The Child-Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) system confronts clinically complex youth with high rates of behavior problems, diverse mental health disorders, substance abuse, criminal behavior, and other "at risk" behaviors (e.g. school truancy, family conflict, etc.). Because of the complexity of the youth, the system has serious difficulties helping them to successfully overcome the myriad of problems they confront. This group proposes that a public health approach would help solve many of the inadequacies of the current system.

Background: Neuraminidase inhibitors (NAIs) are stockpiled internationally for extended use in an influenza pandemic.

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of extended-duration (>4 weeks) NAI chemoprophylaxis against influenza.

Data Sources: Studies published in any language through 11 June 2009 identified by searching 10 electronic databases and 3 trial registries.

Study Selection: Randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded human trials of extended-duration NAI chemoprophylaxis that reported outcomes of laboratory-confirmed influenza or adverse events.

Data Extraction: 2 reviewers independently assessed study quality and abstracted information from eligible studies.

Data Synthesis: Of 1876 potentially relevant citations, 7 trials involving 7021 unique participants met inclusion criteria. Data were pooled by using random-effects models. NAI chemoprophylaxis decreased the frequency of symptomatic influenza (relative risk [RR], 0.26 [95% CI, 0.18 to 0.37]; risk difference [RD], –3.9 percentage points [CI, –5.8 to –1.9 percentage points]) but not asymptomatic influenza (RR, 1.03 [CI, 0.81 to 1.30]; RD, –0.4 percentage point [CI, –1.6 to 0.9 percentage point). Adverse effects were not increased overall among NAI recipients (RR, 1.01 [CI, 0.94 to 1.08]; RD, 0.1 percentage point [CI, –0.2 to 0.4 percentage point), but nausea and vomiting were more common among those who took oseltamivir (RR, 1.48 [CI, 1.86 to 2.33]; RD, 1.7 percentage points [CI, 0.6 to 2.9 percentage points]). Prevention of influenza did not statistically significantly differ between zanamivir and oseltamivir.

Limitations: All trials were industry-sponsored. No study was powered to detect rare adverse events, and none included diverse racial groups, children, immunocompromised patients, or individuals who received live attenuated influenza virus vaccine.

Conclusion: Extended-duration zanamivir and oseltamivir chemoprophylaxis appears to be highly efficacious for preventing symptomatic influenza among immunocompetent white and Japanese adults. Extended-duration oseltamivir is associated with increased nausea and vomiting. Safety and efficacy in several subpopulations that might receive extended-duration influenza chemoprophylaxis are unknown.

Despite recommendations for voluntary HIV screening, few medical centres have implemented screening programmes. The objective of the study was to determine whether an intervention with computer-based reminders and feedback would increase screening for HIV in a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health-care system. The design of the study was a randomized controlled trial at five primary care clinics at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. All primary care providers were eligible to participate in the study. The study intervention was computer-based reminders to either assess HIV risk behaviours or to offer HIV testing; feedback on adherence to reminders was provided. The main outcome measure was the difference in HIV testing rates between intervention and control group providers. The control group providers tested 1.0% (n = 67) and 1.4% (n = 106) of patients in the preintervention and intervention period, respectively; intervention providers tested 1.8% (n = 98) and 1.9% (n = 114), respectively (P = 0.75).In our random sample of 753 untested patients, 204 (27%) had documented risk behaviours. Providers were more likely to adhere to reminders to test rather than with reminders to perform risk assessment (11% versus 5%, P < 0.01). Sixty-one percent of providers felt that lack of time prevented risk assessment. In conclusion, in primary care clinics in our setting, HIV testing rates were low. Providers were unaware of the high rates of risky behaviour in their patient population and perceived important barriers to testing. Low-intensity clinical reminders and feedback did not increase rates of screening.

The current focus of the health reform debate is rightfully beginning to shift to the need to transform the delivery system to contain the long run growth in costs. Although much of the debate still focuses on the role of a public plan, this ignores the need for fundamental change. None of the options on the table will transform the delivery system. If passed, the best the current proposals could do is to expand enrollment and perhaps contain federal costs, but on its own the public plan will be unable to make the delivery system more efficient.

To control health care costs, I propose a publicly chartered major risk pool, or MRP, that
will allow plans to pool risk, thereby eliminating the need for wasteful underwriting and
selective marketing costs. Participation in the MRP by both providers and insurers is
voluntary. It can be combined with any public option in an exchange implemented at the
federal or state level; it can even work without a public option. After a brief transition
period, the MRP requires no federal funds and will not be “on budget.” By allowing private plans to play a role in a transformed insurance and delivery system, the MRP can be politically attractive to a broader constituency than any of the current proposals.

The MRP addresses a key component of comprehensive health reform: restructuring the
delivery system. It is not a simple reinsurance pool that reimburses health plans for high costclaims. Instead, it creates a reformed payment system for both inpatient care and outpatient chronic care that will encourage efficiency and quality. The MRP will cover inpatient and similar short but expensive episodes, as well as chronic illness management. Its new payment approaches will achieve the efficiency goals promised by proposals for hospital medical staff-focused Accountable Care Organizations, but in an organizationally more plausible manner. Hospitals and physicians who focus on inpatient care and voluntarily form Care Delivery Teams will receive bundled episode-based payments, but the MRP will pay providers regardless of whether they belong to a Care Delivery Team, although at less attractive rates. Providers in these teams can use their bargaining power to charge the primary insurers more than the MRP pays. The MRP’s payments for monthly chronic illness management will give health plans and primary care physicians the incentives, flexibility, and information to more effectively compensate clinicians for the care they deliver and coordinate. By being publicly chartered, but independent of Congress, and by allowing options for all players, the MRP will be able to sidestep the ability of special interests to block change.

