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In this you can try these out edition Open buy viagra connect usa enrollment for 2021 health plans. Under 3 weeks buy viagra connect usa remainingIf you or a loved one is in need of health insurance, or if you’re already enrolled in an individual-market (non-group) health plan, open enrollment is currently underway nationwide, and we’re past the half-way point. Enrollment started more than three weeks ago, and we now have under three weeks remaining.Our 2021 Open Enrollment Guide.

Everything you need to know to enroll in an affordable individual-market health plan.Open enrollment is an opportunity for people to newly enroll in health coverage – regardless of medical history or prior coverage – and it also allows people who are already enrolled to actively compare their available options for 2021 and select a different plan if it would serve them better.(Even if the buy viagra connect usa current plan is still the best choice, this is always a better approach than simply letting the plan auto-renew without checking the other options.)Still have questions?. Read our extensive overview of open enrollment.Enrollments have surpassed 3 million nationwideAs of November 21, nearly 2.4 million people in 36 states had enrolled in coverage for 2021 through HealthCare.gov. A few of the state-run exchanges (used in Washington, DC, and the other 14 states) have also published enrollment buy viagra connect usa updates.

According to Charles Gaba – who’s tracking enrollments nationwide – enrollment stood at more than 3 million as of November 25, including several hundred thousand enrollees in state-based exchanges whose coverage has been auto-renewed for 2021. (These individuals buy viagra connect usa still have an opportunity to pick a different plan if they choose to do so). Gaba’s tally includes the states that use HealthCare.gov as well as the handful of state-run exchanges that have reported enrollment data, but most of the state-run exchanges have not yet made their enrollment data public.The daily enrollment pace via HealthCare.gov is higher than it was during the same time period last year, and that appears to be the case in the state-run exchanges as well.

But we aren’t yet seeing a significant surge in enrollment that might be expected given the job buy viagra connect usa losses and associated coverage losses caused by the erectile dysfunction treatment viagra. However, enrollment in Medicaid has grown significantly this year, thanks to the ACA’s Medicaid expansion guidelines that allow people in most states to enroll in Medicaid if their income drops to under 138% of the poverty level, even if it was higher than that earlier in the year.Get Covered 2021 coalition seeks to slow the spread of erectile dysfunction treatment, get uninsured Americans enrolled in buy viagra connect usa coverageGet Covered 2021 launched last week as a broad coalition of organizations with a two-part goal. Keeping Americans safe amid the erectile dysfunction treatment viagra, and spreading awareness about available health insurance options and the financial assistance that can make health coverage much more affordable than it would otherwise be.

€œGet Covered” is a reminder of the importance of wearing a mask to slow the spread of erectile dysfunction treatment, as buy viagra connect usa well as the importance of having health insurance coverage.Get Covered 2021 is chaired by Carrie Banahan, who directs Kynect in Kentucky, Peter Lee, who directs Covered California, and Joshua Peck, co-founder of Get America Covered. The Get Covered 2021 coalition includes 15 state-run marketplaces and numerous national health care and consumer advocacy organizations.KFF finds 40% of Americans eligible for free 2021 health coverageA new analysis published this week by KFF finds that about 40% of uninsured Americans are eligible for free or nearly free health coverage for 2021. About a quarter of the uninsured are eligible for Medicaid, which is free in most states buy viagra connect usa and has nominal premiums in a few states.

And another 16% are eligible for premium subsidies in the exchange that are substantial enough to allow them access to at least one private plan that would have no premiums at all.The free private plans are generally Bronze plans, although there are free Gold plans available in some areas. Selecting the free plans is not always the best option – some of these individuals will be better off with a Silver plan that includes cost-sharing reductions, even if they have to pay buy viagra connect usa a higher monthly premium. But enrolling in free health coverage is certainly a far better option than remaining uninsured for the coming year.Maine healthcare organization to gather signatures for universal coverage initiative on 2022 ballotThree years ago, Maine made history when the state became the first to have Medicaid expansion approved via a ballot measure passed by voters.

Several other states have buy viagra connect usa since followed suit. Now Maine Healthcare Action – a nonprofit focused on universal healthcare in Maine – has announced that it will begin gathering signatures in 2021 for another ballot measure, which would direct the legislature to create a universal health coverage system for the people buy viagra connect usa of Maine by 2024.In order to get the measure on the 2022 ballot, 63,067 valid signatures are needed, although advocates are hoping to gather at least 80,000. They will have a year in which to get enough signatures to get the measure on the 2022 ballot.Healthcare sharing ministry fined $1 million by Washington, cease-and-desist order upheldFor well over a year, Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has been seeking a $1 million fine against healthcare sharing ministry Aliera Healthcare, Inc.

Kreidler had ordered the company to stop issuing buy viagra connect usa memberships in Washington in the spring of 2019. (Other states have also stepped in to issue cease-and-desist orders for Aliera.)Aliera had appealed Kreidler’s cease-and-desist order, but it was upheld earlier this month. And this week, Aliera was ordered to pay the $1 million fine, although the company has 90 days to appeal that as well.Appellate court hears Oscar suit challenging Florida Blue exclusive broker requirementsLast fall, we told you about a lawsuit involving Oscar and Florida Blue, stemming from Florida Blue’s requirement that brokers who buy viagra connect usa offer their products refrain from offering products from any other insurance company.

This is far from the norm. Brokers in most states are allowed – and generally encouraged – buy viagra connect usa to become appointed with a variety of insurance companies, in order to offer their clients a broad selection of plans from which to choose.Oscar sued, alleging that Florida Blue’s exclusive broker requirement amounts to coercion and unfair market practices, but a judge sided with Florida Blue last September. Last week, the case was argued in front of a three-judge panel for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, but it’s not yet known when the judges will issue a ruling on the case.Brookings Institution paper analyzes strategies for reducing healthcare costsThe Brookings Institution’s Matt Fiedler has published a new paper that analyzes various options for reducing healthcare costs, including capping out-of-network prices, capping both in-network and out-of-network prices, and creating a public option.

Start with Fiedler’s Twitter thread about buy viagra connect usa this, and then dig into the summaries and the paper itself.The short story?. It’s complicated and there are numerous pitfalls to avoid, but there are strategies that could successfully lower healthcare prices.Nevada health exchange director discusses increased enrollmentThis week, Megan Messerly of the Nevada Independent interviewed Heather Korbulic, the executive director of Nevada’s health insurance exchange (Nevada Health Link). Korbulic and Messerly cover a wide range of topics, including increased enrollment during special enrollment periods earlier this year, the increased buy viagra connect usa plan availability during the current open enrollment period, and the potential impact of the pending Supreme Court ruling on the ACA.Louise Norris is an individual health insurance broker who has been writing about health insurance and health reform since 2006.

She has written dozens of opinions and educational pieces about buy viagra connect usa the Affordable Care Act for healthinsurance.org. Her state health exchange updates are regularly cited by media who cover health reform and by other health insurance experts.Short-term health plans in Nebraska Short-term plans duration in NebraskaState statute (44-787) defines short-term health insurance in Nebraska as a policy lasting less than 12 months. Federal regulations buy viagra connect usa that took effect in 2017 limited short-term plans to no more than three months, and prohibited their renewal.

But that changed under Trump administration’s rules that took effect in late 2018, allowing short-term plans to have initial terms up to 364 days (ie, the same as Nebraska’s existing law), and total duration, including renewals, of up to 36 months. Nebraska’s short-term buy viagra connect usa health insurance regulationsThe current federal rules for short-term health plans were finalized in early August 2018. In late August, the Nebraska Department of Insurance noted that they had temporarily placed short-term insurer filings on hold, while they reviewed the new federal rule.In September 2018, the Nebraska Department of Insurance published a bulletin clarifying that while the state would allow short-term plans to follow the federal guidelines in terms of the length of the initial term and the total allowable duration of the plan, the state was also imposing a variety of other requirements for short-term plans.

Notably, short-term plans in Nebraska are required to:Provide a clear comparison of how the benefits in the short-term plan compare buy viagra connect usa with the benefits required by an ACA-compliant individual market plan. The Department suggests that a comparison chart is a good way to go about this, and notes that examples of benefits that would need to be compared are “annual and lifetime limits, maternity coverage, mental health benefits, pre-existing condition restrictions, and pharmacy benefits.”Clearly state whether the plan can be renewed, how to go about renewing it, and how much it will cost to renew it.Clearly state any annual or lifetime limits that apply to the policy.Provide a 10-day free look period, as required under Neb. Rev.

Stat. § 44-710.18.Disclose the details of the plan’s provider network, including maintaining an up-to-date website that shows all of the currently contracted network providers.Nebraska Revised Statute 44-710.03 and 44-710.04 are applicable to short-term health plans.The Nebraska Department of Insurance had previously published a consumer alert in October 2016, warning residents to beware of “high-pressure telemarketers selling short-term health insurance products that are not compliant with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) despite their promises.”Short-term health insurance plans in Nebraska must be filed with the Nebraska Department of Insurance (via SERFF), must cover state-mandated benefits, and must comply with the state’s internal and external appeal requirements.Which insurers offer short-term plans in Nebraska?. Several insurance companies offer short-term health plans in Nebraska as of 2020.

These insurers have different underwriting rules, benefits, and policy durations. Carefully compare the details of any plans you’re considering, to make sure you understand the coverage and limitations. Who can buy short-term health insurance in Nebraska?.

Short-term health insurance in Nebraska can be purchased by applicants who can meet the underwriting guidelines the insurers use. In general, this means being under 65 years old (some insurers put the age limit at 64 years) and in fairly good health.Short-term health plans typically include blanket exclusions for pre-existing conditions, so they are not adequate for residents of the Cornhusker State who need certain medical care and seeking a short-term policy that will cover those needs.If you’re in need of health insurance coverage in Nebraska, first check to see if you’re eligible to enroll in an ACA-compliant major medical plan. These plans are available through the Nebraska exchange/marketplace or directly from an insurance company.

Open enrollment for ACA-compliant plans runs from November 1 – December 15 each year. Outside of that window, you may still be able to enroll, if you experience a qualifying event that triggers a special enrollment period. And if you have an eligible household income, you may be able to get a premium subsidy that would make your coverage much less costly than you might have expected — perhaps even less expensive than a short-term health plan.ACA-compliant plans are purchased on a month-to-month basis, so you can enroll in coverage even for only a few months until another policy takes effect.

So if you’ll soon be enrolled in Medicare or an employer’s plan, for example, you can sign up for an ACA-compliant plan during open enrollment or a special enrollment period, and then schedule it to end when your new coverage takes effect.When should I consider short-term health insurance in Nebraska ?. In your life there may be times when a short-term health insurance plan is the only realistic option, for example:If you missed open enrollment for ACA-compliant coverage and do not have a qualifying event that would trigger a special enrollment period.If you’re newly employed and have to wait up to three months before you can enroll in your employer’s health plan.If you’ll soon be enrolling in Medicare and have no other coverage options in the meantime.If you’ve already enrolled in an ACA-compliant plan but have to wait up to several weeks before the plan takes effect (ie, until January 1 if you’re enrolling during open enrollment, or until the first of the following month or the second following month if you’re enrolling during a special enrollment period).If you’re not eligible for Medicaid or a premium subsidy in the exchange for an ACA-compliant plan. People ineligible for premium subsidies include:Cornhuskers who earn over 400% of the poverty level.

(For 2021 coverage, that amounts to $51,040 for a single person. If your ACA-specific modified adjusted gross income is just a little above the subsidy-eligible threshold, there are steps you can take to reduce it).People stuck in the ACA’s family glitch.People who aren’t lawfully present in the US and thus are not eligible to enroll in a plan through the exchange (premium subsidies are only available in the exchange, and you have to be a lawfully present US resident in order to enroll through the exchange).Louise Norris is an individual health insurance broker who has been writing about health insurance and health reform since 2006. She has written dozens of opinions and educational pieces about the Affordable Care Act for healthinsurance.org.

Her state health exchange updates are regularly cited by media who cover health reform and by other health insurance experts..

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COMING IN April viagra cost 2021 - In the NYS Budget enacted in April 2020, go to website the pharmacy benefit was "carved out" of "mainstream" Medicaid managed care plans. That means that members of managed care plans will access their drugs outside their plan, unlike the rest of their medical care, which is accessed from in-network providers. How Prescription Drugs are Obtained through Managed Care plans No - Until April 2020 HOW DO MANAGED CARE PLANS DEFINE THE PHARMACY BENEFIT FOR CONSUMERS?.

The Medicaid pharmacy benefit includes all FDA approved prescription drugs, as viagra cost well as some over-the-counter drugs and medical supplies. Under Medicaid managed care. Plan formularies will be comparable to but not the same as the Medicaid formulary.

Managed care plans are required to have drug formularies that are “comparable” to the Medicaid viagra cost fee for service formulary. Plan formularies do not have to include all drugs covered listed on the fee for service formulary, but they must include generic or therapeutic equivalents of all Medicaid covered drugs. The Pharmacy Benefit will vary by plan.

Each plan will have its viagra cost own formulary and drug coverage policies like prior authorization and step therapy. Pharmacy networks can also differ from plan to plan. Prescriber Prevails applies in certain drug classes.

Prescriber prevails applys to medically necessary viagra cost precription drugs in the following classes. atypical antipsychotics, anti-depressants, anti-retrovirals, anti-rejection, seizure, epilepsy, endocrine, hemotologic and immunologic therapeutics. Prescribers will need to demonstrate reasonable profession judgment and supply plans witht requested information and/or clinical documentation.

Pharmacy Benefit Information Website -- http://mmcdruginformation.nysdoh.suny.edu/-- This website provides very helpful information on a viagra cost plan by plan basis regarding pharmacy networks and drug formularies. The Department of Health plans to build capacity for interactive searches allowing for comparison of coverage across plans in the near future. Standardized Prior Autorization (PA) Form -- The Department of Health worked with managed care plans, provider organizations and other state agencies to develop a standard prior authorization form for the pharmacy benefit in Medicaid managed care.

The form will be posted on the Pharmacy Information Website in July viagra cost of 2013. Mail Order Drugs -- Medicaid managed care members can obtain mail order/specialty drugs at any retail network pharmacy, as long as that retail network pharmacy agrees to a price that is comparable to the mail order/specialty pharmacy price. CAN CONSUMERS SWITCH PLANS IN ORDER TO GAIN ACCESS TO DRUGS?.

Changing plans is often an effective strategy for consumers eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare (dual eligibles) who receive viagra cost their pharmacy service through Medicare Part D, because dual eligibles are allowed to switch plans at any time. Medicaid consumers will have this option only in the limited circumstances during the first year of enrollment in managed care. Medicaid managed care enrollees can only leave and join another plan within the first 90 days of joining a health plan.

After the 90 days has expired, enrollees are “locked in” to the plan for the rest of the viagra cost year. Consumers can switch plans during the “lock in” period only for good cause. The pharmacy benefit changes are not considered good cause.

After the first 12 months of enrollment, Medicaid managed care enrollees can switch plans at viagra cost any time. STEPS CONSUMERS CAN TAKE WHEN A MANAGED CARE PLAM DENIES ACCESS TO A NECESSARY DRUG As a first step, consumers should try to work with their providers to satisfy plan requirements for prior authorization or step therapy or any other utilization control requirements. If the plan still denies access, consumers can pursue review processes specific to managed care while at the same time pursuing a fair hearing.

All plans are required to maintain an internal and external review process for complaints and appeals viagra cost of service denials. Some plans may develop special procedures for drug denials. Information on these procedures should be provided in member handbooks.

Beginning April 1, 2018, Medicaid managed care enrollees whose plan denies prior approval of a prescription drug, or discontinues a drug that had viagra cost been approved, will receive an Initial Adverse Determination notice from the plan - See Model Denial IAD Notice and IAD Notice to Reduce, Suspend or Stop Services The enrollee must first request an internal Plan Appeal and wait for the Plan's decision. An adverse decision is called a 'FInal Adverse Determination" or FAD. See model Denial FAD Notice and FAD Notice to Reduce, Suspend or Stop Services.

The enroll has the right to request a fair hearing to appeal an FAD viagra cost. The enrollee may only request a fair hearing BEFORE receiving the FAD if the plan fails to send the FAD in the required time limit, which is 30 calendar days in standard appeals, and 72 hours in expedited appeals. The plan may extend the time to decide both standard and expedited appeals by up to 14 days if more information is needed and it is in the enrollee's interest.

AID CONTINUING -- If an enrollee requests a Plan Appeal and then viagra cost a fair hearing because access to a drug has been reduced or terminated, the enrollee has the right to aid continuing (continued access to the drug in question) while waiting for the Plan Appeal and then the fair hearing. The enrollee must request the Plan Appeal and then the Fair Hearing before the effective date of the IAD and FAD notices, which is a very short time - only 10 days including mailing time. See more about the changes in Managed Care appeals here.

Even though that viagra cost article is focused on Managed Long Term Care, the new appeals requirements also apply to Mainstream Medicaid managed care. Enrollees who are in the first 90 days of enrollment, or past the first 12 months of enrollment also have the option of switching plans to improve access to their medications. Consumers who experience problems with access to prescription drugs should always file a complaint with the State Department of Health’s Managed Care Hotline, number listed below.

