Recognition September 2017

• Arterburn presents to MEDCAC
• Dublin co-authors 2 award-winning papers
• Green’s poster is tops at CDC cancer conference

Dr. Arterburn shares evidence on bariatric surgery with Medicare panel

KPWHRI Senior Investigator David Arterburn, MD, MPH, presented scientific evidence on health outcomes of bariatric surgical therapies to the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) in Baltimore, Maryland on August 30. 

MEDCAC is part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Its role is to judge evidence and make recommendations that inform CMS coverage policies. Dr. Arterburn was invited to present based on his extensive research on bariatric surgery. Included in his presentation were preliminary results from  an ongoing large study that is among the first to use data from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network (PCORnet).  

Marc Mora, MD, Washington Permanente Medical Group’s senior medical director for network and care  management, is a member of MEDCAC and was among the panel members hearing evidence.

Dr. Dublin co-authors top papers in pharmacoepidemiology journal

KPWHRI Associate Investigator Sascha Dublin, MD, PhD, was in Montreal last month to accept two awards from Pharmacoepidemiology & Drug Safety, the journal of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology.

Presented at the group’s 33rd International Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology & Therapeutic Risk Management, the 2016 Ronald D. Mann Best Paper Award went to Dr. Dublin and colleagues for their paper “Case-control study of oral glucose-lowering drugs in combination with long-acting insulin and the risks of incident myocardial infarction and incident stroke.” KPWHRI Senior Investigator Bruce Psaty, MD, PhD, and Affiliate Investigators Susan Heckbert, MD, PhD, and Nicholas L. Smith, PhD, were among the paper’s co-authors.

Dr. Dublin and a second group of colleagues received honorable mention for their paper “Trimethoprim-sulfonamide use during the first trimester of pregnancy and the risk of congenital anomalies.”

Dr. Green’s poster take first prize at CDC cancer conference

Beverly Green, MD, MPH, a KPWHRI associate investigator and family physician with Washington Permanente Medical Group, won the first place poster award at the 2017 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Cancer Conference.

Held August 14-16 in Atlanta, the conference focused on “Visualizing the Future through Prevention, Innovation, and Communication.” Dr. Green’s poster, “Reasons for Never and Intermittent Completion of Colorectal Cancer Screening after Receiving Multiple Rounds of Mailed Fecal Tests” described the barriers to screening that were most pervasive among patients at Kaiser Permanente Washington who had never been screened for colorectal cancer. Dr. Green’s co-authors included KPWHRI Research Associate Leah Tuzzio, MPH, and Affiliate Investigator Sheryl Catz, PhD; former KPWHRI Research Interventionist June BlueSpruce; and colleagues from the University of Texas.