National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week will be held from Monday, March 30 until Sunday April 5. The National Institute on Drug Abuse for Teens (NIDA) utilizes this week to link students to scientists and other experts who can counteract the myths and misunderstandings about drugs and alcohol that teens might get from the internet, television and movies. Schools and community partners will be hosting National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week events throughout the week. NIDA will also sponsor a National Drugs and Alcohol Chat day, which gives students the opportunity to ask NIDA scientists about drug and alcohol use and effects, and substance and alcohol use disorders. More information about National Drug and Alcohol Facts Week and events hosted in your community can be found at NIDA’s website. If you or a loved one is struggling with substance use disorder, please contact the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Program’s helpline at 1-800-662-HELP for treatment options.

Nurses are critical members of the immunization team and have a powerful role to play in human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. The National HPV Vaccination Roundtable created the HPV Prevention: Nurses Get it Done! toolkit as an educational resource for nurses at all practice levels to empower confident initiation and completion of the HPV vaccination series. With this toolkit, nurses have easy access to educational materials including:

• HPV 101 for immunizers
• Answers to commonly asked questions about HPV vaccination
• Tips and tools to help manage shot discomfort
• Knowledge checks and practice prompts to help learners feel confident in what they learned

Modern Healthcare reports that the number of nurse practitioners in the U.S. grew at an unprecedented rate, from around 91,000 in 2010 to 190,000 in 2017. Nurse practitioners are filling a primary care void, particularly in rural areas, offering a more convenient option for families in remote locations as fewer medical school graduates pursue family physician roles over other higher-paying specialties.

Visits to primary care providers by adults under the age of 65 dropped by nearly 25 percent from 2008 to 2016. Furthermore, adults who went at least a year without a single visit to a primary care provider increased from about 38 percent to 46 percent in that period. Read more.

Patients in Pennsylvania facing the most serious stage of cancer will no longer be forced to try cheaper drugs before their insurance covers other, more expensive treatments. The state House on Tuesday gave final approval to a bill that would abolish the heavily criticized “fail first” approach for stage IV cancer, which requires patients to show no improvement with cheaper, insurance-approved drugs before moving on to more innovative approaches.  Read more.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has published a Program Assistance Letter (PAL) recognizing the potential for telehealth to expand and improve access to health center patients. The PAL clarifies how health centers can utilize telehealth within their scope of project, how such services should be documented and when services may be considered an “Other Line of Business.” There are a number of issues that health centers need to consider when providing services via telehealth including provider licensure, informed consent, fraud and abuse laws, billing and payments and liability concerns. The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services payment policy currently limits FQHC/RHC telehealth to telepsychiatry.

Cultural competency and “Know Your Rights” training are some of the services available through Compass Immigration Legal Services (CILS), a 501c3 agency founded recently in southcentral Pennsylvania. CILS primarily provides family-based and humanitarian immigration services to those most in need. However, CILS also offers services to organizations such as healthcare facilities that serve immigrants of all cultures. Fees for all clients are based on an income-dependent sliding fee scale. For more information, see the company fact sheet or call John Leedock at 1-866-ASK-CILS.