ACCESSING MEDICAID'S PHARMACY BENEFIT IN FEE FOR SERVICE MEDICAID For those Medicaid recipients who are not yet in a Medicaid Managed Care program, and who do not viagra cost have Medicare Part D, the Medicaid Pharmacy program covers most of their prescription drugs and select non-prescription drugs and medical supplies for Family Health Plus enrollees. Certain drugs/drug categories require the prescribers to obtain prior authorization. These include brand name drugs that have a generic alternative under New York's mandatory generic drug program or prescribed drugs that are not on New York's preferred drug list.

The full Medicaid formulary can viagra cost be searched on the eMedNY website. Even in fee for service Medicaid, prescribers must obtain prior authorization before prescribing non-preferred drugs unless otherwise indicated. Prior authorization is required for original prescriptions, not refills.

A prior authorization is effective for the original dispensing and up to five refills of that prescription viagra cost within the next six months. Click here for more information on NY's prior authorization process. The New York State Board of Pharmacy publishes an annual list of the 150 most frequently prescribed drugs, in the most common quantities.

The State Department of published here Health collects retail price information on these drugs viagra cost from pharmacies that participate in the Medicaid program. Click here to search for a specific drug from the most frequently prescribed drug list and this site can also provide you with the locations of pharmacies that provide this drug as well as their costs. Click here to view New York State Medicaid’s Pharmacy Provider Manual.

WHO viagra cost YOU CAN CALL FOR HELP Community Health Advocates Hotline. 1-888-614-5400 NY State Department of Health's Managed Care Hotline. 1-800-206-8125 (Mon.

- Fri viagra cost. 8:30 am - 4:30 pm) NY State Department of Insurance. 1-800-400-8882 NY State Attorney General's Health Care Bureau.

1-800-771-7755Haitian individuals and immigrants from some other countries who have applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) may be eligible for public health viagra cost insurance in New York State. 2019 updates - The Trump administration has taken steps to end TPS status. Two courts have temporarily enjoined the termination of TPS, one in New York State in April 2019 and one in California in October 2018.

The California viagra cost case was argued in an appeals court on August 14, 2019, which the LA Times reported looked likely to uphold the federal action ending TPS. See US Immigration Website on TPS - General TPS website with links to status in all countries, including HAITI. See also Pew Research March 2019 article.

Courts Block viagra cost Changes in Public charge rule- See updates on the Public Charge rule here, blocked by federal court injunctions in October 2019. Read more about this change in public charge rules here. What is Temporary Protected Status?.

TPS is a temporary immigration status granted to eligible individuals of a certain country designated by the Department of Homeland Security because serious temporary viagra cost conditions in that country, such as armed conflict or environmental disaster, prevents people from that country to return safely. On January 21, 2010 the United States determined that individuals from Haiti warranted TPS because of the devastating earthquake that occurred there on January 12. TPS gives undocumented Haitian residents, who were living in the U.S.

On January 12, viagra cost 2010, protection from forcible deportation and allows them to work legally. It is important to note that the U.S. Grants TPS to individuals from other countries, as well, including individuals from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan.

TPS and Public Health Insurance TPS applicants residing in New York are eligible for Medicaid and Family Health Plus as long as they also meet the income viagra cost requirements for these programs. In New York, applicants for TPS are considered PRUCOL immigrants (Permanently Residing Under Color of Law) for purposes of medical assistance eligibility and thus meet the immigration status requirements for Medicaid, Family Health Plus, and the Family Planning Benefit Program. Nearly all children in New York remain eligible for Child Health Plus including TPS applicants and children who lack immigration status.

For more information on immigrant eligibility for public health insurance in New York see viagra cost 08 GIS MA/009 and the attached chart. Where to Apply What to BringIndividuals who have applied for TPS will need to bring several documents to prove their eligibility for public health insurance. Individuals will need to bring.

1) Proof of viagra cost identity. 2) Proof of residence in New York. 3) Proof of income.

4) viagra cost Proof of application for TPS. 5) Proof that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has received the application for TPS.

Free Communication Assistance All applicants for public health insurance, including Haitian Creole speakers, have viagra cost a right to get help in a language they can understand. All Medicaid offices and enrollers are required to offer free translation and interpretation services to anyone who cannot communicate effectively in English. A bilingual worker or an interpreter, whether in-person or over the telephone, must be provided in all interactions with the office.

Important documents, such as Medicaid applications, should be translated viagra cost either orally or in writing. Interpreter services must be offered free of charge, and applicants requiring interpreter services must not be made to wait unreasonably longer than English speaking applicants. An applicant must never be asked to bring their own interpreter.

Related Resources on TPS and Public Health Insurance o The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) has compiled a list of agencies, law firms, and law schools responding to the tragedy in Haiti and the designation viagra cost of Haiti for Temporary Protected Status. A copy of the list is posted at the NYIC’s website at http://www.thenyic.org. o USCIS TPS website with links to status in all countries, including HAITI.

O For information on eligibility for public health insurance programs call viagra cost The Legal Aid Society’s Benefits Hotline 1-888-663-6880 Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. 9:30 am - 12:30 pm FOR IMMIGRATION HELP. CONTACT THE New York State New Americans Hotline for a referral to an organization to advise you.

212-419-3737 Monday-Friday, from 9:00 a.m. To 8:00 p.m.Saturday-Sunday, from 9:00 a.m. To 5:00 p.m.

Or call toll-free in New York State at 1-800-566-7636 Please see these fact sheets and web sites of national organizations for more information about the new PUBLIC CHARGE rules. Printable Fact Sheets for Distribution This article was co-authored by the New York Immigration Coalition, Empire Justice Center and the Health Law Unit of the Legal Aid Society. 1/29/10, updated 3/1/10, updated 8/15/19 by NY Legal Assistance Group.

Before that date, people enrolled in a Medicaid managed care plan obtained all of their health care through the plan, but used where to buy viagra pills their regular Medicaid card to access any drug available on the state formulary on a "fee for buy viagra connect usa service" basis without needing to utilize a restricted pharmacy network or comply with managed care plan rules. COMING IN April 2021 - In the NYS Budget enacted in April 2020, the pharmacy benefit was "carved out" of "mainstream" Medicaid managed care plans. That means that members of managed care plans will access their drugs outside their plan, unlike the rest of their medical care, which is accessed from in-network providers. How Prescription Drugs are Obtained through buy viagra connect usa Managed Care plans No - Until April 2020 HOW DO MANAGED CARE PLANS DEFINE THE PHARMACY BENEFIT FOR CONSUMERS?.

The Medicaid pharmacy benefit includes all FDA approved prescription drugs, as well as some over-the-counter drugs and medical supplies. Under Medicaid managed care. Plan formularies will be comparable to but not the same as the Medicaid buy viagra connect usa formulary. Managed care plans are required to have drug formularies that are “comparable” to the Medicaid fee for service formulary.

Plan formularies do not have to include all drugs covered listed on the fee for service formulary, but they must include generic or therapeutic equivalents of all Medicaid covered drugs. The Pharmacy Benefit buy viagra connect usa will vary by plan. Each plan will have its own formulary and drug coverage policies like prior authorization and step therapy. Pharmacy networks can also differ from plan to plan.

Prescriber Prevails buy viagra connect usa applies in certain drug classes. Prescriber prevails applys to medically necessary precription drugs in the following classes. atypical antipsychotics, anti-depressants, anti-retrovirals, anti-rejection, seizure, epilepsy, endocrine, hemotologic and immunologic therapeutics. Prescribers will need to demonstrate reasonable profession judgment and supply plans witht buy viagra connect usa requested information and/or clinical documentation.

Pharmacy Benefit Information Website -- http://mmcdruginformation.nysdoh.suny.edu/-- This website provides very helpful information on a plan by plan basis regarding pharmacy networks and drug formularies. The Department of Health plans to build capacity for interactive searches allowing for comparison of coverage across plans in the near future. Standardized Prior Autorization (PA) Form -- The Department of Health worked with managed care plans, provider organizations and other state agencies to develop a standard prior authorization form buy viagra connect usa for the pharmacy benefit in Medicaid managed care. The form will be posted on the Pharmacy Information Website in July of 2013.

Mail Order Drugs -- Medicaid managed care members can obtain mail order/specialty drugs at any retail network pharmacy, as long as that retail network pharmacy agrees to a price that is comparable to the mail order/specialty pharmacy price. CAN CONSUMERS buy viagra connect usa SWITCH PLANS IN ORDER TO GAIN ACCESS TO DRUGS?. Changing plans is often an effective strategy for consumers eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare (dual eligibles) who receive their pharmacy service through Medicare Part D, because dual eligibles are allowed to switch plans at any time. Medicaid consumers will have this option only in the limited circumstances during the first year of enrollment in managed care.

Medicaid managed care enrollees can only leave buy viagra connect usa and join another plan within the first 90 days of joining a health plan. After the 90 days has expired, enrollees are “locked in” to the plan for the rest of the year. Consumers can switch plans during the “lock in” period only for good cause. The pharmacy benefit changes buy viagra connect usa are not considered good cause.

After the first 12 months of enrollment, Medicaid managed care enrollees can switch plans at any time. STEPS CONSUMERS CAN TAKE WHEN A MANAGED CARE PLAM DENIES ACCESS TO A NECESSARY DRUG As a first step, consumers should try to work with their providers to satisfy plan requirements for prior authorization or step therapy or any other utilization control requirements. If the plan still denies access, consumers can pursue review processes specific to managed care while at the same buy viagra connect usa time pursuing a fair hearing. All plans are required to maintain an internal and external review process for complaints and appeals of service denials.

Some plans may develop special procedures for drug denials. Information on buy viagra connect usa these procedures should be provided in member handbooks. Beginning April 1, 2018, Medicaid managed care enrollees whose plan denies prior approval of a prescription drug, or discontinues a drug that had been approved, will receive an Initial Adverse Determination notice from the plan - See Model Denial IAD Notice and IAD Notice to Reduce, Suspend or Stop Services The enrollee must first request an internal Plan Appeal and wait for the Plan's decision. An adverse decision is called a 'FInal Adverse Determination" or FAD.

See model Denial FAD Notice and FAD Notice to Reduce, Suspend or buy viagra connect usa Stop Services. The enroll has the right to request a fair hearing to appeal an FAD. The enrollee may only request a fair hearing BEFORE receiving the FAD if the plan fails to send the FAD in the required time limit, which is 30 calendar days in standard appeals, and 72 hours in expedited appeals. The plan may extend the time to decide both standard and expedited appeals by up to 14 days if more information is needed buy viagra connect usa and it is in the enrollee's interest.

AID CONTINUING -- If an enrollee requests a Plan Appeal and then a fair hearing because access to a drug has been reduced or terminated, the enrollee has the right to aid continuing (continued access to the drug in question) while waiting for the Plan Appeal and then the fair hearing. The enrollee must request the Plan Appeal and then the Fair Hearing before the effective date of the IAD and FAD notices, which is a very short time - only 10 days including mailing time. See more about the changes in Managed Care appeals buy viagra connect usa here. Even though that article is focused on Managed Long Term Care, the new appeals requirements also apply to Mainstream Medicaid managed care.

Enrollees who are in the first 90 days of enrollment, or past the first 12 months of enrollment also have the option of switching plans to improve access to their medications. Consumers who experience problems with access to prescription drugs should always file a buy viagra connect usa complaint with the State Department of Health’s Managed Care Hotline, number listed below. ACCESSING MEDICAID'S PHARMACY BENEFIT IN FEE FOR SERVICE MEDICAID For those Medicaid recipients who are not yet in a Medicaid Managed Care program, and who do not have Medicare Part D, the Medicaid Pharmacy program covers most of their prescription drugs and select non-prescription drugs and medical supplies for Family Health Plus enrollees. Certain drugs/drug categories require the prescribers to obtain prior authorization.

These include brand name drugs that have a generic buy viagra connect usa alternative under New York's mandatory generic drug program or prescribed drugs that are not on New York's preferred drug list. The full Medicaid formulary can be searched on the eMedNY website. Even in fee for service Medicaid, prescribers must obtain prior authorization before prescribing non-preferred drugs unless otherwise indicated. Prior authorization is required buy viagra connect usa for original prescriptions, not refills.

A prior authorization is effective for the original dispensing and up to five refills of that prescription within the next six months. Click here for more information on NY's prior authorization process. The New York State Board of Pharmacy buy viagra connect usa publishes an annual list of the 150 most frequently prescribed drugs, in the most common quantities. The State Department of Health collects retail price information on these drugs from pharmacies that participate in the Medicaid program.

Click here to search for a specific drug from the most frequently prescribed drug list and this site can also provide you with the locations of pharmacies that provide this drug as well as their costs. Click here to view New buy viagra connect usa York State Medicaid’s Pharmacy Provider Manual. WHO YOU CAN CALL FOR HELP Community Health Advocates Hotline. 1-888-614-5400 NY State Department of Health's Managed Care Hotline.

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1-800-771-7755Haitian individuals and immigrants from some other countries who have applied for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) may be eligible for public health insurance in New York State. 2019 updates - The Trump administration has taken steps to end TPS status. Two courts have temporarily buy viagra connect usa enjoined the termination of TPS, one in New York State in April 2019 and one in California in October 2018. The California case was argued in an appeals court on August 14, 2019, which the LA Times reported looked likely to uphold the federal action ending TPS.

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Justice, one of the four Beauchamp and Childress http://old.weekendpackage.com/?page_id=26 prima facie basic principles of biomedical ethics, is explored in two excellent papers in the current issue of the journal viagra samples. The papers stem from a British Medical Association (BMA) essay competition on justice and fairness in medical practice and policy. Although the competition was open to (almost) all comers, of the 235 entries both the winning paper by Alistair Wardrope1 and the highly commended runner-up by Zoe Fritz and Caitríona Cox2 were written viagra samples by practising doctors—a welcome indication of the growing importance being accorded to philosophical reflection about medical practice and practices within medicine itself. Both papers are thoroughly thought provoking and represent two very different approaches to the topic.

Each deserves a careful read.The competition was a component of a BMA 2019/2020 ‘Presidential project’ on fairness and justice and asked candidates to ‘use ethical reasoning and theory to tackle challenging, practical, contemporary, problems in health care and help provide a solution based on an explained and defended sense of fairness/justice’.In this guest editorial I’d like to explain why, in 2018 on becoming president-elect of the BMA, I chose the theme of justice and fairness in medical ethics for my 2019–2020 Presidential project—and why in a world of massive and ever-increasing and remediable health inequalities biomedical ethics requires greater international and interdisciplinary efforts to try to reach agreement on the need to achieve greater ‘health justice’ and to reach agreement on what that commitment actually means and on what in practice it requires.First, some background. As president I was offered the wonderful opportunity to pursue, viagra samples with the organisation’s formidable assistance, a ‘project’ consistent with the BMA’s interests and values. As a hybrid of general medical practitioner and philosopher/medical ethicist, and as a firm defender of the Beauchamp and Childress four principles approach to medical ethics,3 I chose to try to raise the ethical profile of justice and fairness within medical ethics.My first objective was to ask the BMA to ask the World Medical Association (WMA) to add an explicit commitment ‘to strive to practise fairly and justly throughout my professional life’ to its contemporary version of the Hippocratic Oath—the Declaration of Geneva4—and to the companion document the International Code of Medical Ethics.5 The stimulus for this proposal was the WMA’s addition in 2017 of the principle of respect for patients’ autonomy. Important as that addition is, it is widely perceived viagra samples (though in my own view mistakenly) as being too much focused on individual patients and not enough on communities, groups and populations.

The simple addition of a commitment to fairness and justice would provide a ‘balancing’ moral commitment.Adding the fourth principleIt would also explicitly add the fourth of those four prima facie moral commitments, increasingly widely accepted by doctors internationally. Two of them—benefiting our patients (beneficence) and doing so with as little harm as possible (non-maleficence)—have been an integral part of medical ethics since Hippocratic times. Respect for autonomy and justice are very viagra samples much more recent additions to medical ethics. The WMA, having added respect for autonomy to the Declaration of Geneva, should, I proposed, complete the quartet by adding the ‘balancing’ principle of fairness and justice.Since the Declaration is unlikely to be revised for several years, it seems likely that the proposal to add to it an explicit commitment to practise fairly and justly will have to wait.

However, an explicit commitment to justice and fairness has, at the BMA’s request, been added to the draft of the viagra samples International Code of Medical Ethics and it seems reasonable to hope and expect that it will remain in the final document.Adding a commitment to fairness and justice is the easy part!. Few doctors would on reflection deny that they ought to try to practise fairly and justly. It is far more difficult to say what is actually meant by this. Two additional components of my Presidential project—the essay competition and a conference (which with luck will have been held, virtually, shortly before publication of this editorial)—sought to help elucidate just what is meant by practising fairly and justly.One of the most striking features of the essay competition was the readiness of many writers to point to injustices in the context of medical practice and policy and describe ways of remedying them, but without giving a specific account of justice and fairness on the basis of which the diagnosis of injustice was made and the remedy offered.Wardrope’s winning essay comes viagra samples close to such an approach by challenging the implied premise that an account of justice and fairness must provide some such formal theory.

