Mass. health providers object to drug store clinics

June 18, 2007

Excerpts from the Globe's blog on the Boston-area medical community.

Wait a minute!

Five medical-provider groups say they have major objections to CVS Caremark's plan to open 20 to 30 MinuteClinics in Boston-area stores by the fall.

In a letter sent last week to state public health Commissioner John Auerbach, the groups called for a public hearing on the proposal; they said his department should not waive certain clinic requirements for CVS without a hearing and vote by the Public Health Council. CVS wants a waiver of many normal clinic licensing requirements, such as having blood collection equipment because the clinics won't do blood tests.

The groups objected to granting waivers of "basic public health protections and standards of care to a for-profit company in order to reduce the economic burden to that company in competing with other health care providers. . . ."

Groups that signed the letter are the Massachusetts Medical Society, Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians, Massachusetts Chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics, Massachusetts Hospital Association, and Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers .

LIZ KOWALCZYK

Neurontin fines fund program on drug industry influence

A Boston health educator is taking a page from the antismoking playbook.

Using money from a $430 million Pfizer Inc. settlement of illegal marketing charges, the MGH Institute of Health Professions is launching a program today to teach health care providers about drug industry influence. Just as tobacco company settlement dollars funded stop-smoking campaigns, a total of $21 million and 26 grants were earmarked nationwide to bring information about pharmaceutical marketing to prescribes and consumers.

Elissa Ladd, clinical assistant professor at the affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital, won $399,400 to develop a documentary called "PERx: Prescribing Evidence-Based Therapies" and a companion website, www.perxinfo.org. Both are funded through fines paid by the drug giant Pfizer in 2004 when its Warner-Lambert subsidiary pleaded guilty to promoting unapproved uses for the anti-seizure drug Neurontin.

ELIZABETH COONEY

State healthcare system ranked eighth best in nation

Massachusetts ranks eighth among the states in the overall performance of its healthcare system, according to a report from the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that promotes improvements in healthcare.

The scorecard rated each state on measures that included quality of care, access to care, avoidable hospitalizations, costs, and avoidable deaths.

Massachusetts scored particularly well on access, quality and equity of care, based on statistics that are several years old. The ongoing state health insurance initiative is likely to improve those scores if they are measured in the future. The state ranked much worse -- 35th -- in avoidable hospital use and costs.

ALICE DEMBNER