Society Partners with European Endocrine Societies for EndoBridge in Turkey
The second annual meeting of EndoBridge was held in Antalya, Turkey, October 23 – 26, attracting over 400 delegates from 35 countries.
The first clinical update meeting of EndoBridge was launched in October 2013 by the Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Turkey (SEMT) in collaboration with the Endocrine Society. To host this year’s EndoBridge meeting, SEMT, European Society of Endocrinology, and the Endocrine Society have joined forces for the first time. EndoBridge 2014 provided a comprehensive update across the full spectrum of endocrinology including diabetes and lipid disorders. The three-day program comprised 23 state-of-the-art lectures and 16 interactive case discussion sessions, which were simultaneously translated into Turkish, Russian, and Arabic.
EndoBridge, conceptualized by Bulent Yildiz, MD, founding secretary of the initiative, takes a unique position with the vision of bridging the world of endocrinology. “We, as today’s physicians, need hands-on information about hormonal disorders to use in real-world settings and to help our patients achieve better health,” Yildiz says. “Although context might differ, we all share many challenges of endocrinology across our countries. To this end, EndoBridge provides a forum to share and exchange experience among peers and the world’s leading experts. I am excited and pleased to see that we are building up a bridge in the field of endocrinology and making a remarkable model of dialogue, understanding, and collaboration.”
The third annual meeting of EndoBridge will take place in Antalya, Turkey, October 15 – 18, 2015. Further information can be found at www.endobridge.org.
New Reporting Tool Beneficial for Bone Healthcare Providers
In 2014 and every year moving forward, an increasing percentage of payments for Medicare and Medicaid will depend upon successful reporting of quality measures for every practicing clinician. To help you meet these requirements, the National Bone Health Alliance (NBHA) and the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) have developed a new tool for those in the bone health field to successfully participate in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS).
The NBHA and NOF Quality Improvement Registry (QIR) has been designated as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for PQRS reporting. QIR is the only QCDR focused exclusively on osteoporosis and postfracture care. As an Endocrine Society member, you are eligible for a discount to use the QIR QCDR as well as personalized support to answer your questions and walk you through the reporting process.
Using the QIR QCDR helps protect your practice’s income and keeps money in your practice so you can continue your focus on bone health. The QIR will allow you to submit for PQRS, Meaningful Use, and Maintenance of Certification as well as drive performance measurement, benchmarking, population health management, and practice improvement.
Meeting PQRS quality reporting requirements will affect your bottom line. You will earn a 0.5% PQRS incentive payment this year and, more importantly avoid a 1% – 2% decrease in all Medicare reimbursements in 2015 and 2016. CMS is proposing to increase these incentives and penalties so the revenue at risk is expected to increase steadily each year. If you don’t participate in PQSR reporting this year, you have potentially thousands of dollars at risk in 2016 and beyond.
Go to www.medconcert.com/FractureQIR to see how the registry works or contact Debbie Zeldow at [email protected] or 202-721-6364 for further information.
New Research Resource from NIDDK
The NIDDK Information Network (dkNET; http://dknet.org) has been launched to better serve the needs of basic and clinical investigators in metabolic, digestive, and kidney disease by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). These resources will include data, materials, tools, and other services that will help advance the mission of the NIDDK.
Access to these research resources is generally provided by a database or Web portal, developed and hosted by many different projects, organizations, and individuals. While many of the large governmentfunded databases — maintained by agencies such as the European Bioinformatics Institute and National Center for Biotechnology Information — are well known to researchers, many more that have been developed by and for the biomedical research community are unknown or underutilized. At least part of the problem is the nature of dynamic databases, which are considered part of the “hidden” or “deep” Web, that is, content that is not easily accessed by search engines.
dkNET was created specifically to address the challenge of connecting researchers in metabolic and digestive diseases to research resources via these types of community databases and Web portals. dkNET functions as a “search engine for data,” searching across millions of database records contained in hundreds of biomedical databases developed and maintained by independent projects around the world. Through the novel data ingest process used in dkNET, additional data sources can easily be incorporated, allowing it to scale with the growth of digital data and the needs of the dkNET community.
Some of the highlights of dkNET are:
- A search portal to find community-vetted materials, data, and tools relevant to NIDDK and beyond;
- Personalized search and display of results;
- Community news and social networking; and
- Live help during “office hours” so you can find what you are looking for.
—Maryann Martone, PhD, and Jeffrey Grethe, PhD
Weigel Named Editor-in-Chief of Hormones and Cancer
Nancy Weigel, PhD, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houstan, Texas, has been named editor-in-chief of the Endocrine Society’s journal Hormones and Cancer.
“It’s an honor to take the hlem of a journal dedicated to such a crucial health topic,” Weigel says. “Hormone and Cancer brings together breakthrough studies, both basic and clinical, to shed light on the causes and potential treatments of cancer. I am looking forward to maintaining and growing its reputation as a destination for the finest translational research on hormone-related cancers.”
Weigel’s term as the editor-in-chief began January 1. She has previously served as associate editor for the Society’s journal, Molecular Enocrinology, and was an editorial board member for Hormones and Cancer, Endocrinology, Steroids, Nuclear Receptor Signaling, and the Journal of Bilogical Chemistry.
“The Society is thrilled to have Dr. Weigel on board as the next editor-in-chief of Hormones and Cancer,” says Barbara Byrd Keenan, executive director and CEO of the Endocrine Society. “She brings a wide breadth of knowledge and editorial experience that will facilitate continued excellence and future growth.”