In preference, he points to the evident injustice and unsustainability of humans’ degradation of ‘the Land’ and its atmosphere and its inhabitants and then challenges some assumptions of contemporary philosophy and ethics, especially what he sees as their anthropocentric and individualistic focus. Instead, he invokes Leopold Aldo’s ‘Land viagra samples Ethic’ (as well as drawing in aid Isabelle Stenger’s focus on ‘the intrusion of Gaia’). In his thoughtful and challenging paper, he seeks to refocus our ethics—including our medical ethics and our sense of justice and fairness—on mankind’s exploitative threat, during this contemporary ‘anthropocene’ stage of evolution, to the continuing existence of humans and of all forms of life in our ‘biotic community’. As remedy, the author, allying his approach to those of contemporary virtue ethics, recommends the beneficial outcomes that would be brought about by a sense of fairness and justice—a developed and sensitive ‘ecological conscience’ as he calls it—that embraces the interests of the entire biotic community of which we humans are but a part.Fritz and Cox pursue a very different and philosophically more conventional approach to the essay competition’s question and offer a combination and development of two established philosophical theories, those of John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon, to provide a philosophically robust and practically beneficial methodology for justice and fairness in medical practice and policy.

Briefly summarised, they recommend a viagra samples two-stage approach for healthcare justice. First, those faced with a problem of fairness or justice in healthcare or policy should use Thomas Scanlon’s proposed contractualist approach whereby reasonable people seek solutions that they and others could not ‘reasonably reject’. This stage would involve committees of decision-makers and representatives of relevant stakeholders looking at the immediate and longer term impact on existing stakeholders of proposed solutions. They would then check those solutions against substantive criteria of justice derived from Rawls’ theory (which, via his theoretical device of the ‘veil of ignorance’, Rawls viagra samples and the authors argue that all reasonable people can be expected to accept!.

). The Rawlsian criteria relied on by Fritz and Cox are equity of access to viagra samples healthcare. The ‘difference principle’ whereby avoidable inequalities of primary goods can only be justified if they benefit the most disadvantaged. The just savings principle, of particular importance for ensuring intergenerational justice and sustainability.

And a criterion of viagra samples increased openness, transparency and accountability.It would of course be naïve to expect a single universalisable solution to the question ‘what do we mean by fairness and justice in health care?. €™ As the papers by Wardrope1 and Fritz and Cox2 demonstrate, there can be very wide differences of approach in well-defended accounts. My own hope for my project is to emphasise the importance first of committing ourselves within medicine to practising fairly and viagra samples justly in whatever branch we practise. And then to think carefully about what we do mean by that and act accordingly.Following AristotleFor my own part, over 40 years of looking, I have not yet found a single substantive theory of justice that is plausibly universalisable and have had to content myself with Aristotle’s formal, almost content-free but probably universalisable theory, according to which equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally in proportion to the relevant inequalities—what some health economists refer to as horizontal and vertical justice or equity.6Beauchamp and Childress in their recent eighth and ‘perhaps final’ edition of their foundational ‘Principles of biomedical ethics’1 acknowledge that ‘[t]he construction of a unified theory of justice that captures our diverse conceptions and principles of justice in biomedical ethics continues to be controversial and difficult to pin down’.They still cite Aristotle’s formal principle (though with less explanation than in their first edition back in 1979) and they still believe that this formal principle requires substantive or ‘material’ content if it is to be useful in practice.

They then describe six different theories of justice—four ‘traditional’ (utilitarian, libertarian, communitarian and egalitarian) and two newer theories, which they suggest may be more helpful in the context of health justice, one based on capabilities and the other on actual well-being.They again end their discussion of justice with their reminder that ‘Policies of just access to health care, strategies of efficiencies in health care institutions, and global needs for the reduction of health-impairing conditions dwarf in social importance every other issue considered in this book’ ……. €˜every society must ration its resources but many societies can close gaps viagra samples in fair rationing more conscientiously than they have to date’ [emphasis added]. And they go on to stress their own support for ‘recognition of global rights to health and enforceable rights to health care in nation-states’.For my own part I recommend, perhaps less ambitiously, that across the globe we extract from Aristotle’s formal theory of justice a starting point that ethically requires us to focus on equality and always to treat others as equals and treat them equally unless there are moral justifications for not doing so. Where such justifications exist we should say what they are, explain the moral assumptions that justify them and, to the extent possible, seek the agreement viagra samples of those affected.IntroductionIt did not occur to the Governor that there might be more than one definition of what is good … It did not occur to him that while the courts were writing one definition of goodness in the law books, fires were writing quite another one on the face of the land.

(Leopold, ‘Good Oak’1, pp 10–11)As I wrote the abstract that would become this essay, wildfires were spreading across Australia’s east coast. By the time I was invited to write the essay, back-to-back winter storms were flooding communities all around my home. The essay has been written in moments of respite between shifts during viagra samples the erectile dysfunction treatment viagra. Every one of these events was described as ‘unprecedented’.

Yet each is becoming increasingly likely, and that due to our interactions with our environment.Public discourse surrounding these events is dominated by questions of justice and fairness. How to viagra samples balance competing imperatives of protecting individual lives against risk of spreading contagion. How best to allocate scarce resources like intensive care beds or mechanical ventilators. The conceptual viagra samples tools of clinical ethics are well tailored to these sorts of questions.

The rights of the individual versus the community, issues of distributive justice—these are familiar to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with its canonical debates.What biomedical ethics has remained largely silent on is how we have been left to confront these decisions. How human activity has eroded Earth’s life support systems to make the ‘unprecedented’ the new normal. A medical ethic fit for the Anthropocene—our (still tentative) geological epoch defined by human influence on natural systems—must be able not just to react to the consequences of our exploitation of the natural world, but reimagine our relationship with it.Those viagra samples reimaginations already exist, if we know where to look for them. The ‘Land Ethic’ of the US conservationist Aldo Leopold offers one such vision.i Developed over decades of experience working in and teaching land management, the Land Ethic is most famously formulated in an essay of the same name published shortly before Leopold’s death fighting a wildfire on a neighbour’s farm.

It begins with a reinterpretation viagra samples of the ethical relationship between humanity and the ‘land community’, the ecosystems we live within and depend upon. Moving us from ‘conqueror’ to ‘plain member and citizen’ of that community1 (p 204). Land ceases to be a resource to be exploited for human need once we view ourselves as part of, and only existing within, the land community. Our moral evaluations shift consonantly:A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, viagra samples and beauty of the biotic community.

It is wrong when it tends otherwise.1 (pp 224–225)The justice of the Land Ethic questions many presuppositions of biomedical ethics. By valuing the community in itself—in a way irreducible to the welfare of its members—it steps away from the individualism axiomatic in contemporary bioethics.2 Viewing ourselves as citizens of the land community also extends the moral horizons of healthcare from a solely human focus, taking seriously the interests of the non-human members of viagra samples that community. Taking into account the ‘stability’ of the community requires intergenerational justice—that we consider those affected by our actions now, and their implications for future generations.3 The resulting vision of justice in healthcare—one that takes climate and environmental justice seriously—could offer health workers an ethic fit for the future, demonstrating ways in which practice must change to do justice to patients, public and planet—now and in years to come.Healthcare in the AnthropoceneSeemeth it a small thing unto you to have fed upon good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture?. And to have drunk of the clear waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?.

(Ezekiel 34:18, quoted in Leopold, ‘Conservation in the Southwest’4, p 94)The majority of the development of human societies worldwide—including all of recorded human history—has taken place within a viagra samples single geological epoch, a roughly 11 600 yearlong period of relative warmth and climatic stability known as the Holocene. That stability, however, can no longer be taken for granted. The epoch that has sustained most of human development is giving way to one shaped by the planetary consequences of that development—the Anthropocene.The Anthropocene is marked by accelerating degradation of the ecosystems that have sustained human societies. Human activity is already estimated to have raised global temperatures 1°C above preindustrial levels, and if emissions continue at viagra samples current levels we are likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052.5 The global rate of species extinction is orders of magnitude higher than the average over the past 10 million years.6 Ocean acidification, deforestation and disruption of nitrogen and phosphorus flows are likely at or beyond sustainable planetary boundaries.7Yet this period has also seen rapid (if uneven) improvements in human health, with improved life expectancy, falling child mortality and falling numbers of people living in extreme poverty.

The 2015 report of the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health explained this dissonance in stark terms. €˜we have been mortgaging the health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present.’7In viagra samples the instrumental rationality of modernity, nature has featured only as inexhaustible resource and infinite sink to fuel social and economic ends. But this disenchanted worldview can no longer hide from the implausibility of these assumptions. It cannot resist what the philosopher Isabelle Stengers has called ‘the intrusion of Gaia’.8 The present viagra—made more likely by deforestation, land use change and biodiversity loss9—is just the most immediately salient of these intrusions.

Anthropogenic environmental changes are increasing undernutrition, increasing range and transmissibility of many viagra samples vectorborne and waterborne diseases like dengue fever and cholera, increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events like heatwaves and wildfires, and driving population exposure to air pollution—which already accounts for over 7 million deaths annually.10These intrusions will shape healthcare in the Anthropocene. This is because health workers will have to deal with their consequences, and because modern industrialised healthcare as practised in most high-income countries—and considered aspirational elsewhere—was borne of the same worldview that has mortgaged the health of future generations. The health sector in the USA is estimated to account for 8% of the country’s greenhouse gas footprint.11 Pharmaceutical production and waste causes more local environmental degradation, accumulating in water supplies with damaging effects for local viagra samples flora and fauna.12 Public health has similarly embraced short-term gains with neglect of long-term consequences. Health messaging was instrumental to the development and popularisation of many disposable and single-use products, while a 1947 report funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (who would later fund the landmark 2015 Lancet report on planetary health) popularised the high-meat, high-dairy ‘American’ diet—dependent on fossil fuel-driven intensive agricultural practices—as the healthy ideal.13Healthcare fit for the Anthropocene requires a shift in perspectives that allows us to see and work with the intrusion of Gaia.

But can dominant approaches in bioethics incorporate that shift?. A perfect moral stormWe have built a beautiful piece of social machinery … which is coughing along on two viagra samples cylinders because we have been too timid, and too anxious for quick success, to tell the farmer the true magnitude of his obligations. (Leopold, ‘The Ecological Conscience’4, p 341)At local, national and international scales, the lifestyles of the wealthiest pose an existential threat to the poorest and most marginalised in society. Our actions now are depriving future generations of the environmental prerequisites of good health viagra samples and social flourishing.

If justice means, as Ranaan Gillon parses it, ‘the moral obligation to act on the basis of fair adjudication between competing claims’,14 then this state of affairs certainly seems unjust. However, the tools available for grappling with questions of justice in bioethics seem ill equipped to deal with these sorts of injustice.To illustrate this problem, consider how Gillon further fleshes out his description of justice. In terms of fair distribution of scarce resources, respect for people’s rights, viagra samples and respect for morally acceptable laws. The first of these—labelled distributive justice—concerns how fairly to allot finite resources among potential beneficiaries.

Classic problems of distributive justice in healthcare concern a group of people at a particular time (usually patients), who could each benefit from a particular resource (historically, discussions have often focused on transplant organs. More recently, intensive care beds and ventilators have viagra samples come to the fore). But there are fewer of these resources than there are people with a need for them. Such discussions are not easy, but they are at least familiar—we know where to viagra samples begin with them.

We can consider each party’s need, their potential to benefit from the resource, any special rights or other claims they may have to it, and so forth. The distribution of benefits and harms in the Anthropocene, however, does not comfortably fit this formalism. It is one thing to say that there is but one intensive care bed, from which Smith has a good chance of gaining another year viagra samples of life, Jones a poor chance, and so offer it to Smith. Another entirely to say that production of the materials consumed in Smith’s care has contributed to the degradation of scarce water supplies on the other side of the globe, or that the unsustainable pattern of energy use will affect innumerable other future persons in poorly quantifiable ways through fuelling climate change.

The calculations viagra samples of distributive justice are well suited to problems where there are a set pool of potential beneficiaries, and the use of the scarce resources available affects only those within that pool. But global environmental problems do not fit this pattern—the effects of our actions are spatially and temporally dispersed, so that large numbers of present and future people are affected in different ways.Nor can this problem be readily addressed by turning to Gillon’s second category of obligations of justice, those grounded in human rights. For while it might be plausible (if not entirely uncontroversial) to say that those communities whose water supplies are degraded by pharmaceutical production have a right to clean water, it is another thing entirely to say that Smith’s healthcare is directly violating that right. It would not be true to say that, were it not viagra samples for the resources used in caring for Smith, that the communities in question would face no threat to water security—indeed, they would likely make no appreciable difference.

Similarly for the effects of Smith’s care on future generations facing accelerating environmental change.iiThe issue here is of fragmentation of agency. While it is not the case that Smith’s care is directly responsible for these environmental harms, the cumulative consequences of many such viagra samples acts—and the ways in which these acts are embedded in particular systems of energy generation, waste management, international trade, and so on—are reliably producing these harms. The injustice is structural, in Iris Marion Young’s terminology—arising from the ways in which social structures constrain individuals from pursuing certain courses of action, and enable them to follow others, with side effects that cumulatively produce devastating impacts.15Gillon describes the third component of justice as respect for morally acceptable laws. But there is little reason to believe that existing legal frameworks provide sufficient guidance to address these structural injustices.

While the intricacies of global governance are well beyond what I can hope to address here, the stark fact remains that, despite the international commitment viagra samples of the 2015 Paris Agreement to attempt to keep global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that present national commitments—even if these are substantially increased in coming years—will take us well beyond that target.5 Confronted by such institutional inadequacy, respect for the rule of law is inadequate to remedy injustice.The confluence of these particular features—dispersion of causes and effects, fragmentation of agency and institutional inadequacy—makes it difficult for us to reason ethically about the choices we have to make. Stephen Gardiner calls this a ‘perfect moral storm’.16 Each of these factors individually would be difficult to address using the resources of contemporary biomedical ethics. Their convergence makes it seem insurmountable.This perfect storm was not, however, unpredictable. Van Rensselaer Potter, a professor of Oncology responsible viagra samples for introducing the term ‘bioethics’ into Anglophone discourse, observed that since he coined the phrase, the study of bioethics had diverged from his original usage (governing all issues at the intersection of ethics and the biological sciences) to a narrow focus on the moral dilemmas arising in interactions between individuals in biomedical contexts.

Potter predicted that the short-term, individualistic and medicalised focus of this approach would result in a neglect of population-level and ecological-level issues affecting human and planetary health, with catastrophic consequences.17 His proposed solution was a new ‘global bioethics’, grounded in a new understanding of humanity’s position within planetary systems—one articulated by the Land Ethic.The Land EthicA land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.iii (Leopold, ‘The Land Ethic’1, p 204)Developed viagra samples throughout a career in forestry, conservation and wildlife management, the Land Ethic is less an attempt to provide a set of maxims for moral action, than to shift our perspectives of the moral landscape. In his working life, Aldo Leopold witnessed how actions intended to optimise short-term economic outcomes eroded the environments on which we depend—whether soil degradation arising from intensive farming and deforestation, or disruption of freshwater ecosystems by industrial dairy farming. He also saw that contemporary morality remained silent on such actions, even when their consequences were to the collective detriment of all.Leopold argued that a series of ‘historical accidents’ left our morality particularly ill suited to handle these intrusions of Gaia—with a worldview that considered them ‘intrusions’, rather than the predictable response of our biotic community.

These ‘accidents’ were viagra samples. The unusual resilience of European ecological communities to anthropogenic interference (England survived an almost wholesale deforestation without consequent loss of ecosystem resilience, while similar changes elsewhere resulted in permanent environmental degradation). And the legacy of European settler colonialism, meaning that an ethic arising in these particular conditions came to dominate viagra samples global social arrangements4 (p 311). The first of these supported a worldview in which ‘Land … is … something to be tamed rather than something to be understood, loved, and lived with.

Resources are still regarded as separate entities, indeed, as commodities, rather than as our cohabitants in the land community’4 (p 311). The second enabled the marginalisation viagra samples of other views. In this genealogy, Leopold anticipated the perfect moral storm discussed above. His intent with the Land Ethic was to navigate it.There are three key components of the Land Ethic that comprise the first three sections of Leopold’s final essay viagra samples on the subject.

(1) the ‘community concept’ that allows communities as wholes to have intrinsic value. (2) the ‘ethical sequence’ that situates the value of such communities as extending, not replacing, values assigned to individuals. And (3) the ‘ecological conscience’ that views ethical action not in viagra samples terms of following a particular code, but in developing appropriate moral perception.The community conceptThe most widely quoted passage of Leopold’s opus—already cited above, and frequently (mis)taken as a summary maxim of the ethic—states that:A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.1 (pp 224–225)This passage makes the primary object of our moral responsibilities ‘the biotic community’, a term Leopold uses interchangeably with the ‘land community’.

Leopold’s community concept is notable in at least three respects. Its holism—an embrace of the viagra samples moral significance of communities in a way that is not simply reducible to the significance of its individual members. Its understanding of communities as temporally extended, placing importance on their ‘integrity’ and ‘stability’. And its rejection of anthropocentrism, affording humanity a place as ‘plain member and citizen’ of a broader land community.Individualism is so prevalent viagra samples in biomedical ethics that it is scarcely argued for, instead forming part of the ‘background constellation of values’2 tacitly assumed within the field.

We are used to evaluating the well-being of a community as a function of the well-being of its individual members—this is the rationale underlying quality-adjusted life year calculations endemic within health economics, and most discussions of distributive justice adopt some variation of this approach. Holism instead proposes that this makes no more sense than evaluating a person’s well-being as an aggregate of the well-being of their individual organs. While we can sensibly talk about people’s hearts, livers or kidneys, viagra samples their health is defined in terms of and constitutively dependent on the health of the person as a whole. Similarly, holism proposes, while individuals can be identified separately, it only makes sense to talk about them and their well-being in the context of the larger biotic community which supports and defines us.Holism helps us to negotiate the issues that confront individualistic accounts of collective well-being in Anthropocene health injustices.

