Division of General Internal Medicine and Public Health

Research conducted at Vanderbilt University Medical Center shows that routine administration of the Brief Health Literacy Screen (BHLS) by nurses provides a valid measure for large-scale studies of the influence of health literacy on clinical outcomes.

Donald Brady, M.D., senior associate dean for Graduate Medical Education and Continuing Professional Development, will serve a one-year term as chair of the board of directors of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare (AACH) for 2014. Brady spent this year serving as president and will transition into a one-year role as chair.

Vanderbilt University’s contributions to the field of diabetes — past and present — were celebrated recently during the annual Diabetes Day at the Vanderbilt Student Life Center.

“There and Home Again, Safely: 5 Responsibilities of Ambulatory Practices in High Quality Care Transitions,” a new white paper from the American Medical Association (AMA), is the work of a 19-member expert panel that included two Vanderbilt faculty members — Sunil Kripalani, M.D., M.Sc., associate professor of Medicine, and Amanda Salanitro M.D., MS, MSPH, instructor in Medicine, both from the section of Hospital Medicine in the Department of Medicine’s Division of General Internal Medicine and Public Health.

According to a medical literature review published last month in the Annals of Internal Medicine, approximately 50 percent of medications for chronic disease are not taken as prescribed.

Patients prescribed the diabetes drug metformin have a lower risk for heart attack, stroke and death than patients taking sulfonylurea drugs.

As more and better treatments are developed for heart disease, it is becoming more difficult to safely manage care as patients return home from the hospital. A new study led by Vanderbilt researchers highlights growing concern that the period after hospital discharge is a risky time, especially for cardiac patients.