The American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF), along with key specialty and subspecialty societies, conducted an appropriate use review of common clinical scenarios where cardiac radionuclide imaging (RNI) is frequently considered. This document is a revision of the original Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography Myocardial Perfusion Imaging (SPECT MPI) Appropriateness Criteria,1 published 4 years earlier, written to reect changes in test utilization and new clinical data, and to clarify RNI use where omissions or lack of clarity existed in the original criteria. This is in keeping with the commitment to revise and rene appropriate use criteria (AUC) on a frequent basis. The indications for this review were drawn from common applications or anticipated uses, as well as from current clinical practice guidelines. Sixty-seven clinical scenarios were developed by a writing group and scored by a separate technical panel on a scale of 1 to 9 to designate appropriate. In general, use of cardiac RNI for diagnosis and risk assessment in intermediate- and high-risk patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) was viewed favorably, while testing in low-risk patients, routine repeat testing, and general screening in certain clinical scenarios were viewed less favorably. Additionally, use for perioperative testing was found to be inappropriate except for high selected groups of patients. It is anticipated that these results will have a signicant impact on physician decision making, test performance, and reimbursement policy, and will help guide future research.

Background: Effective disaster preparedness requires coordination across multiple organizations. This article describes a detailed framework developed through the BioNet program to facilitate coordination of bioterrorism preparedness planning among military and civilian decision makers.

Methods: The authors and colleagues conducted a series of semistructured interviews with civilian and military decision makers from public health, emergency management, hazardous material response, law enforcement, and military health in the San Diego area. Decision makers used a software tool that simulated a hypothetical anthrax attack, which allowed them to assess the effects of a variety of response actions (eg, issuing warnings to the public, establishing prophylaxis distribution centers) on performance metrics. From these interviews, the authors characterized the information sources, technologies, plans, and communication channels that would be used for bioterrorism planning and responses. The authors used influence diagram notation to describe the key bioterrorism response decisions, the probabilistic factors affecting these decisions, and the response outcomes.

Results: The authors present an overview of the response framework and provide a detailed assessment of two key phases of the decision-making process:

1. pre-event planning and investment and
   
2. incident characterization and initial responsive measures.
   

The framework enables planners to articulate current conditions; identify gaps in existing policies, technologies, information resources, and relationships with other response organizations; and explore the implications of potential system enhancements.

Conclusions: Use of this framework could help decision makers execute a locally coordinated response by identifying the critical cues of a potential bioterrorism event, the information needed to make effective response decisions, and the potential effects of various decision alternatives. Key words: bioterrorism, decision making, organization and administration, regional health planning

OBJECTIVES: In response to growing concerns about sexual violence as an underrecognized traumatic consequence of military service, Veterans Health Administration policy requires universal screening for sexual trauma sustained during military service. This prospective study, the first to evaluate national efforts to screen for military sexual trauma, investigated whether sexual trauma screening is associated with increased utilization of mental health services.

METHODS: This study examined data for all male (N=540,381) and female (N=33,259) veterans who had valid responses to screens for military sexual trauma in 2005. The use of mental health services during the three months after screening was examined for persons who screened positive for military sexual trauma and for those who screened negative. Findings were stratified by use of mental health services in the six months before the screening.

RESULTS: Compared with negative screens, positive screens were associated with significantly increased rates of postscreen mental health treatment. A more than twofold increase was observed for patients without previous use of mental health treatment (women: relative risk [RR]=2.52, 95% confidence interval [CI]= 2.38–2.66; men: RR=2.47, 95% CI=2.34–2.61). In this group, the number of positive screens needed for one additional patient to access treatment was 5.5 for women and 7.2 for men.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that detection via screening is associated with increased rates of mental health treatment. An effective screening program that promotes detection of sexual trauma and access to mental health care can help to reduce the burden of psychiatric illness for those who have experienced military sexual trauma.

Our study assesses how work-related monetary and nonmonetary factors affect physicians' job satisfaction at three academic medical centers in Germany and the United States, two countries whose differing health care systems experience similar problems in maintaining their physician workforce. We used descriptive statistics and factor and correlation analyses to evaluate physicians' responses to a self-administered questionnaire. Our study revealed that German physician respondents were less satisfied overall than their U.S. counterparts. In both countries, participation in decision making that may affect physicians' work was an important correlate of satisfaction. In Germany other important factors were opportunities for continuing education, job security, extent of administrative work, collegial relationships, and access to specialized technology. In the U.S. sample, job security, financial incentives, interaction with colleagues, and cooperative working relationships with colleagues and management were important predictors of overall job satisfaction. The implications of these findings for the development of policies and management tactics to increase physician job satisfaction in German and U.S. academic medical centers are discussed.

Prior research has demonstrated that intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with employment instability among poor women. The current study assesses the broader relationship between IPV and women's workforce participation in a population-based sample of 6,698 California women. We examined past-year IPV by analyzing specific effects of physical violence, psychological violence, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms as predictors of unemployment. Results indicated substantial rates of unemployment among women who reported IPV, with rates of 20% among women who experienced psychological violence, 18% among women who experienced physical violence, and 19% among women with PTSD symptoms. When the relationship was adjusted for demographic characteristics and educational attainment, PTSD (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.22, 2.09) and psychological violence (AOR = 1.78; 95% CI = 1.36, 2.32), but not physical violence, were associated with unemployment. Implications for supported employment programs and workplace responses to IPV are discussed.