In the previous section, we found in the environmental consequences of industrialised healthcare that it is difficult to identify which parties in particular are harmed, and how much each individual action contributes to viagra samples those harms. But our intuition that the overall result is unfair or unjust is itself a holistic assessment of the overall outcome, not dependent on our calculation of the welfare of every party involved. Holism respects the intuition that says—no matter the individuals involved—a world where people now exploit ecological resources in a fashion that deprives people in the future of the prerequisites of survival, is worse than one where communities now and in the future live in a sustainable relationship with their environment.The second aspect of Leopold’s community concept is that the community is something that does not exist at a single time and place—it is defined in terms of its development through time. Promoting the viagra samples ‘integrity’ and ‘stability’ of the community requires that we not just consider its immediate interests, but how that will affect its long-term sustainability or resilience.

We saw earlier the difficulties in trying to say just who is harmed and how when we approach harm to future generations individualistically. But from the perspective of the Land Ethic, when we exploit environmental resources in ways that will have predictable damaging results for future generations, the object of our harm is not viagra samples just some purely notional future person. It is a presently existing, temporally extended entity—the community of which they will be part.Lastly, Leopold’s community is quite consciously a biotic—not merely human—community. Leopold defines the land community as the open network of energy and mineral exchange that sustains all aspects of that network:Land… is not merely soil.

It is a fountain of energy flowing through a viagra samples circuit of soils, plants, and animals. Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy upward. Death and decay return it to the soil. The circuit is not viagra samples closed.

Some energy is dissipated in decay, some is added by absorption, some is stored in soils, peats, and forests, but it is a sustained circuit, like a slowly augmented revolving fund of life.4 (pp 268–269)While the components within this network may change, the land community as a whole remains stable when the overall complexity of the network is not disrupted—other components are able to adjust to these changes, or new ones arise to take their place.ivThe normative inference Leopold makes from his understanding of the land community is this. It makes viagra samples no sense to single out individual entities within the community as being especially valuable or useful, without taking into account the whole community upon which they mutually depend. To do so is self-defeating. By privileging the interests of a few members of the community, we ultimately undermine the prerequisites of their existence.The ethical sequenceThe Land Ethic’s holism is in fact its most frequently critiqued feature.

Its emphasis on the value of viagra samples the biotic community leads some to allege a subjugation of individual interests to the needs of the environment. This critique neglects how Leopold positions the Land Ethic in what he calls the ‘ethical sequence’. This is the gradual extension of scope of ethical considerations, both in terms viagra samples of the complexity of social interactions they cover (from interactions between two people, to the structure of progressively larger social groups), and in the kinds of person they acknowledge as worthy of moral consideration (as we resist, for example, classist, sexist or racist exclusions from personhood).This sequence serves less as a description of the history of morality, than a prescription for how we should understand the Land Ethic as adding to, rather than supplanting, our responsibilities to others. We do not argue that taking seriously health workers’ responsibilities for public health and health promotion supplants their duties to the patients they work with on a daily basis.

Similarly, the Land Ethic implies ‘respect for [our] fellow members, and also respect for the community as such’1 (p 204). At times, our responsibilities towards these different parties may viagra samples come into tension. But balancing these responsibilities has always been part of the work of clinical ethics.The ecological conscienceIf the community concept gives a definition of the good, and the ethical sequence situates this definition within the existing moral landscape, neither offers an explicit decision procedure to guide right action. In arguing for the ‘ecological viagra samples conscience’, Leopold explains his rationale for not attempting to articulate such a procedure.

In his career as conservationist, Leopold witnessed time and again laws nominally introduced in the name of environmental protection that did little to achieve their long-term goals, while exacerbating other environmental threats.v This is not surprising, given the ‘perfect moral storm’ of Anthropocene global health and environmental threats discussed above. The cumulative results of apparently innocent actions can be widespread and damaging.Leopold’s response to this problem is to advocate the cultivation of an ‘ecological conscience’. What is needed to promote a healthy human relationship with the land community is not for us to be told exactly how and how viagra samples not to act in the face of environmental health threats, but rather to shift our view of the land from ‘a commodity belonging to us’ towards ‘a community to which we belong’1 (p viii). To understand what the Land Ethic requires of us, therefore, we should learn more about the land community and our relationship with it, to develop our moral perception and extend its scope to embrace the non-human members of our community.Seen in this light, the Land Ethic shares much in common with virtue ethics, where right action is defined in terms of what the moral agent would do, rather than vice versa.

But rather than the Eudaimonia of individual human flourishing proposed by Aristotle, the phronimos of the Land Ethic sees their telos coming from their position within the land community. While clinical virtue ethicists have traditionally taken the virtues of medical practice to be grounded viagra samples in the interaction with individual patients, the realities of healthcare in the Anthropocene mean that limiting our moral perceptions in this way would ultimately be self-defeating—hurting those very patients we mean to serve (and many more besides).18 The virtuous clinician must adopt a view of the moral world that can focus on a person both as an individual, and simultaneously as member of the land community. I will close by exploring how adopting that perspective might change our practice.Justice in the AnthropoceneFailing this, it seems to me we fail in the ultimate test of our vaunted superiority—the self-control of environment. We fall viagra samples back into the biological category of the potato bug which exterminated the potato, and thereby exterminated itself.

(Leopold, ‘The River of the Mother of God’4, p 127)I have articulated some of the challenges healthcare faces in the Anthropocene. I have suggested that the tools presently available to clinical ethics may be inadequate to meet them. The Land viagra samples Ethic invites us to reimagine our position in and relationship with the land community. I want to close by suggesting how the development of an ecological conscience might support a transition to more just healthcare.

I will not endeavour to give detailed prescriptions for action, given Leopold’s warnings about the viagra samples limitations of such codifications. Rather, I will attempt to show how the cultivation of an ecological conscience might change our perception of what justice demands. Following the tradition of virtue ethics with which the Land Ethic holds much in common, this is best achieved by looking at models of virtuous action, and exploring what makes it virtuous.19Industrialised healthcare developed within a paradigm that saw the environment as inert resource and held that the scope of clinical ethics ranged only over the clinician’s interaction with their patients. When we begin to see clinician and patient not as standing apart from the environment, but as ‘member and citizen of the land community’, their relationship with one another and with the world viagra samples around them changes consonantly.

The present viagra has only begun to make commonplace the idea that health workers do not simply treat infectious diseases, but interact with them in a range of ways, including as vector—and as a result our moral obligations in confronting them may extend beyond the immediate clinical encounter, to cover all the other ways we may contract or spread disease. But we may be responsible for disease outbreaks with conditions other than erectile dysfunction treatment, and in viagra samples ways beyond simply becoming infected. The development of an ecological conscience would show how our practices of consumption may fuel deforestation that accelerates the emergence of novel pathogens, or support intensive animal rearing that drives antibiotic resistance.18The Land Ethic also challenges us not to abstract our work away from the places in which it takes place. General practitioner surgeries and hospitals are situated within social and land communities alike, shaping and shaped by them.

These spaces can be used in ways that support or undermine viagra samples those communities. Surgeries can work to empower their communities to pursue more sustainable and healthy diets by doubling as food cooperatives, or providing resources and ‘social prescriptions’ for increased walking and cycling. Hospitals can use their extensive real estate to provide publicly accessible green and wild spaces within urban environments, and use their role as major nodes in transport infrastructure to change that infrastructure to support active travel alternatives.ivThe Land Ethic reminds us that a community (human or land) is not healthy if its flourishing cannot be sustainably maintained. An essential viagra samples component of Anthropocene health justice is intergenerational justice.

Contemporary industrialised healthcare has an unsustainable ecological footprint. Continuing with such a model viagra samples of care would serve only to mortgage the health of future generations for the sake of those living now. Ecologically conscious practice must take seriously the sorts of downstream, distributed consequences of activity that produce anthropogenic global health threats, and evaluate to what extent our most intensive healthcare practices truly serve to promote public and planetary health. It is not enough for the clinician to assume that our resource usage is a necessary evil in the pursuit of best clinical outcomes, for it is already apparent that much of our environmental exploitation is of minimal or even negative long-term value.

The work viagra samples of the National Health Service (NHS) Sustainable Development Unit has seen a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the NHS from 2007 to 2015 despite an 18% increase in clinical activity,20 while different models of care used in less industrialised nations manage to provide high-quality health outcomes in less resource-intensive fashion.21ConclusionOur present problem is one of attitudes and implements. We are remodelling the Alhambra with a steam-shovel. We shall hardly relinquish the steam-shovel, which after viagra samples all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use. (Leopold, ‘The Land Ethic’1, p 226)The moral challenges of the Anthropocene do not solely confront health workers.

But the potentially catastrophic health effects of anthropogenic global environmental change, and the contribution of healthcare activity to driving these changes provide a specific and unique imperative for action from health workers.Yet it is hard to articulate this imperative in the language of contemporary clinical ethics, ill equipped for this intrusion of Gaia. Justice in the Anthropocene requires us to be able to adopt a perspective from which these changes no longer appear viagra samples as unexpected intrusions, but that acknowledges the land community as part of our moral community. The Land Ethic articulates an understanding of justice that is holistic, structural, intergenerational, and rejects anthropocentrism. This understanding seeks not to supplant, but to augment, our existing one viagra samples.

It aims to do so by helping us to develop an ‘ecological conscience’, seeing ourselves as ‘plain member and citizen’ of the land community. The Land Ethic does not provide a step-by-step guide to just action. Nor does viagra samples it definitively adjudicate on how to balance the interests of our patients, other populations now and in the future, and the planet. It could, however, help us on the first step towards that change—showing how to cultivate the ‘internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions’1 (pp 209–210) necessary to realise the virtues of just healthcare in the Anthropocene.AcknowledgmentsThis essay was written as a submission for the BMA Presidential Essay Prize.

I am grateful to the organisers and judging panel for the opportunity..

Justice, one of the four Beauchamp and Childress prima facie basic principles of biomedical ethics, is explored in two excellent papers in the current issue buy viagra connect usa of the journal. The papers stem from a British Medical Association (BMA) essay competition on justice and fairness in medical practice and policy. Although the competition was open to (almost) all comers, of the 235 entries both the winning paper by Alistair Wardrope1 and the highly commended runner-up by Zoe Fritz and Caitríona Cox2 were written by practising doctors—a buy viagra connect usa welcome indication of the growing importance being accorded to philosophical reflection about medical practice and practices within medicine itself. Both papers are thoroughly thought provoking and represent two very different approaches to the topic. Each deserves a careful read.The competition was a component of a BMA 2019/2020 ‘Presidential project’ on fairness and justice and asked candidates to ‘use ethical reasoning and theory to tackle challenging, practical, contemporary, problems in health care and help provide a solution based on an explained and defended sense of fairness/justice’.In this guest editorial I’d like to explain why, in 2018 on becoming president-elect of the BMA, I chose the theme of justice and fairness in medical ethics for my 2019–2020 Presidential project—and why in a world of massive and ever-increasing and remediable health inequalities biomedical ethics requires greater international and interdisciplinary efforts to try to reach agreement on the need to achieve greater ‘health justice’ and to reach agreement on what that commitment actually means and on what in practice it requires.First, some background.

As president I was offered the wonderful opportunity to pursue, with the organisation’s formidable assistance, a ‘project’ buy viagra connect usa consistent with the BMA’s interests and values. As a hybrid of general medical practitioner and philosopher/medical ethicist, and as a firm defender of the Beauchamp and Childress four principles approach to medical ethics,3 I chose to try to raise the ethical profile of justice and fairness within medical ethics.My first objective was to ask the BMA to ask the World Medical Association (WMA) to add an explicit commitment ‘to strive to practise fairly and justly throughout my professional life’ to its contemporary version of the Hippocratic Oath—the Declaration of Geneva4—and to the companion document the International Code of Medical Ethics.5 The stimulus for this proposal was the WMA’s addition in 2017 of the principle of respect for patients’ autonomy. Important as that addition is, buy viagra connect usa it is widely perceived (though in my own view mistakenly) as being too much focused on individual patients and not enough on communities, groups and populations. The simple addition of a commitment to fairness and justice would provide a ‘balancing’ moral commitment.Adding the fourth principleIt would also explicitly add the fourth of those four prima facie moral commitments, increasingly widely accepted by doctors internationally. Two of them—benefiting our patients (beneficence) and doing so with as little harm as possible (non-maleficence)—have been an integral part of medical ethics since Hippocratic times.

Respect for autonomy and justice are buy viagra connect usa very much more recent additions to medical ethics. The WMA, having added respect for autonomy to the Declaration of Geneva, should, I proposed, complete the quartet by adding the ‘balancing’ principle of fairness and justice.Since the Declaration is unlikely to be revised for several years, it seems likely that the proposal to add to it an explicit commitment to practise fairly and justly will have to wait. However, an explicit commitment to justice and fairness has, at the BMA’s request, been added to the draft of the International Code of Medical Ethics and it seems reasonable to hope and buy viagra connect usa expect that it will remain in the final document.Adding a commitment to fairness and justice is the easy part!. Few doctors would on reflection deny that they ought to try to practise fairly and justly. It is far more difficult to say what is actually meant by this.

Two additional components of my Presidential project—the essay competition and a conference (which with luck will have been held, virtually, shortly before publication of this editorial)—sought to help elucidate just what is meant by practising fairly and justly.One of the most striking features of the essay competition buy viagra connect usa was the readiness of many writers to point to injustices in the context of medical practice and policy and describe ways of remedying them, but without giving a specific account of justice and fairness on the basis of which the diagnosis of injustice was made and the remedy offered.Wardrope’s winning essay comes close to such an approach by challenging the implied premise that an account of justice and fairness must provide some such formal theory. In preference, he points to the evident injustice and unsustainability of humans’ degradation of ‘the Land’ and its atmosphere and its inhabitants and then challenges some assumptions of contemporary philosophy and ethics, especially what he sees as their anthropocentric and individualistic focus. Instead, he invokes Leopold Aldo’s ‘Land Ethic’ buy viagra connect usa (as well as drawing in aid Isabelle Stenger’s focus on ‘the intrusion of Gaia’). In his thoughtful and challenging paper, he seeks to refocus our ethics—including our medical ethics and our sense of justice and fairness—on mankind’s exploitative threat, during this contemporary ‘anthropocene’ stage of evolution, to the continuing existence of humans and of all forms of life in our ‘biotic community’. As remedy, the author, allying his approach to those of contemporary virtue ethics, recommends the beneficial outcomes that would be brought about by a sense of fairness and justice—a developed and sensitive ‘ecological conscience’ as he calls it—that embraces the interests of the entire biotic community of which we humans are but a part.Fritz and Cox pursue a very different and philosophically more conventional approach to the essay competition’s question and offer a combination and development of two established philosophical theories, those of John Rawls and Thomas Scanlon, to provide a philosophically robust and practically beneficial methodology for justice and fairness in medical practice and policy.

Briefly summarised, they recommend a buy viagra connect usa two-stage approach for healthcare justice. First, those faced with a problem of fairness or justice in healthcare or policy should use Thomas Scanlon’s proposed contractualist approach whereby reasonable people seek solutions that they and others could not ‘reasonably reject’. This stage would involve committees of decision-makers and representatives of relevant stakeholders looking at the immediate and longer term impact on existing stakeholders of proposed solutions. They would then check those solutions against substantive criteria of justice derived from Rawls’ theory (which, via his buy viagra connect usa theoretical device of the ‘veil of ignorance’, Rawls and the authors argue that all reasonable people can be expected to accept!. ).

The Rawlsian criteria relied on by Fritz and Cox are equity of buy viagra connect usa access to healthcare. The ‘difference principle’ whereby avoidable inequalities of primary goods can only be justified if they benefit the most disadvantaged. The just savings principle, of particular importance for ensuring intergenerational justice and sustainability. And a criterion of increased openness, transparency and accountability.It would of course be naïve to expect a single universalisable solution to the question ‘what do we mean by fairness and buy viagra connect usa justice in health care?. €™ As the papers by Wardrope1 and Fritz and Cox2 demonstrate, there can be very wide differences of approach in well-defended accounts.

My own hope for my project is to emphasise the importance first of committing ourselves within medicine to practising fairly and buy viagra connect usa justly in whatever branch we practise. And then to think carefully about what we do mean by that and act accordingly.Following AristotleFor my own part, over 40 years of looking, I have not yet found a single substantive theory of justice that is plausibly universalisable and have had to content myself with Aristotle’s formal, almost content-free but probably universalisable theory, according to which equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally in proportion to the relevant inequalities—what some health economists refer to as horizontal and vertical justice or equity.6Beauchamp and Childress in their recent eighth and ‘perhaps final’ edition of their foundational ‘Principles of biomedical ethics’1 acknowledge that ‘[t]he construction of a unified theory of justice that captures our diverse conceptions and principles of justice in biomedical ethics continues to be controversial and difficult to pin down’.They still cite Aristotle’s formal principle (though with less explanation than in their first edition back in 1979) and they still believe that this formal principle requires substantive or ‘material’ content if it is to be useful in practice. They then describe six different theories of justice—four ‘traditional’ (utilitarian, libertarian, communitarian and egalitarian) and two newer theories, which they suggest may be more helpful in the context of health justice, one based on capabilities and the other on actual well-being.They again end their discussion of justice with their reminder that ‘Policies of just access to health care, strategies of efficiencies in health care institutions, and global needs for the reduction of health-impairing conditions dwarf in social importance every other issue considered in this book’ ……. €˜every society must ration its resources but many societies can close gaps in buy viagra connect usa fair rationing more conscientiously than they have to date’ [emphasis added]. And they go on to stress their own support for ‘recognition of global rights to health and enforceable rights to health care in nation-states’.For my own part I recommend, perhaps less ambitiously, that across the globe we extract from Aristotle’s formal theory of justice a starting point that ethically requires us to focus on equality and always to treat others as equals and treat them equally unless there are moral justifications for not doing so.

