Letter from the Editor #582

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) recently held a series of webinars to help clinicians in “Achieving and Outperforming Type 2 Diabetes HEDIS Measures.“ There were a lot of elements that needed to fall into place to make that happen and our Pharm D candidate, Daniel Schultz, listened in and has prepared a summary of what was discussed.

There has been a lot in the news lately about the adverse effects of diabetes medications and often times what was a minor complication becomes a rallying cry for the demise of a drug. This week’s Item #7, Exenatide Reduced Heart Failure Risk by 50 Percent in Type 2’s, brings some positive news as a new retrospective analysis of over 750,000 patients using diabetes medications showed the ability of one medication, the GLP-1 agonist exenatide, to reduce heart failure risk by up to 50%.

If you want to learn even more about GLP-1 agonists, just go to our home page at www.DiabetesInControl.com, and then click on our new Therapy Series drop-down menu to access each complete issue of the series so far.

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Announcements:

dLife.com: July 17, 7PM ET on CNBC

Topics: Successful employees share how they excelled at their jobs, despite challenging work environments and diabetes. A “Best of dLife” special. Sundays on CNBC at 7 PM ET, 6 PM CT, and 4 PM PT. Catch up on dLife.com.

TCOYD Mini-Series Event, San Diego, California, July 27, 2011, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Join Steven Edelman, MD, and Robert Henry, MD, at the Preuss School Auditorium in San Diego, California, for an evening focused on the latest information on A New Generation of Drugs: Approved and In Development.

Please answer this week’s poll: Do you feel that industry sponsored CE/CME is biased?

View last week’s poll results.

Check out this week’s “Test Your Diabetes Knowledge” question!

Dave Joffe, Editor-in-chief