Certificates of Need are regulations required by some states before any construction or expansion of services at medical facilities are undertaken. Originally developed to prevent excessive construction of expensive health care facilities, these rules have distorted health care markets and probably should be repealed. Karl Bilimoria, MD, from Northwestern University, Tarik K Yuce, MD, and JAMA Associate Editor Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, from Washington University, discuss the current status of these regulations and their effect on health care markets.
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Mark Litwin, MD, chair of Urology at the UCLA School of Medicine, discusses the evaluation of hematuria and also the presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of bladder cancer.
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There are hundreds of thousands of liver transplant patients, all of whom will be seen in general clinical practices. It is common for them to develop elevated liver enzymes--a potentially serious problem that may be a sign that the transplanted liver is failing. Traditionally, patients with these findings are sent to a liver transplant center for an inpatient workup. A new protocol facilitating management of most of these patients in routine outpatient clinics has been developed, greatly improving the efficiency of managing patients with this clinical problem. Fady Kaldas, MD, director of the Dumont-UCLA transplant center, discusses how to manage elevated liver function results in liver transplant patients on an outpatient basis.
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Outpatient Management of Liver Function Test Abnormalities in Patients With a Liver Transplant
Are e-cigarettes helpful or harmful as a tool to help people stop smoking? Mark J. Eisenberg, MD, MPH, from the Jewish General Hospital and McGill University in Montreal, Canada, discuss a recent clinical trial he reported in the November 10, 2020, issue of JAMA examining the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid.
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Effect of e-Cigarettes Plus Counseling vs Counseling Alone on Smoking Cessation
A new multisociety guideline was recently released suggesting that for many patients, the interval between colonoscopies following polyp resection is less than previously recommended. Cecelia Zhang, MD, Duke University, and Maylyn Martinez, MD, University of Chicago, discuss the new guideline.
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Tim Uyeki, MD, chief medical officer for the Influenza Division, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic may affect the 2020-2021 influenza season.
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