Webinar: ACR/CHEST ILD Guidelines in Practice| Video: All the Lonely People

An official publication of the ACR and the ARP serving rheumatologists and rheumatology professionals

Guidance

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Figure 2: High-resolution computed tomography showed evidence of interstitial lung disease.

High-resolution computed tomography shows evidence of ILD.

The ACR/CHEST ILD Guidelines in Practice, a video
In collaboration with the American College of Chest Physicians, the ACR released two new comprehensive guidelines aimed at improving the screening, monitoring, and treatment of patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) secondary to systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs). Recently, Sindhu R. Johnson, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada, director of the Toronto Scleroderma Program and principal investigator for the guideline, and Elana J. Bernstein, MD, MSc, Florence Irving associate professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at Columbia University, New York City, and co-first author, presented a webinar to talk about how the guidelines were developed and present some of the recommendations and their rationale: Watch the recording now!

 

Magnify Rheumatology’s Legislative Impact this Month

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Members of the ACR’s Executive, Government Affairs, and RheumPAC Committees, along with the Affiliate Society Council, attended 75 meetings with legislators and their staff. These meetings are critical to advancing awareness of rheumatology and the issues affecting your profession and patients.

ACR’s Advocacy Toolkit

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Ways to contact your member of Congress; tips for communicating with your member of Congress; ways to get patients involved; and donloadable briefs, posters, and brochures.

ARHP Members Earn Leadership Position, Award

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Kamala Nola, PharmD, MS, was inducted as the 2011-2012 president-elect of the Tennessee Pharmacists Association; Danuta Bujak, PhD, FNP, an ARHP member, was honored as the recipient of the 2011 Yale School of Nursing Distinguished Alumna Award.

Link between Autoimmunity and Environmental Exposure Needs Further Research

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Rheumatology needs further cost-effective and validated methods to track the connection between environmental exposure and autoimmune diseases, including research on phenotypes, genotypes, the synergy between multiple infectious and noninfectious exposures, the timing of exposure, and the mechanisms involved, according to presenters of “Impact of Environmental Health on Autoimmunity,” a session here at the 2011 ACR/ARHP Annual Scientific Meeting held in Chicago in November 2011.

Will There Be an SGR Fix This Year?

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Rheumatologists should expect at least one more time-stamped extension to the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula before Congress makes any lasting changes to it. At issue is the future of rheumatologists’ Medicare payments, including the federal Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC) recommendation from last year to scrap the formula, reduce payments for specialist services by 5.9% for each of three years, and then freeze them for seven more years, and the 27.4% SGR cut that has been repeatedly delayed by extensions.