Newsmakers

Recent research from Permanente stroke specialist Alex Flint, MD, shows that both systolic and diastolic numbers are key to determining heart attack and stroke risk.

Kaiser Permanente’s Firearm Injury Prevention Task Force co-leads David Grossman, MD, MPH, and Bechara Choucair, MD, co-authored an article recently published in Pediatrics on the role health systems have in preventing firearm injury. The article states that in order for health professionals to be effective in protecting patients from firearm injury, they must know how to identify high-risk individuals and have the tools necessary to intervene effectively.

A recent article in The New York Times examines an that doctors can use to assess patient risk for H.I.V and recommend a daily pill to prevent infection – a strategy referred to as PrEP. The idea to use data from electronic health records to determine if patients are at high risk for H.I.V. infection was borne from researchers at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Northern California and Harvard.

Sunday was #WorldHepatitisDay, which presented a unique opportunity to raise awareness and highlight some of the latest research and advancements in the field.

Ameya Kulkarni, MD, a cardiologist with the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, offers his insights on what it means when your heart skips a beat in a U.S. News and World Report article.

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the top and bottom numbers in a blood pressure reading are both important in determining a patient’s risk for heart disease. Alexander Flint, MD, a neurointensivist and stroke specialist with The Permanente Medical Group, says in an article on NBCNews.com that clinicians need to pay attention to the bottom number (the diastolic pressure) just as much as the top (systolic).

A new Harvard Business Review story on burnout quotes Edward M. Ellison, MD, co-CEO, The Permanente Federation, on the massive negative impacts of physician burnout, innovations to address it, and what leaders can do to prevent purpose-driven employees in their own organizations from suffering.