging for the deformity may not be effective, according to new recommendations from the International Task Force on the Charcot Foot that were jointly published in Diabetes Care and the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association.

California podiatric physicians could eventually have the same license as their fellow physicians and surgeons from other disciplines. The California Podiatric Medical Association (CPMA) recently formed a task force with the California Medical Association and the California Orthopaedic Association to develop a plan for California’s podiatric medical schools to eventually attain accreditation as full-fledged allopathic medical schools.

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) shows good results from the precautionary measures instituted in Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals in 2007 to prevent the spread of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). However, a second NEJM study suggests MRSA precautions are not effective in intensive care units (ICU).