A T2T Solution
The July issue had a “Rhuemination” on “T2T” approach. I have been using DAS28 since a preprogrammed calculator was provided by Abbott at one of the EULAR meetings.
My colleague Dr. Gogia (an old student of mine) and I have been involved in the development of an EMR for rheumatology practice since 2005; it was fully developed and implemented for routine use in my private clinic as well as in the department of rheumatology at a hospital where I work now. A paper has been published by us giving the details of this EMR.
The beauty of this EMR is that all the outcome measures—DAS28, CDAI, SDAI—are displayed in real time as you are performing the examination and your secretary or clinical assistant is entering the information. In India, going online is not always possible. Therefore, a built-in, embedded calculator was found to be a better option.
Prof. Anand N. Malaviya, MD
Ex-Head of the Department of Medicine and Chief of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology Services,
All-India Institute of Medical Sciences Consultant Rheumatologist,
“A&R Clinic” Visiting Senior Consultant Rheumatologist ISIC Superspeciality Hospital
New Delhi, India
Patients React to Rheumatology’s Identity Crisis
Thank you for the article, “An Identity Crisis for RA,” by R. Franklin Adams, MD (August 2011).
I’d like to quote the article to underscore the parts I liked best, but I’d quote almost the entire piece.
Over the last three years, I’ve written about 600 articles about RA and read hundreds of news stories, academic articles, and patient blogs. Meanwhile, I’ve received at least 100,000 responses directly from RA patients and lived full-time with the disease myself. What have I discovered?
Being lumped with “arthritis,” RA has no identity. Patients have already dropped the “a” word and begun to refer to RA as Rheumatoid Disease or Rheumatoid Autoimmune Disease. Statistics about mortality rates and research funding are terrible. As I read Dr. Adams’ article, I heard my own words echoed.
Astonishingly, by way of different roads, we have come to the same conclusions: RA is a serious disease that is misunderstood by most people, including many professional people and medical personnel. According to Mayo Clinic research, the lifetime risk of developing RA is 3.6% for women and 1.7% for men. For the sake of RA patients and everyone in society (potential RA patients and their loved ones), change must come now.
Dr. Adams mentions key strategies that have also been advocated by patients through the RA Warrior community, especially RA nomenclature issues. I believe the most successful approach will be one that allows patients, researchers, and doctors to combine efforts to attack the problem of RA on every level (both its identity and its cure). With greater public awareness will come appropriate recognition, research funds, and programs to improve the lives of people with RA.