Where such justifications exist we should say what they are, explain the moral assumptions buy viagra connect usa that justify them and, to the extent possible, seek the agreement of those affected.IntroductionIt did not occur to the Governor that there might be more than one definition of what is good … It did not occur to him that while the courts were writing one definition of goodness in the law books, fires were writing quite another one on the face of the land. (Leopold, ‘Good Oak’1, pp 10–11)As I wrote the abstract that would become this essay, wildfires were spreading across Australia’s east coast. By the time I was invited to write the essay, back-to-back winter storms were flooding communities all around my home. The essay has been written in moments of buy viagra connect usa respite between shifts during the erectile dysfunction treatment viagra. Every one of these events was described as ‘unprecedented’.

Yet each is becoming increasingly likely, and that due to our interactions with our environment.Public discourse surrounding these events is dominated by questions of justice and fairness. How to balance competing imperatives of protecting individual lives buy viagra connect usa against risk of spreading contagion. How best to allocate scarce resources like intensive care beds or mechanical ventilators. The conceptual buy viagra connect usa tools of clinical ethics are well tailored to these sorts of questions. The rights of the individual versus the community, issues of distributive justice—these are familiar to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with its canonical debates.What biomedical ethics has remained largely silent on is how we have been left to confront these decisions.

How human activity has eroded Earth’s life support systems to make the ‘unprecedented’ the new normal. A medical ethic fit for buy viagra connect usa the Anthropocene—our (still tentative) geological epoch defined by human influence on natural systems—must be able not just to react to the consequences of our exploitation of the natural world, but reimagine our relationship with it.Those reimaginations already exist, if we know where to look for them. The ‘Land Ethic’ of the US conservationist Aldo Leopold offers one such vision.i Developed over decades of experience working in and teaching land management, the Land Ethic is most famously formulated in an essay of the same name published shortly before Leopold’s death fighting a wildfire on a neighbour’s farm. It begins with a reinterpretation of the ethical relationship between buy viagra connect usa humanity and the ‘land community’, the ecosystems we live within and depend upon. Moving us from ‘conqueror’ to ‘plain member and citizen’ of that community1 (p 204).

Land ceases to be a resource to be exploited for human need once we view ourselves as part of, and only existing within, the land community. Our moral evaluations shift buy viagra connect usa consonantly:A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.1 (pp 224–225)The justice of the Land Ethic questions many presuppositions of biomedical ethics. By valuing the community in itself—in a way irreducible to the welfare of its members—it steps away from the individualism axiomatic in contemporary bioethics.2 Viewing buy viagra connect usa ourselves as citizens of the land community also extends the moral horizons of healthcare from a solely human focus, taking seriously the interests of the non-human members of that community. Taking into account the ‘stability’ of the community requires intergenerational justice—that we consider those affected by our actions now, and their implications for future generations.3 The resulting vision of justice in healthcare—one that takes climate and environmental justice seriously—could offer health workers an ethic fit for the future, demonstrating ways in which practice must change to do justice to patients, public and planet—now and in years to come.Healthcare in the AnthropoceneSeemeth it a small thing unto you to have fed upon good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture?.

And to have drunk of the clear waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?. (Ezekiel 34:18, quoted in Leopold, ‘Conservation in the Southwest’4, p 94)The majority of the development of human societies worldwide—including all buy viagra connect usa of recorded human history—has taken place within a single geological epoch, a roughly 11 600 yearlong period of relative warmth and climatic stability known as the Holocene. That stability, however, can no longer be taken for granted. The epoch that has sustained most of human development is giving way to one shaped by the planetary consequences of that development—the Anthropocene.The Anthropocene is marked by accelerating degradation of the ecosystems that have sustained human societies. Human activity is already estimated to have raised buy viagra connect usa global temperatures 1°C above preindustrial levels, and if emissions continue at current levels we are likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052.5 The global rate of species extinction is orders of magnitude higher than the average over the past 10 million years.6 Ocean acidification, deforestation and disruption of nitrogen and phosphorus flows are likely at or beyond sustainable planetary boundaries.7Yet this period has also seen rapid (if uneven) improvements in human health, with improved life expectancy, falling child mortality and falling numbers of people living in extreme poverty.

The 2015 report of the Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health explained this dissonance in stark terms. €˜we have been mortgaging the buy viagra connect usa health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present.’7In the instrumental rationality of modernity, nature has featured only as inexhaustible resource and infinite sink to fuel social and economic ends. But this disenchanted worldview can no longer hide from the implausibility of these assumptions. It cannot resist what the philosopher Isabelle Stengers has called ‘the intrusion of Gaia’.8 The present viagra—made more likely by deforestation, land use change and biodiversity loss9—is just the most immediately salient of these intrusions. Anthropogenic environmental changes are increasing undernutrition, increasing range and transmissibility of many vectorborne and waterborne diseases like dengue fever and cholera, increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events like heatwaves and wildfires, and driving population exposure to air buy viagra connect usa pollution—which already accounts for over 7 million deaths annually.10These intrusions will shape healthcare in the Anthropocene.

This is because health workers will have to deal with their consequences, and because modern industrialised healthcare as practised in most high-income countries—and considered aspirational elsewhere—was borne of the same worldview that has mortgaged the health of future generations. The health sector in the USA is estimated to account for 8% of the country’s greenhouse gas footprint.11 Pharmaceutical production and waste causes more local environmental degradation, buy viagra connect usa accumulating in water supplies with damaging effects for local flora and fauna.12 Public health has similarly embraced short-term gains with neglect of long-term consequences. Health messaging was instrumental to the development and popularisation of many disposable and single-use products, while a 1947 report funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (who would later fund the landmark 2015 Lancet report on planetary health) popularised the high-meat, high-dairy ‘American’ diet—dependent on fossil fuel-driven intensive agricultural practices—as the healthy ideal.13Healthcare fit for the Anthropocene requires a shift in perspectives that allows us to see and work with the intrusion of Gaia. But can dominant approaches in bioethics incorporate that shift?. A perfect moral stormWe have built a beautiful piece of buy viagra connect usa social machinery … which is coughing along on two cylinders because we have been too timid, and too anxious for quick success, to tell the farmer the true magnitude of his obligations.

(Leopold, ‘The Ecological Conscience’4, p 341)At local, national and international scales, the lifestyles of the wealthiest pose an existential threat to the poorest and most marginalised in society. Our actions now are depriving future generations of the environmental prerequisites buy viagra connect usa of good health and social flourishing. If justice means, as Ranaan Gillon parses it, ‘the moral obligation to act on the basis of fair adjudication between competing claims’,14 then this state of affairs certainly seems unjust. However, the tools available for grappling with questions of justice in bioethics seem ill equipped to deal with these sorts of injustice.To illustrate this problem, consider how Gillon further fleshes out his description of justice. In terms of fair distribution buy viagra connect usa of scarce resources, respect for people’s rights, and respect for morally acceptable laws.

The first of these—labelled distributive justice—concerns how fairly to allot finite resources among potential beneficiaries. Classic problems of distributive justice in healthcare concern a group of people at a particular time (usually patients), who could each benefit from a particular resource (historically, discussions have often focused on transplant organs. More recently, intensive care beds and ventilators have come to buy viagra connect usa the fore). But there are fewer of these resources than there are people with a need for them. Such discussions buy viagra connect usa are not easy, but they are at least familiar—we know where to begin with them.

We can consider each party’s need, their potential to benefit from the resource, any special rights or other claims they may have to it, and so forth. The distribution of benefits and harms in the Anthropocene, however, does not comfortably fit this formalism. It is one thing to say that there is but one intensive care bed, from which Smith has a good chance of gaining another year of life, Jones a poor chance, and so offer buy viagra connect usa it to Smith. Another entirely to say that production of the materials consumed in Smith’s care has contributed to the degradation of scarce water supplies on the other side of the globe, or that the unsustainable pattern of energy use will affect innumerable other future persons in poorly quantifiable ways through fuelling climate change. The calculations of distributive justice are well suited to problems where there are a set pool of potential beneficiaries, and the use of the scarce resources available affects only those within buy viagra connect usa that pool.

But global environmental problems do not fit this pattern—the effects of our actions are spatially and temporally dispersed, so that large numbers of present and future people are affected in different ways.Nor can this problem be readily addressed by turning to Gillon’s second category of obligations of justice, those grounded in human rights. For while it might be plausible (if not entirely uncontroversial) to say that those communities whose water supplies are degraded by pharmaceutical production have a right to clean water, it is another thing entirely to say that Smith’s healthcare is directly violating that right. It would not be true to say that, were it not for the resources used in caring for Smith, that buy viagra connect usa the communities in question would face no threat to water security—indeed, they would likely make no appreciable difference. Similarly for the effects of Smith’s care on future generations facing accelerating environmental change.iiThe issue here is of fragmentation of agency. While it is not the case that Smith’s care is directly responsible for these environmental harms, the cumulative buy viagra connect usa consequences of many such acts—and the ways in which these acts are embedded in particular systems of energy generation, waste management, international trade, and so on—are reliably producing these harms.

The injustice is structural, in Iris Marion Young’s terminology—arising from the ways in which social structures constrain individuals from pursuing certain courses of action, and enable them to follow others, with side effects that cumulatively produce devastating impacts.15Gillon describes the third component of justice as respect for morally acceptable laws. But there is little reason to believe that existing legal frameworks provide sufficient guidance to address these structural injustices. While the intricacies of global governance are well beyond what I can hope to address here, the stark fact remains that, despite the international commitment of the 2015 Paris Agreement to attempt to keep global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that present national commitments—even if these are substantially increased in coming years—will take us well beyond that target.5 Confronted by such institutional inadequacy, respect for the rule of law is inadequate to remedy injustice.The confluence of these particular features—dispersion buy viagra connect usa of causes and effects, fragmentation of agency and institutional inadequacy—makes it difficult for us to reason ethically about the choices we have to make. Stephen Gardiner calls this a ‘perfect moral storm’.16 Each of these factors individually would be difficult to address using the resources of contemporary biomedical ethics. Their convergence makes it seem insurmountable.This perfect storm was not, however, unpredictable.

Van Rensselaer Potter, a professor of Oncology responsible for buy viagra connect usa introducing the term ‘bioethics’ into Anglophone discourse, observed that since he coined the phrase, the study of bioethics had diverged from his original usage (governing all issues at the intersection of ethics and the biological sciences) to a narrow focus on the moral dilemmas arising in interactions between individuals in biomedical contexts. Potter predicted that the short-term, individualistic and medicalised focus of this approach would result in a neglect of population-level and ecological-level issues affecting human and planetary health, with catastrophic consequences.17 His proposed solution was a new ‘global bioethics’, grounded in a new understanding of humanity’s position within planetary systems—one articulated by the Land Ethic.The Land EthicA land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.iii (Leopold, ‘The Land Ethic’1, p 204)Developed throughout a career in forestry, conservation buy viagra connect usa and wildlife management, the Land Ethic is less an attempt to provide a set of maxims for moral action, than to shift our perspectives of the moral landscape. In his working life, Aldo Leopold witnessed how actions intended to optimise short-term economic outcomes eroded the environments on which we depend—whether soil degradation arising from intensive farming and deforestation, or disruption of freshwater ecosystems by industrial dairy farming. He also saw that contemporary morality remained silent on such actions, even when their consequences were to the collective detriment of all.Leopold argued that a series of ‘historical accidents’ left our morality particularly ill suited to handle these intrusions of Gaia—with a worldview that considered them ‘intrusions’, rather than the predictable response of our biotic community.

These ‘accidents’ buy viagra connect usa were. The unusual resilience of European ecological communities to anthropogenic interference (England survived an almost wholesale deforestation without consequent loss of ecosystem resilience, while similar changes elsewhere resulted in permanent environmental degradation). And the legacy of European buy viagra connect usa settler colonialism, meaning that an ethic arising in these particular conditions came to dominate global social arrangements4 (p 311). The first of these supported a worldview in which ‘Land … is … something to be tamed rather than something to be understood, loved, and lived with. Resources are still regarded as separate entities, indeed, as commodities, rather than as our cohabitants in the land community’4 (p 311).

The second enabled the marginalisation buy viagra connect usa of other views. In this genealogy, Leopold anticipated the perfect moral storm discussed above. His intent with the Land Ethic was to navigate it.There are three key components of the Land Ethic that comprise the first three sections of Leopold’s buy viagra connect usa final essay on the subject. (1) the ‘community concept’ that allows communities as wholes to have intrinsic value. (2) the ‘ethical sequence’ that situates the value of such communities as extending, not replacing, values assigned to individuals.

And (3) the ‘ecological conscience’ that views ethical action not in terms of following a particular code, but in developing appropriate moral perception.The community conceptThe most widely quoted passage of Leopold’s opus—already cited above, and frequently (mis)taken as a summary maxim of the ethic—states that:A thing is right when it tends to buy viagra connect usa preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.1 (pp 224–225)This passage makes the primary object of our moral responsibilities ‘the biotic community’, a term Leopold uses interchangeably with the ‘land community’. Leopold’s community concept is notable in at least three respects. Its holism—an embrace of the moral significance of communities in a way that is not simply reducible to the significance of its individual members buy viagra connect usa. Its understanding of communities as temporally extended, placing importance on their ‘integrity’ and ‘stability’.

And its rejection of anthropocentrism, affording humanity a place as ‘plain member and citizen’ of a broader land community.Individualism is so prevalent in biomedical ethics that it is scarcely argued for, instead forming part of the ‘background constellation of values’2 tacitly assumed within buy viagra connect usa the field. We are used to evaluating the well-being of a community as a function of the well-being of its individual members—this is the rationale underlying quality-adjusted life year calculations endemic within health economics, and most discussions of distributive justice adopt some variation of this approach. Holism instead proposes that this makes no more sense than evaluating a person’s well-being as an aggregate of the well-being of their individual organs. While we can sensibly talk about people’s hearts, livers or kidneys, their health is defined in terms of and constitutively dependent on the health of the person buy viagra connect usa as a whole. Similarly, holism proposes, while individuals can be identified separately, it only makes sense to talk about them and their well-being in the context of the larger biotic community which supports and defines us.Holism helps us to negotiate the issues that confront individualistic accounts of collective well-being in Anthropocene health injustices.

In the previous section, we found in the environmental consequences of industrialised healthcare that it is difficult to identify which parties in particular are buy viagra connect usa harmed, and how much each individual action contributes to those harms. But our intuition that the overall result is unfair or unjust is itself a holistic assessment of the overall outcome, not dependent on our calculation of the welfare of every party involved. Holism respects the intuition that says—no matter the individuals involved—a world where people now exploit ecological resources in a fashion that deprives people in the future of the prerequisites of survival, is worse than one where communities now and in the future live in a sustainable relationship with their environment.The second aspect of Leopold’s community concept is that the community is something that does not exist at a single time and place—it is defined in terms of its development through time. Promoting the ‘integrity’ and ‘stability’ of the community requires that we buy viagra connect usa not just consider its immediate interests, but how that will affect its long-term sustainability or resilience. We saw earlier the difficulties in trying to say just who is harmed and how when we approach harm to future generations individualistically.

But from the perspective of the Land Ethic, when we exploit environmental buy viagra connect usa resources in ways that will have predictable damaging results for future generations, the object of our harm is not just some purely notional future person. It is a presently existing, temporally extended entity—the community of which they will be part.Lastly, Leopold’s community is quite consciously a biotic—not merely human—community. Leopold defines the land community as the open network of energy and mineral exchange that sustains all aspects of that network:Land… is not merely soil. It is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, buy viagra connect usa and animals. Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy upward.

Death and decay return it to the soil. The circuit buy viagra connect usa is not closed. Some energy is dissipated in decay, some is added by absorption, some is stored in soils, peats, and forests, but it is a sustained circuit, like a slowly augmented revolving fund of life.4 (pp 268–269)While the components within this network may change, the land community as a whole remains stable when the overall complexity of the network is not disrupted—other components are able to adjust to these changes, or new ones arise to take their place.ivThe normative inference Leopold makes from his understanding of the land community is this. It makes no sense to single out individual entities within the community buy viagra connect usa as being especially valuable or useful, without taking into account the whole community upon which they mutually depend. To do so is self-defeating.