In her own research, Weigel has investigated coactivators and androgen receptors in prostate cancer as well as vitamin D receptor target genes. She is chairwoman of the Society’s Laureate Awards Committee and has served on the Society’s Council as well as the Publications Core Committee. Weigel has been honored with the Society’s Roy O. Greep Award for Outstanding REsearch and the Society of Women in Urology/Society for Basic Urology Research Award for Excellence in Urologic Research.
Hormones and Cancer conmbines basic research, epidemiology, and clinical studies to shed light on the emerging field of hormone-related cancers. The journal was founded in 2010 and is published on a bimonthly basis. It is produced in partnership with Springer, an international publisher of clinical and research books.
Society Headquarters Recognized for Being Eco-Friendly
The Endocrine Society was awarded a Gold LEED Certification for its new headquarters at 2055 L Street in Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED, or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices and is recognized across the globe as the premier mark of achievement in green building.
To receive LEED certification, building projects must satisfy prerequisites and earn points to achieve different levels of certification. When the Society first made plans to move their headquarters to DC, the organization’s leadership identified LEED certification as a primary target.
Architects reviewed the Society’s own statement on endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and weeded out construction materials that contained materials disruptive to reproductive and other endocrine systems. Every effort was made, when known and reported, to avoid products with harmful ingredients, and in the case of paints, adhesives, some carpet materials, and others, the research available at the time was able to steer and inform the design team’s specifications in new directions.
“Our members have shown that endocrinedisrupting chemicals pose a real threat to public health,” says Endocrine Society CEO Barbara Byrd Keenan. “So, when we planned the construction of the new headquarters with an eye to LEED certification, we also were very mindful to avoid materials shown to contain EDCs.”
The Society also earned points for choosing a location in an urban area with access to community amenities and public transportation, plentiful natural light, acoustical comfort using sound-absorptive materials, and prioritized use of low-VOC paints and adhesives, Greenguard certified furniture, CRI Green Label Plus carpeting, and other low-emission materials.
Society Publishes New Clinical Practice Guideline on Paget’s Disease
The Endocrine Society has issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the diagnosis and treatment of Paget’s disease of the bone, a condition where one or more bones in the body become oversized and weak.
The CPG, entitled Paget’s Disease of Bone: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline, appeared in the December 2014 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
About one million people nationwide have Paget’s disease of the bone, according to the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Among people who are older than 55 years, an estimated 2% to 3% have Paget’s disease. The condition is rare in people who are younger than age 40.
“We’ve long known that bisphosphonates — a class of drugs often used to treat osteoporosis and other bone conditions — work well for treating Paget’s disease,” says Frederick R. Singer, MD, of the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., and chair of the task force that authored the guideline. “One particular option — a one-time IV infusion of zoldedronate — has emerged as the preferred option. The medication can put Paget’s disease into remission for up to six years, and many patients prefer the one-time infusion to oral medications that can cause gastrointestinal side effects and must be taken over the course of several months.”
The CPG recommends that people with active Paget’s disease at risk of future complications be prescribed bisphosphonates. The Society suggests physicians consider the zoldedronate infusion as the first-line treatment unless there is a reason to avoid the treatment, such as reduced kidney function in the patient.
Recommendations from the CPG include:
- As part of the diagnostic process, plain radiographs should be taken of suspicious areas of the skeleton.
- Following a diagnosis, measurements of the patient’s serum total alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels, or a more specific bone marker when appropriate, should be performed to determine the extent of the damage.
- People who have both Paget’s disease and abnormal liver function — either in the organ itself or the biliary tract — should undergo a measurement of a specific bone marker to assess response to treatment or, in an untreated patient, determine the disease’s course.
- Since many patients do not report feeling pain when the disease activity recurs, patients should undergo testing for bone markers to determine if they are relapsing.
Other members of the Endocrine Society task force that developed this CPG include: Henry G. Bone III of the Michigan Bone & Mineral Clinic in Detroit, Mich.; David J. Hosking of Nottingham City Hospital in Nottingham, U.K.; Kenneth W. Lyles of Duke University and VA Medical Centers in Durham, NC; Mohammad Hassan Murad of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.; Ian R. Reid of the University of Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand; and Ethel S. Siris of Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York, NY.
The CPG was co-sponsored by the European Society of Endocrinology.
Society Honored for Enhancing Washington, D.C.’s Economic Environment
The Endocrine Society was presented the Michael V. Hodge DC Revenue Bond Program Deal of the Year Award at the Washington, D.C. Economic Partnership (WDCEP) Annual Meeting on December 9.
The Hodge Award recognizes the year’s top deal that has made a noteworthy contribution to DC’s economic landscape. The Society received the honor for its purchase of a 34,000-square-foot office condominium at 2055 L Street, NW.
“We have been grateful to have support from District officials as we made this long-term investment in the Society’s future, and the award is a tribute to our collaboration,” says Endocrine Society CEO Barbara Byrd Keenan. “Being based in the District has advanced our role as a leader in the health and science policy sphere. We are pleased to be putting down roots in a location that makes it easy to interact with other notable healthcare, research, and nonprofit organizations.”
The award was presented at the WDCEP’s 2014 annual meeting and development showcase at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The Hodge Award is named after the former director of the DC Revenue Bond Program in the Office of Planning & Economic Development. The program helps finance construction projects for nonprofit organizations and corporations. The Endocrine Society is the third organization to receive the honor since the WDCEP established the award in 2012.
The Society relocated its 90-plus employees to the District from Chevy Chase, Md., last February.
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