By privileging the interests of a few members of the community, we ultimately undermine the prerequisites of their existence.The ethical sequenceThe Land Ethic’s holism is in fact its most frequently critiqued feature. Its emphasis on the value of the biotic community leads some to allege a subjugation of individual interests to the needs of the buy viagra connect usa environment. This critique neglects how Leopold positions the Land Ethic in what he calls the ‘ethical sequence’. This is the gradual extension of scope of ethical considerations, both in terms of the complexity of social interactions they cover (from interactions between two people, to the structure of progressively larger social groups), and in the kinds of person they acknowledge as worthy of moral consideration (as we resist, for example, classist, sexist or racist exclusions from personhood).This sequence serves less as a description of the history of morality, than a prescription for how we should understand the Land Ethic as adding to, rather than buy viagra connect usa supplanting, our responsibilities to others. We do not argue that taking seriously health workers’ responsibilities for public health and health promotion supplants their duties to the patients they work with on a daily basis.

Similarly, the Land Ethic implies ‘respect for [our] fellow members, and also respect for the community as such’1 (p 204). At times, our responsibilities towards these buy viagra connect usa different parties may come into tension. But balancing these responsibilities has always been part of the work of clinical ethics.The ecological conscienceIf the community concept gives a definition of the good, and the ethical sequence situates this definition within the existing moral landscape, neither offers an explicit decision procedure to guide right action. In arguing for the ‘ecological conscience’, Leopold explains his rationale for not buy viagra connect usa attempting to articulate such a procedure. In his career as conservationist, Leopold witnessed time and again laws nominally introduced in the name of environmental protection that did little to achieve their long-term goals, while exacerbating other environmental threats.v This is not surprising, given the ‘perfect moral storm’ of Anthropocene global health and environmental threats discussed above.

The cumulative results of apparently innocent actions can be widespread and damaging.Leopold’s response to this problem is to advocate the cultivation of an ‘ecological conscience’. What is needed to promote a healthy human relationship with the land community is not for us to be told exactly how and how not to act buy viagra connect usa in the face of environmental health threats, but rather to shift our view of the land from ‘a commodity belonging to us’ towards ‘a community to which we belong’1 (p viii). To understand what the Land Ethic requires of us, therefore, we should learn more about the land community and our relationship with it, to develop our moral perception and extend its scope to embrace the non-human members of our community.Seen in this light, the Land Ethic shares much in common with virtue ethics, where right action is defined in terms of what the moral agent would do, rather than vice versa. But rather than the Eudaimonia of individual human flourishing proposed by Aristotle, the phronimos of the Land Ethic sees their telos coming from their position within the land community. While clinical virtue ethicists have traditionally taken the virtues of medical practice to be grounded in the interaction with individual patients, the realities of healthcare in the Anthropocene mean that limiting our moral perceptions in this way would ultimately be self-defeating—hurting those very patients we mean to serve (and many more besides).18 The virtuous buy viagra connect usa clinician must adopt a view of the moral world that can focus on a person both as an individual, and simultaneously as member of the land community.

I will close by exploring how adopting that perspective might change our practice.Justice in the AnthropoceneFailing this, it seems to me we fail in the ultimate test of our vaunted superiority—the self-control of environment. We fall back into the buy viagra connect usa biological category of the potato bug which exterminated the potato, and thereby exterminated itself. (Leopold, ‘The River of the Mother of God’4, p 127)I have articulated some of the challenges healthcare faces in the Anthropocene. I have suggested that the tools presently available to clinical ethics may be inadequate to meet them. The Land Ethic invites us to reimagine our position in and relationship buy viagra connect usa with the land community.

I want to close by suggesting how the development of an ecological conscience might support a transition to more just healthcare. I will not endeavour to give detailed prescriptions for buy viagra connect usa action, given Leopold’s warnings about the limitations of such codifications. Rather, I will attempt to show how the cultivation of an ecological conscience might change our perception of what justice demands. Following the tradition of virtue ethics with which the Land Ethic holds much in common, this is best achieved by looking at models of virtuous action, and exploring what makes it virtuous.19Industrialised healthcare developed within a paradigm that saw the environment as inert resource and held that the scope of clinical ethics ranged only over the clinician’s interaction with their patients. When we begin to see clinician and patient not as standing buy viagra connect usa apart from the environment, but as ‘member and citizen of the land community’, their relationship with one another and with the world around them changes consonantly.

The present viagra has only begun to make commonplace the idea that health workers do not simply treat infectious diseases, but interact with them in a range of ways, including as vector—and as a result our moral obligations in confronting them may extend beyond the immediate clinical encounter, to cover all the other ways we may contract or spread disease. But we may be responsible for disease outbreaks with conditions other than erectile dysfunction treatment, buy viagra connect usa and in ways beyond simply becoming infected. The development of an ecological conscience would show how our practices of consumption may fuel deforestation that accelerates the emergence of novel pathogens, or support intensive animal rearing that drives antibiotic resistance.18The Land Ethic also challenges us not to abstract our work away from the places in which it takes place. General practitioner surgeries and hospitals are situated within social and land communities alike, shaping and shaped by them. These spaces can be used buy viagra connect usa in ways that support or undermine those communities.

Surgeries can work to empower their communities to pursue more sustainable and healthy diets by doubling as food cooperatives, or providing resources and ‘social prescriptions’ for increased walking and cycling. Hospitals can use their extensive real estate to provide publicly accessible green and wild spaces within urban environments, and use their role as major nodes in transport infrastructure to change that infrastructure to support active travel alternatives.ivThe Land Ethic reminds us that a community (human or land) is not healthy if its flourishing cannot be sustainably maintained. An essential component of Anthropocene health justice is intergenerational buy viagra connect usa justice. Contemporary industrialised healthcare has an unsustainable ecological footprint. Continuing with such a model of care would serve only to mortgage the health of future generations for the sake of those living now buy viagra connect usa.

Ecologically conscious practice must take seriously the sorts of downstream, distributed consequences of activity that produce anthropogenic global health threats, and evaluate to what extent our most intensive healthcare practices truly serve to promote public and planetary health. It is not enough for the clinician to assume that our resource usage is a necessary evil in the pursuit of best clinical outcomes, for it is already apparent that much of our environmental exploitation is of minimal or even negative long-term value. The work of the National Health Service (NHS) buy viagra connect usa Sustainable Development Unit has seen a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the NHS from 2007 to 2015 despite an 18% increase in clinical activity,20 while different models of care used in less industrialised nations manage to provide high-quality health outcomes in less resource-intensive fashion.21ConclusionOur present problem is one of attitudes and implements. We are remodelling the Alhambra with a steam-shovel. We shall hardly relinquish the steam-shovel, which after all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful buy viagra connect usa use.

(Leopold, ‘The Land Ethic’1, p 226)The moral challenges of the Anthropocene do not solely confront health workers. But the potentially catastrophic health effects of anthropogenic global environmental change, and the contribution of healthcare activity to driving these changes provide a specific and unique imperative for action from health workers.Yet it is hard to articulate this imperative in the language of contemporary clinical ethics, ill equipped for this intrusion of Gaia. Justice in the Anthropocene requires us to be able to adopt a perspective from which these changes buy viagra connect usa no longer appear as unexpected intrusions, but that acknowledges the land community as part of our moral community. The Land Ethic articulates an understanding of justice that is holistic, structural, intergenerational, and rejects anthropocentrism. This understanding seeks not to supplant, but to augment, buy viagra connect usa our existing one.

It aims to do so by helping us to develop an ‘ecological conscience’, seeing ourselves as ‘plain member and citizen’ of the land community. The Land Ethic does not provide a step-by-step guide to just action. Nor does it buy viagra connect usa definitively adjudicate on how to balance the interests of our patients, other populations now and in the future, and the planet. It could, however, help us on the first step towards that change—showing how to cultivate the ‘internal change in our intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions’1 (pp 209–210) necessary to realise the virtues of just healthcare in the Anthropocene.AcknowledgmentsThis essay was written as a submission for the BMA Presidential Essay Prize. I am grateful to the organisers and judging panel for the opportunity..

Viagra connect walmart

The paper, published in Genomics in Medicine, examines people's attitudes about receiving secondary genomic findings related to Ventolin nebules price uae treatable viagra connect walmart or preventable diseases. The study was led by scientists at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), both part of NIH. Your browser does not support the video tag.

Animation of patient filling out an informed consent form and checking the "YES" checkboxes for viagra connect walmart both Expected Outcome and Secondary Findings. Credit. Ernesto del Aguila III, NHGRI.

With the broader adoption of genome sequencing in clinical care, researchers viagra connect walmart and the bioethics community are considering options for how to navigate the discovery of secondary genomic findings. Secondary findings that come out of genome sequencing reflect information that is separate from the primary reason for an individual's medical care or participation in a study. For example, the genomic data of a patient who undergoes genome sequencing to address an autoimmune problem might reveal genomic variants that are associated with a heightened risk for breast cancer.

Based on the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics recommendations viagra connect walmart in 2021, individuals who have their genomes sequenced for a clinical reason should also be screened for genomic variants in 73 genes, including BRCA1 and BRCA2, both of which are linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. All 59 genes are associated with treatable or potentially severe diseases. Proponents of a person’s right to not know their secondary genomic findings have argued that, to maintain autonomy, individuals should have the opportunity to decide whether to be provided information about genomic variants in these additional genes.

"Because these genomic findings can have life-saving viagra connect walmart implications, we wanted to ask the question. Are people really understanding what they are saying no to?. If they get more context, or a second opportunity to decide, do they change their mind?.

" said Benjamin Berkman, J.D., M.P.H., deputy director of the NHGRI Bioethics Core and senior author on the study. The research group worked with participants from the Environmental Polymorphisms Registry, an viagra connect walmart NIEHS study examining how genetic and environmental factors influence human health. Out of 8,843 participants, 8,678 elected to receive secondary genomic findings, while 165 opted out.

Researchers assessed those 165 individuals to determine how strongly and consistently they maintained their "right not to know" decision. The researchers wanted to determine whether providing additional information to people about their genomic variants influenced their decision and to better understand why some people still refused their secondary genomic findings after they received the additional information viagra connect walmart. Following the intervention, the researchers found that the 165 people sorted into two groups.

"reversible refusers" who switched their decision to accept to know their secondary genomic findings and "persistent refusers" who still refused. Because these viagra connect walmart genomic findings can have life-saving implications, we wanted to ask the question. Are people really understanding what they are saying no to?.

If they get more context, or a second opportunity to decide, do they change their mind?. "It is worth noting that nearly three-quarters of reversible refusers thought they had originally agreed to receive secondary genomic findings," said Will Schupmann, a doctoral candidate viagra connect walmart at UCLA and first author on the study. "This means that we should be skeptical about whether checkbox choices are accurately capturing people’s preferences.” Based on the results, the researchers question whether healthcare providers should ask people who have their genome sequenced if they want to receive clinically important secondary genomic findings.

Investigators argue that enough data supports a default practice of returning secondary genomic findings without first asking participants if they would like to receive them. But research studies should create a system that also allows people who do not want to know their secondary genomic viagra connect walmart findings to opt out. The researchers suggest that if healthcare providers actively seek their patients’ preferences to know or not know about their secondary genomic findings, the providers should give the individuals multiple opportunities to make and revise their choice.

"The right not to know has been a contentious topic in the genomics research community, but we believe that our real-world data can help move the field towards a new policy consensus," said Berkman. Researchers at the NIH Department of Bioethics, NIEHS, Harvard University and Social &.

The study was led by scientists at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Institute of Environmental Health buy viagra connect usa Sciences Ventolin nebules price uae (NIEHS), both part of NIH. Your browser does not support the video tag. Animation of patient filling out an informed consent form and checking the "YES" checkboxes for both Expected Outcome and Secondary Findings. Credit.

Ernesto del Aguila III, NHGRI. With the broader adoption of genome sequencing in clinical care, researchers and the bioethics community are considering options for how to navigate the discovery of secondary genomic findings. Secondary findings that come out of genome sequencing reflect information that is separate from the primary reason for an individual's medical care or participation in a study. For example, the genomic data of a patient who undergoes genome sequencing to address an autoimmune problem might reveal genomic variants that are associated with a heightened risk for breast cancer.

Based on the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics recommendations in 2021, individuals who have their genomes sequenced for a clinical reason should also be screened for genomic variants in 73 genes, including BRCA1 and BRCA2, both of which are linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. All 59 genes are associated with treatable or potentially severe diseases. Proponents of a person’s right to not know their secondary genomic findings have argued that, to maintain autonomy, individuals should have the opportunity to decide whether to be provided information about genomic variants in these additional genes. "Because these genomic findings can have life-saving implications, we wanted to ask the question.

Are people really understanding what they are saying no to?. If they get more context, or a second opportunity to decide, do they change their mind?. " said Benjamin Berkman, J.D., M.P.H., deputy director of the NHGRI Bioethics Core and senior author on the study. The research group worked with participants from the Environmental Polymorphisms Registry, an NIEHS study examining how genetic and environmental factors influence human health.

Out of 8,843 participants, 8,678 elected to receive secondary genomic findings, while 165 opted out. Researchers assessed those 165 individuals to determine how strongly and consistently they maintained their "right not to know" decision. The researchers wanted to determine whether providing additional information to people about their genomic variants influenced their decision and to better understand why some people still refused their secondary genomic findings after they received the additional information. Following the intervention, the researchers found that the 165 people sorted into two groups.

"reversible refusers" who switched their decision to accept to know their secondary genomic findings and "persistent refusers" who still refused. Because these genomic findings can have life-saving implications, we wanted to ask the question. Are people really understanding what they are saying no to?. If they get more context, or a second opportunity to decide, do they change their mind?.

"It is worth noting that nearly three-quarters of reversible refusers thought they had originally agreed to receive secondary genomic findings," said Will Schupmann, a doctoral candidate at UCLA and first author on the study. "This means that we should be skeptical about whether checkbox choices are accurately capturing people’s preferences.” Based on the results, the researchers question whether healthcare providers should ask people who have their genome sequenced if they want to receive clinically important secondary genomic findings. Investigators argue that enough data supports a default practice of returning secondary genomic findings without first asking participants if they would like to receive them. But research studies should create a system that also allows people who do not want to know their secondary genomic findings to opt out.

The researchers suggest that if healthcare providers actively seek their patients’ preferences to know or not know about their secondary genomic findings, the providers should give the individuals multiple opportunities to make and revise their choice. "The right not to know has been a contentious topic in the genomics research community, but we believe that our real-world data can help move the field towards a new policy consensus," said Berkman. Researchers at the NIH Department of Bioethics, NIEHS, Harvard University and Social &. Scientific Systems collaborated on the study..

100mg viagra for sale

Clear evidence for a weekend effect try this web-site was first demonstrated by Bell and Redelmeier1 who examined 3.8 million emergency admissions between 1988 and 1997 in an acute 100mg viagra for sale care hospital in Ontario. They had noted that staffing levels 100mg viagra for sale were lower in acute care hospitals at weekends and hypothesised that this might lead to poorer care and higher mortality. To test this hypothesis, they identified three conditions (ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute epiglottitis and pulmonary embolism) for which lower staffing on admission was expected to have consequences in outcomes, as well as three control conditions for which this would not be the case. In addition, they conducted an analysis without a prespecified hypothesis, examining the 100 conditions responsible 100mg viagra for sale for most deaths. After adjustment for illness severity, they found higher mortality for conditions expected to be affected by lower staffing and no increase for control conditions.

From the 100 100mg viagra for sale medical conditions examined, 23 had significantly increased mortality risk for weekend admissions. These two sets of findings provided strong evidence for a weekend effect, suggesting that for some conditions lower staffing on admission affected standards of care and thereby patient outcomes.Since then, dozens of studies of the weekend effect have been conducted, mostly in the UK and the USA.2 In Britain, the issue became much more high profile after an intervention in 2015 by the Secretary of State who suggested that 11 000 patients were unnecessarily dying at the weekend.3 4 This claim was challenged at the time,5 and many pointed out that the National Health Service (NHS) was already a 7-day service.6 7 However, concern about the weekend led eventually to the introduction of ‘7 day services’ in the NHS in England. A new set of 10 clinical standards was introduced to reduce differences between weekend and weekday services, including increased involvement of consultants in the first 24 hours of 100mg viagra for sale admission.8 9 A cross-sectional analysis covering the period before introduction showed no association between specialist intensity and weekend admission mortality.10 Nevertheless, the programme did lead to many NHS hospital trusts reorganising services to reduce differences in care delivery across the 7-day week. The reorganisation of services did not affect clinical outcomes11 nor was adoption of the clinical standards associated with any significant change in the magnitude of the weekend effect.12Possible underlying mechanisms. The weekend as proxy variableRecent systematic reviews have concluded that the weekend effect does exist, but the explanation for the finding is unclear.2 4 13–17 Patients admitted to hospital at the weekend are more likely to die than those during weekdays with ORs of 1.16 (all studies)2 and 1.07 (UK studies),4 with reviews for some specific disease categories reporting higher ORs.2 13 The quality of studies is highly variable, with findings being influenced by methodological, clinical and service configuration factors2 100mg viagra for sale with ongoing debate about likely mechanisms.

Why has it been so difficult to elucidate possible mechanisms?. To go more deeply into this, we need to consider what role the weekend is playing in the design of all these studies.Bell and Redelmeier1 used two distinct designs in their original investigation, which might best be defined as an investigation of staffing levels 100mg viagra for sale and mortality. In their first analysis, the weekend is used as a proxy measure for differences in staffing. They targeted specific conditions such as ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm for which 100mg viagra for sale staffing on admission was deemed likely to have an important impact on patient outcomes. Their second analysis took the opposite approach, by examining overall outcomes at the weekend and then speculating about which factors might explain any observed differences.

Most subsequent studies have used the second approach, which has made it difficult to make progress on identifying the relevant factors driving 100mg viagra for sale any effect. If we do not define the questions and hypothesised relationships precisely, then we will not be able to identify how care delivered to patients is affected and which factors are responsible for poorer outcomes. Critically, if we cannot identify the factors, then we cannot intelligently propose interventions 100mg viagra for sale to improve patient care.We therefore need to examine how the weekend as a proxy variable for staffing levels fits into the conceptual model. Is the proxy only associated with the determinant, often assumed to be staffing levels, or also with other possible confounders or factors that affect the outcome in question?. We recognise there are multiple possible sets of relationships, but examining three of them is sufficient to make the general argument 100mg viagra for sale.

Figure 1 displays three possible sets of relationships, which correspond with three broad hypotheses about potential mechanisms and hence the interpretation of the weekend effect.Proxy measures in the context of studying a determinant - outcome relationship, applied to the weekend as a proxy variable for staffing." data-icon-position data-hide-link-title="0">Figure 1 Proxy measures in the context of studying a determinant - outcome relationship, applied to the weekend as a proxy variable for staffing.Levels of staffing on admission is the dominant influence on quality of care and mortality (panel A)This shows the ‘ideal’ and simplest situation when the proxy weekend/weekday variable is primarily associated with staffing in the first hours or days. The implied mechanism is that lower numbers of staff, particularly senior 100mg viagra for sale staff, lead to poorer care and increased mortality. In that situation, weekend–weekday mortality differences, after adjustment for patient mix, can be presumed to be due to staffing differences. Bell and Redelmeier specifically tested this scenario by selecting those conditions for which the first few days of admission are critical, that are treatable and where 100mg viagra for sale death may be rapid. For these conditions, insufficient staffing levels at admission (determinant) might cause delay in care processes (intermediate variable) and higher mortality (outcome).Patients at weekends are sicker and more likely to die (panel B)As many studies have shown, the weekend is associated with confounding variables.

Patients admitted at the weekend are known to be sicker18 19 and are less likely to be admitted from emergency departments despite attendance rates being similar.16 20 Studies attempt to control for severity of condition and other confounders, but there is general agreement that it 100mg viagra for sale is simply not possible to control for all potential factors (and confounding by indication). There is always the possibility that, even after adjustment for severity of illness and other patient variables, that differences in 100mg viagra for sale outcome are due to other patient factors that, for whatever reason, could not be included in the calculations. So for many conditions, this is an important alternative pathway to consider.Multiple factors affect care at the weekend, which in turn increases mortality (panel C)This model underlies the second approach by Bell and Redelmeier and many subsequent studies. The basic hypothesis is that patient outcomes differ between weekend and weekday, but this may be due 100mg viagra for sale to multiple relationships and multiple interrelated variables. For instance, the average seniority or specialty level may differ between the groups of nurses and medical staff working during weekdays and weekends, and such differences in skill-mix may affect patient outcomes.21–23 Access to diagnostic tests or other ancillary services might also differ between weekends and weekdays, or there may be factors further along the patient pathway (in subsequent days after admission) such as how quickly any deterioration on the ward is detected.

In this scenario, uncertainty about the mechanisms of the weekend effect makes it very difficult to identify targeted interventions to improve outcomes for patients admitted at the weekend.The assumed intermediate variable of worse quality of careHypotheses 1 and 3 have the same intermediate variable, that quality of care is poorer at the weekend—although for different reasons—and that this is the reason for higher mortality 100mg viagra for sale. Investigating this particular proposal requires, as many have noted, ‘painstaking detective work’,24 but few studies have directly examined the quality of care provided during weekdays and at weekends. In this 100mg viagra for sale issue of BMJ Quality &. Safety, Bion and colleagues therefore add crucial evidence with their impressive and comprehensive study.25 They reviewed the quality of care delivered by examining case records from 4000 non-operative medical emergency admissions in 20 acute hospital trusts before and after introduction of the ‘7-day services’ in England. Records were randomly sampled from each trust, equally divided between the two time periods and weekend versus weekday 100mg viagra for sale admissions.

They found that rates of errors and adverse events were not significantly different between weekdays and weekends and that this was the case both before and after introduction of the ‘7-day services’. They also made a direct assessment of intensity of senior medical staffing by comparing hours of consultant time per 10 emergency 100mg viagra for sale admissions between Sundays and Wednesdays. This specialist intensity ratio was much lower at weekends (0.51 overall) and improved slightly (from 0.47 to 0.58) across periods. Their study therefore does not 100mg viagra for sale offer support for quality of care being worse at the weekend or that senior staff involvement at an early point in the patient’s admission is significantly associated with overall quality of care. We should note, however, that operative patients were excluded, so it remains possible that care is poorer for some other groups of patients.The implicit assumption in many previous studies, and most political discourse, is that the weekend is simply a reflection and proxy for lower levels of skilled staff, particularly medical staff.

Proxy variables are of course used all the time in research and can be very helpful if they 100mg viagra for sale are ‘close’ to the variable of interest. For instance, we might use the prescription record of a medication as a proxy for the actual medication administered to the patient. We are then confident of what the proxy means and how it relates to the actual variable of 100mg viagra for sale interest. Even though some patients may decide not to collect their medication or be non-adherent in taking it, interpreting the proxy is relatively straightforward.In contrast, the weekend/weekday comparison is a distant and complex proxy. Care could potentially be different for a whole variety of reasons, which 100mg viagra for sale are only partly dependent on levels of skilled medical staff.

Diagnostic tests and investigations may not be readily available. Coordination between different specialties may be problematic within 100mg viagra for sale the hospital or between primary and secondary care and so on. Each of these may cause delay in a care process that may (in combination) affect patient outcomes. In addition, conditions vary in the extent to which delays in the first few days are critical in 100mg viagra for sale preventing death. Some primarily require skilled staff on admission, while others are more vulnerable to later deterioration 100mg viagra for sale on wards and need care from experienced nurses in the days following admission.Should we continue studying the weekend effect?.

We do not doubt that studies of buy viagra pill the weekend effect have been worthwhile. Clearly, the higher mortality at weekends originally identified 20 years ago merited investigation 100mg viagra for sale. The question is whether it is worthwhile to continue to conduct similar studies in the future given the limited funding and research time available. What avenues of 100mg viagra for sale inquiry are most likely to benefit patients?. The ultimate aim of all concerned is to improve care given to patients.

The weekend effect is only important 100mg viagra for sale as a potential marker of other problems. Local reviews of mortality or other indices of quality should always be alert to variations in the quality of care over the week, and consider whether care is poorer at weekends or indeed at any particular time of the day, week or year. However, we consider that there is no reason to carry out further studies that simply demonstrate 100mg viagra for sale a weekend effect. We need instead to turn our attention to the factors directly influencing quality of care for which the weekend has been a proxy.Bion and colleagues provide a valuable illustration of research that examines the presumed causal relationships, looking at the actual care processes and so give a clearer indication of what kind of intervention might most benefit patients. Their study found that care had improved over time but that about 15% of patients received partial care and a small percentage received very poor care.25 These problems occurred throughout the week, affecting the larger volume of patients treated on 100mg viagra for sale weekdays.

Following the example of the study by Bion et al, future studies could directly assess standards of care and the factors that most powerfully influence quality. A notable example is the study by Jayawardana and colleagues,26 showing that the increased mortality for out-of-hours admissions with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction was explained by differences in door-to-needle time, identifying the specific care 100mg viagra for sale process on which interventions should be targeted. To improve clinical practice, we need evidence that will help us design targeted interventions to influence the quality of care delivered and thereby patient outcomes.The ‘7-day services’ initiative was introduced in England without a clear understanding of the causes of the weekend effect. The intervention, while well 100mg viagra for sale intentioned, was therefore poorly targeted. Rather than a one-size-fits all initiative to increase consultant intensity, we should consider the much harder question on how to spend the same money to maximum effect.

Consultant time is scarce and so should be tailored to the time, place and particular conditions where it is most beneficial 100mg viagra for sale over the week as a whole. For some patients though, more rapid access to diagnostic tests or the increased use of skilled nurses during recovery may be much more critical to improving outcomes. Studies of the weekend effect drew attention to potentially dangerous levels of staffing that 100mg viagra for sale undoubtedly posed risks to patients. At this point, however, we need more precise studies that directly examine standards of care and the factors that influence the care delivered. We can then define and target interventions 100mg viagra for sale effectively and make best use of scarce resources.Ethics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required.The Harvard Medical Practice Study brought the issue of patient safety into the public eye and demonstrated that patients are often harmed by the care they receive.1 It used retrospective chart review to identify adverse events.

Since its publication in 1991, considerable focus has been placed on trying to improve the methods for understanding the prevalence of harm in hospitals. These efforts 100mg viagra for sale have led to deeper understanding of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the tools we currently have for adverse event identification. Still, most organisations do not have robust approaches for tracking all types of harm routinely. Other efforts have sought 100mg viagra for sale to assess safety not just in hospitals but across national health systems, and at one point in time, and to track and trend.Developing better approaches for measuring safety routinely is critical if we are to understand how many patients are being harmed, what the primary causes are and whether care is getting safer or less safe. However, it is also work that needs to be contextualised and the limitations of our tools must be 100mg viagra for sale appreciated.2 3The Irish National Adverse Event Study 2 (INAES-2) is presented in this issue.4 In this study, Connolly and colleagues used retrospective chart review to find adverse events at eight Irish hospitals in 2015 and compare these to previously reported data from 2009.

Retrospective chart review was the first method used in this space5 6 and is still a mainstay for national studies assessing rates of adverse events,7–12 although approaches using claims data are also used widely and are much less expensive though much less sensitive.13 The original approach using retrospective chart review relied on information exclusively gathered from retrospective review of randomly selected medical records, but it has since been bolstered by the creation of standardised triggers,14 and more rigorous methods for chart review which make it more sensitive for finding adverse events, and more reliable. Despite this, retrospective chart review has many limitations, most notably the level of agreement between abstractors and its reliance on the completeness of documentation in medical charts.15The issue of reliance on documentation 100mg viagra for sale is especially important. There have been well-conceived critiques that have raised concern related to underdocumentation of errors that occur in hospitals, as well as those that have raised concern that the findings from longitudinal studies looking at trends may be confounded by improved documentation resulting in an overestimation of the true (comparative) incidence of events. These are 100mg viagra for sale both legitimate concerns. The INAES-2 study, as in prior similar work looking at multi-institution adverse event rates over time,16 17 showed an increase in events over time but no change in preventable harm.

We are left not knowing if this represents a change in safety or a change in documentation.These concerns have led other investigators to develop adverse event identification approaches to enable more real-time identification, leveraging a broader set of data for the interpretation of the preventability and impact of these events.18 19 Prospective event identification, or the near real-time application of triggers, can also incorporate the perspectives of staff in the clinical 100mg viagra for sale environment around the time of the event to provide additional insights. Even with this more comprehensive, contemporaneous collection of data however, agreement continues to be variable between reviewers.20–22Looking to spontaneous reporting from front-line staff, rather than retrospectively or prospectively monitoring for triggers, is another method that has been proposed as a mechanism for identifying the prevalence of adverse events over time. Similar to documentation, however, concerns exist about the under-reporting of events by front-line staff in safety reporting systems.23 24 Moreover, spontaneous reporting routinely underestimates the incidence of adverse events for some types of events by a factor of 20.25The inverse is also likely true that advances 100mg viagra for sale in safety culture may increase reporting, without any change in the frequency of actual events. Indeed, in the INAES-2 study, the researchers found that although safety reports increased threefold, adverse event rates did not change. This highlights the challenge of using safety reports alone as a proxy 100mg viagra for sale for adverse events.

Instead, the insights from safety reporting may hold promise for other uses in the safety space, such as providing a signal for the degree of staff engagement in safety, enabling the identification of near misses and facilitating the identification of significant events that require root cause analysis.Because of the variability that exists in the methods mentioned, many investigators have attempted to identify more reliable ways to identify adverse events. Several studies have employed reimbursement codes (in the USA, International Classification of Diseases Ninth Revision codes) as a mechanism to screen for adverse events.26–28 These systems, which aim to identify complications of medical care by looking for codes that are highly associated with adverse events, have largely been shown 100mg viagra for sale to be ineffective.29 30 This is likely to be multifactorial, with an inability to identify which conditions predated the current healthcare encounter, a lack of incentives to use coding to identify adverse events and their limited ability to accurately capture the full clinical picture all contributing to their limited efficacy.31Other approaches have leveraged information systems to screen for adverse events, which is almost certainly how this will be done in the future.32 This works better for some categories of events than for others. Identification for some events is relatively straightforward, for example, for the development of acute kidney injury in which there is a biomarker to track (rise in creatinine), which routinely appears when the event is present. However, the identification of newly altered mental 100mg viagra for sale status, for example, is much more challenging. For events such as falls, which are almost always documented in electronic health record (EHR) systems, this also works well.

Commercial products that sift through data from the EHR are available to find adverse events for inpatients, while the situation regarding adverse event detection is much less advanced in the ambulatory setting, even 100mg viagra for sale though EHR use is widespread in developed countries. Among the main types of inpatient adverse events, hospital-acquired s, adverse drug events and falls can readily be detected in inpatients, while the situation is more complex for deep venous thromboses/pulmonary emboli, surgical injuries, specific types of pressure ulcers and missed diagnoses.32 Novel approaches that are highly effective for identifying wrong patient errors have been developed, such as ‘retract and reorder’ detection, which identifies these errors effectively.33 This has led to interventions such as showing the photograph of a patient to the ordering clinician, which reduced the likelihood of a wrong patient order by 43% in one study.34 Still, most organisations do not have a robust sense of how often their patients experience adverse events across the spectrum of care.The challenge of adverse event identification is multiplied by the importance of understanding one moment in time and, as the authors in the INAES-2 study aim to do, trying to look at trends. This will be essential as we continue to mobilise large efforts 100mg viagra for sale to improve safety and as these compete with other priorities. As with all work in quality, having robust metrics is vital. In safety, however, we have in many ways been ‘flying blind’—initiating large-scale efforts to decrease the rate of adverse events without having reliable ways to measure their prevalence over time.It is important to emphasise that this lack of insight into 100mg viagra for sale performance is not equally distributed across all categories of adverse events.3 In fact, as proposed recently by Shojania and Marang-van de Mheen, the incidence of adverse events may be best understood as a composite measure—with all of the limitations that come with looking at a measure with many composite parts.35 When broken apart, what we come to understand is that some of our mechanisms for identifying certain types of events are likely much more reliable than others.

In the USA, for example, where the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has leveraged standardised methods for collecting and reporting national performance on a set of specific healthcare-associated s, we have much better insight into performance over time related to such healthcare-associated s than we do, for instance, with diagnostic error.Lastly, the challenge of interpreting national adverse event data over time is complicated by the nuances associated with the interfaces between politics and science. In our personal experience, we have encountered challenges reporting results of safety studies that are tied to ministries of health.36 Related to the INAES-2 study specifically, Ireland has a long history of sensationalised media coverage of data pointing to opportunities for improved care, further complicating researchers’ ability 100mg viagra for sale to conduct this work free of influence.37Ultimately, the work presented by Connolly and colleagues is critically important work and we suggest that all health systems should be monitoring adverse event rates over time. The mechanisms for doing this, though, should rapidly evolve. With hospitals increasingly leveraging EHRs, data being collected in more uniform ways and advances in natural language processing and artificial intelligence, a future in which we 100mg viagra for sale have reliable measures of adverse events that are stable over time is likely within our reach. To get from here to there, an ongoing investment in research with evaluation including leveraging artificial intelligence and natural language processing, and a commitment to transparent data reporting and enabling collaboration between organisations and governments focused on this work is essential.38 If we can achieve this, we could reasonably expect a future in which we have access to publicly available meaningful data on how many people are being harmed, and in what context, which could in turn transform safety.Ethics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required..

Clear evidence for a weekend effect was first demonstrated by Bell and Redelmeier1 who buy viagra connect usa examined 3.8 million emergency admissions between 1988 http://www.silvialanga.com/notalegal-esp/ and 1997 in an acute care hospital in Ontario. They had noted that staffing levels were lower in acute care hospitals at weekends and hypothesised that this might lead buy viagra connect usa to poorer care and higher mortality. To test this hypothesis, they identified three conditions (ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute epiglottitis and pulmonary embolism) for which lower staffing on admission was expected to have consequences in outcomes, as well as three control conditions for which this would not be the case. In addition, they conducted an analysis without a prespecified hypothesis, examining the 100 conditions buy viagra connect usa responsible for most deaths.

After adjustment for illness severity, they found higher mortality for conditions expected to be affected by lower staffing and no increase for control conditions. From the 100 medical conditions examined, 23 had significantly increased mortality risk for weekend admissions buy viagra connect usa. These two sets of findings provided strong evidence for a weekend effect, suggesting that for some conditions lower staffing on admission affected standards of care and thereby patient outcomes.Since then, dozens of studies of the weekend effect have been conducted, mostly in the UK and the USA.2 In Britain, the issue became much more high profile after an intervention in 2015 by the Secretary of State who suggested that 11 000 patients were unnecessarily dying at the weekend.3 4 This claim was challenged at the time,5 and many pointed out that the National Health Service (NHS) was already a 7-day service.6 7 However, concern about the weekend led eventually to the introduction of ‘7 day services’ in the NHS in England. A new set of 10 clinical standards was introduced to reduce differences between weekend and weekday services, including increased involvement of consultants in the first 24 hours of admission.8 9 A cross-sectional analysis covering the period before introduction showed no association between specialist intensity buy viagra connect usa and weekend admission mortality.10 Nevertheless, the programme did lead to many NHS hospital trusts reorganising services to reduce differences in care delivery across the 7-day week.

The reorganisation of services did not affect clinical outcomes11 nor was adoption of the clinical standards associated with any significant change in the magnitude of the weekend effect.12Possible underlying mechanisms. The weekend as proxy variableRecent systematic reviews have concluded that the weekend effect does exist, but the explanation for the finding is unclear.2 4 13–17 Patients admitted to hospital at the weekend are more likely to die than those during weekdays with ORs of 1.16 (all studies)2 and 1.07 (UK studies),4 with reviews for some specific disease categories reporting higher ORs.2 13 The quality of studies is highly variable, with findings being influenced by methodological, clinical and service configuration factors2 with ongoing debate buy viagra connect usa about likely mechanisms. Why has it been so difficult to elucidate possible mechanisms?. To go more deeply into this, we need to consider what role the weekend is buy viagra connect usa playing in the design of all these studies.Bell and Redelmeier1 used two distinct designs in their original investigation, which might best be defined as an investigation of staffing levels and mortality.

In their first analysis, the weekend is used as a proxy measure for differences in staffing. They targeted specific buy viagra connect usa conditions such as ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm for which staffing on admission was deemed likely to have an important impact on patient outcomes. Their second analysis took the opposite approach, by examining overall outcomes at the weekend and then speculating about which factors might explain any observed differences. Most subsequent studies have used the second approach, which has made it difficult buy viagra connect usa to make progress on identifying the relevant factors driving any effect.

If we do not define the questions and hypothesised relationships precisely, then we will not be able to identify how care delivered to patients is affected and which factors are responsible for poorer outcomes. Critically, if we cannot identify the factors, then we cannot intelligently propose interventions to improve patient care.We therefore need to examine how the weekend as a proxy variable for staffing levels fits into the conceptual buy viagra connect usa model. Is the proxy only associated with the determinant, often assumed to be staffing levels, or also with other possible confounders or factors that affect the outcome in question?. We recognise there are multiple possible buy viagra connect usa sets of relationships, but examining three of them is sufficient to make the general argument.

Figure 1 displays three possible sets of relationships, which correspond with three broad hypotheses about potential mechanisms and hence the interpretation of the weekend effect.Proxy measures in the context of studying a determinant - outcome relationship, applied to the weekend as a proxy variable for staffing." data-icon-position data-hide-link-title="0">Figure 1 Proxy measures in the context of studying a determinant - outcome relationship, applied to the weekend as a proxy variable for staffing.Levels of staffing on admission is the dominant influence on quality of care and mortality (panel A)This shows the ‘ideal’ and simplest situation when the proxy weekend/weekday variable is primarily associated with staffing in the first hours or days. The implied buy viagra connect usa mechanism is that lower numbers of staff, particularly senior staff, lead to poorer care and increased mortality. In that situation, weekend–weekday mortality differences, after adjustment for patient mix, can be presumed to be due to staffing differences. Bell and Redelmeier specifically tested this scenario by selecting those conditions for which the first few days of admission are critical, that buy viagra connect usa are treatable and where death may be rapid.

For these conditions, insufficient staffing levels at admission (determinant) might cause delay in care processes (intermediate variable) and higher mortality (outcome).Patients at weekends are sicker and more likely to die (panel B)As many studies have shown, the weekend is associated with confounding variables. Patients admitted at the weekend are known to buy viagra connect usa be sicker18 19 and are less likely to be admitted from emergency departments despite attendance rates being similar.16 20 Studies attempt to control for severity of condition and other confounders, but there is general agreement that it is simply not possible to control for all potential factors (and confounding by indication). There is always the possibility that, even after adjustment for severity of illness and other patient variables, that differences in outcome are due to other patient factors that, for whatever reason, could not be included in the buy viagra connect usa calculations. So for many conditions, this is an important alternative pathway to consider.Multiple factors affect care at the weekend, which in turn increases mortality (panel C)This model underlies the second approach by Bell and Redelmeier and many subsequent studies.

The basic hypothesis is that patient outcomes differ between weekend and buy viagra connect usa weekday, but this may be due to multiple relationships and multiple interrelated variables. For instance, the average seniority or specialty level may differ between the groups of nurses and medical staff working during weekdays and weekends, and such differences in skill-mix may affect patient outcomes.21–23 Access to diagnostic tests or other ancillary services might also differ between weekends and weekdays, or there may be factors further along the patient pathway (in subsequent days after admission) such as how quickly any deterioration on the ward is detected. In this scenario, uncertainty about the mechanisms of the weekend effect makes it very difficult to identify targeted interventions to improve outcomes for patients admitted at the weekend.The assumed intermediate variable of worse quality of careHypotheses 1 and 3 have the same intermediate variable, that quality of care is poorer at the buy viagra connect usa weekend—although for different reasons—and that this is the reason for higher mortality. Investigating this particular proposal requires, as many have noted, ‘painstaking detective work’,24 but few studies have directly examined the quality of care provided during weekdays and at weekends.

In this issue buy viagra connect usa of BMJ Quality &. Safety, Bion and colleagues therefore add crucial evidence with their impressive and comprehensive study.25 They reviewed the quality of care delivered by examining case records from 4000 non-operative medical emergency admissions in 20 acute hospital trusts before and after introduction of the ‘7-day services’ in England. Records were buy viagra connect usa randomly sampled from each trust, equally divided between the two time periods and weekend versus weekday admissions. They found that rates of errors and adverse events were not significantly different between weekdays and weekends and that this was the case both before and after introduction of the ‘7-day services’.

They also buy viagra connect usa made a direct assessment of intensity of senior medical staffing by comparing hours of consultant time per 10 emergency admissions between Sundays and Wednesdays. This specialist intensity ratio was much lower at weekends (0.51 overall) and improved slightly (from 0.47 to 0.58) across periods. Their study therefore does not offer buy viagra connect usa support for quality of care being worse at the weekend or that senior staff involvement at an early point in the patient’s admission is significantly associated with overall quality of care. We should note, however, that operative patients were excluded, so it remains possible that care is poorer for some other groups of patients.The implicit assumption in many previous studies, and most political discourse, is that the weekend is simply a reflection and proxy for lower levels of skilled staff, particularly medical staff.

Proxy variables are of course used all the time in research and can be very buy viagra connect usa helpful if they are ‘close’ to the variable of interest. For instance, we might use the prescription record of a medication as a proxy for the actual medication administered to the patient. We are then confident of what the proxy means and how it relates to buy viagra connect usa the actual variable of interest. Even though some patients may decide not to collect their medication or be non-adherent in taking it, interpreting the proxy is relatively straightforward.In contrast, the weekend/weekday comparison is a distant and complex proxy.

Care could potentially be different for a whole variety of reasons, which are only partly dependent on levels of skilled buy viagra connect usa medical staff. Diagnostic tests and investigations may not be readily available. Coordination between different specialties may be problematic within the hospital or between primary and secondary care buy viagra connect usa and so on. Each of these may cause delay in a care process that may (in combination) affect patient outcomes.

In addition, conditions vary in the extent to which delays in the first few days are critical in buy viagra connect usa preventing death. Some primarily require skilled staff on admission, while others are more vulnerable to later deterioration on wards and need care from experienced nurses in the days following admission.Should we continue studying buy viagra connect usa the weekend effect?. We do not doubt that studies of the weekend effect have been worthwhile. Clearly, the higher mortality at weekends buy viagra connect usa originally identified 20 years ago merited investigation.

The question is whether it is worthwhile to continue to conduct similar studies in the future given the limited funding and research time available. What avenues of buy viagra connect usa inquiry are most likely to benefit patients?. The ultimate aim of all concerned is to improve care given to patients. The weekend effect is only important as a potential marker of other problems buy viagra connect usa.

Local reviews of mortality or other indices of quality should always be alert to variations in the quality of care over the week, and consider whether care is poorer at weekends or indeed at any particular time of the day, week or year. However, we consider that there is no reason buy viagra connect usa to carry out further studies that simply demonstrate a weekend effect. We need instead to turn our attention to the factors directly influencing quality of care for which the weekend has been a proxy.Bion and colleagues provide a valuable illustration of research that examines the presumed causal relationships, looking at the actual care processes and so give a clearer indication of what kind of intervention might most benefit patients. Their study found that care had improved over time but that about 15% of patients received partial care and a small percentage buy viagra connect usa received very poor care.25 These problems occurred throughout the week, affecting the larger volume of patients treated on weekdays.

Following the example of the study by Bion et al, future studies could directly assess standards of care and the factors that most powerfully influence quality. A notable example is the study by Jayawardana and colleagues,26 showing that the increased mortality for out-of-hours admissions with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction was explained by differences in door-to-needle buy viagra connect usa time, identifying the specific care process on which interventions should be targeted. To improve clinical practice, we need evidence that will help us design targeted interventions to influence the quality of care delivered and thereby patient outcomes.The ‘7-day services’ initiative was introduced in England without a clear understanding of the causes of the weekend effect. The intervention, while well intentioned, was therefore poorly targeted buy viagra connect usa.

Rather than a one-size-fits all initiative to increase consultant intensity, we should consider the much harder question on how to spend the same money to maximum effect. Consultant time is scarce and so should be tailored to the time, place and particular conditions where buy viagra connect usa it is most beneficial over the week as a whole. For some patients though, more rapid access to diagnostic tests or the increased use of skilled nurses during recovery may be much more critical to improving outcomes. Studies of buy viagra connect usa the weekend effect drew attention to potentially dangerous levels of staffing that undoubtedly posed risks to patients.

At this point, however, we need more precise studies that directly examine standards of care and the factors that influence the care delivered. We can then define and target interventions effectively and buy viagra connect usa make best use of scarce resources.Ethics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required.The Harvard Medical Practice Study brought the issue of patient safety into the public eye and demonstrated that patients are often harmed by the care they receive.1 It used retrospective chart review to identify adverse events. Since its publication in 1991, considerable focus has been placed on trying to improve the methods for understanding the prevalence of harm in hospitals. These efforts have buy viagra connect usa led to deeper understanding of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the tools we currently have for adverse event identification.

Still, most organisations do not have robust approaches for tracking all types of harm routinely. Other efforts buy viagra connect usa have sought to assess safety not just in hospitals but across national health systems, and at one point in time, and to track and trend.Developing better approaches for measuring safety routinely is critical if we are to understand how many patients are being harmed, what the primary causes are and whether care is getting safer or less safe. However, it buy viagra connect usa is also work that needs to be contextualised and the limitations of our tools must be appreciated.2 3The Irish National Adverse Event Study 2 (INAES-2) is presented in this issue.4 In this study, Connolly and colleagues used retrospective chart review to find adverse events at eight Irish hospitals in 2015 and compare these to previously reported data from 2009. Retrospective chart review was the first method used in this space5 6 and is still a mainstay for national studies assessing rates of adverse events,7–12 although approaches using claims data are also used widely and are much less expensive though much less sensitive.13 The original approach using retrospective chart review relied on information exclusively gathered from retrospective review of randomly selected medical records, but it has since been bolstered by the creation of standardised triggers,14 and more rigorous methods for chart review which make it more sensitive for finding adverse events, and more reliable.

Despite this, retrospective chart review has many limitations, most notably the level of agreement between abstractors and its reliance on the completeness of documentation in medical charts.15The issue buy viagra connect usa of reliance on documentation is especially important. There have been well-conceived critiques that have raised concern related to underdocumentation of errors that occur in hospitals, as well as those that have raised concern that the findings from longitudinal studies looking at trends may be confounded by improved documentation resulting in an overestimation of the true (comparative) incidence of events. These are buy viagra connect usa both legitimate concerns. The INAES-2 study, as in prior similar work looking at multi-institution adverse event rates over time,16 17 showed an increase in events over time but no change in preventable harm.

We are left not knowing if this represents buy viagra connect usa a change in safety or a change in documentation.These concerns have led other investigators to develop adverse event identification approaches to enable more real-time identification, leveraging a broader set of data for the interpretation of the preventability and impact of these events.18 19 Prospective event identification, or the near real-time application of triggers, can also incorporate the perspectives of staff in the clinical environment around the time of the event to provide additional insights. Even with this more comprehensive, contemporaneous collection of data however, agreement continues to be variable between reviewers.20–22Looking to spontaneous reporting from front-line staff, rather than retrospectively or prospectively monitoring for triggers, is another method that has been proposed as a mechanism for identifying the prevalence of adverse events over time. Similar to documentation, however, concerns exist about the under-reporting of events by front-line staff in safety reporting systems.23 24 Moreover, spontaneous reporting routinely underestimates the incidence of adverse events for some types buy viagra connect usa of events by a factor of 20.25The inverse is also likely true that advances in safety culture may increase reporting, without any change in the frequency of actual events. Indeed, in the INAES-2 study, the researchers found that although safety reports increased threefold, adverse event rates did not change.

This highlights the challenge of using safety buy viagra connect usa reports alone as a proxy for adverse events. Instead, the insights from safety reporting may hold promise for other uses in the safety space, such as providing a signal for the degree of staff engagement in safety, enabling the identification of near misses and facilitating the identification of significant events that require root cause analysis.Because of the variability that exists in the methods mentioned, many investigators have attempted to identify more reliable ways to identify adverse events. Several studies have employed reimbursement codes (in buy viagra connect usa the USA, International Classification of Diseases Ninth Revision codes) as a mechanism to screen for adverse events.26–28 These systems, which aim to identify complications of medical care by looking for codes that are highly associated with adverse events, have largely been shown to be ineffective.29 30 This is likely to be multifactorial, with an inability to identify which conditions predated the current healthcare encounter, a lack of incentives to use coding to identify adverse events and their limited ability to accurately capture the full clinical picture all contributing to their limited efficacy.31Other approaches have leveraged information systems to screen for adverse events, which is almost certainly how this will be done in the future.32 This works better for some categories of events than for others. Identification for some events is relatively straightforward, for example, for the development of acute kidney injury in which there is a biomarker to track (rise in creatinine), which routinely appears when the event is present.

However, the identification of newly altered mental status, for example, is much more challenging buy viagra connect usa. For events such as falls, which are almost always documented in electronic health record (EHR) systems, this also works well. Commercial products that sift through data from the EHR are available buy viagra connect usa to find adverse events for inpatients, while the situation regarding adverse event detection is much less advanced in the ambulatory setting, even though EHR use is widespread in developed countries. Among the main types of inpatient adverse events, hospital-acquired s, adverse drug events and falls can readily be detected in inpatients, while the situation is more complex for deep venous thromboses/pulmonary emboli, surgical injuries, specific types of pressure ulcers and missed diagnoses.32 Novel approaches that are highly effective for identifying wrong patient errors have been developed, such as ‘retract and reorder’ detection, which identifies these errors effectively.33 This has led to interventions such as showing the photograph of a patient to the ordering clinician, which reduced the likelihood of a wrong patient order by 43% in one study.34 Still, most organisations do not have a robust sense of how often their patients experience adverse events across the spectrum of care.The challenge of adverse event identification is multiplied by the importance of understanding one moment in time and, as the authors in the INAES-2 study aim to do, trying to look at trends.

This will be essential as we continue to mobilise large buy viagra connect usa efforts to improve safety and as these compete with other priorities. As with all work in quality, having robust metrics is vital. In safety, however, we have in many ways been ‘flying blind’—initiating large-scale efforts to decrease the rate of adverse events without having reliable ways to measure their prevalence over time.It is important to emphasise that this lack of insight into performance is not equally distributed across all categories of adverse events.3 In fact, as proposed recently by Shojania and Marang-van de Mheen, the incidence of adverse events may be best understood as a composite measure—with all of the limitations that come with looking at a measure with many composite parts.35 When broken apart, what we come to understand is that some of our mechanisms for identifying certain types of events are likely much more reliable than buy viagra connect usa others. In the USA, for example, where the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has leveraged standardised methods for collecting and reporting national performance on a set of specific healthcare-associated s, we have much better insight into performance over time related to such healthcare-associated s than we do, for instance, with diagnostic error.Lastly, the challenge of interpreting national adverse event data over time is complicated by the nuances associated with the interfaces between politics and science.

In our personal experience, we have encountered challenges reporting results of safety studies that are tied to ministries of health.36 Related to the INAES-2 study specifically, buy viagra connect usa Ireland has a long history of sensationalised media coverage of data pointing to opportunities for improved care, further complicating researchers’ ability to conduct this work free of influence.37Ultimately, the work presented by Connolly and colleagues is critically important work and we suggest that all health systems should be monitoring adverse event rates over time. The mechanisms for doing this, though, should rapidly evolve. With hospitals increasingly leveraging EHRs, data being collected in more uniform ways and advances in natural language processing and artificial intelligence, a future in which we have buy viagra connect usa reliable measures of adverse events that are stable over time is likely within our reach. To get from here to there, an ongoing investment in research with evaluation including leveraging artificial intelligence and natural language processing, and a commitment to transparent data reporting and enabling collaboration between organisations and governments focused on this work is essential.38 If we can achieve this, we could reasonably expect a future in which we have access to publicly available meaningful data on how many people are being harmed, and in what context, which could in turn transform safety.Ethics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required..

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