Doctors are still unsure about what causes fibromyalgia, a condition where a person feels pain despite having no signs of physical injuries or inflammation. However, there is a wide range of natural and medical treatments available that may help with the symptoms.
This article looks at the various ways a person can relieve the pain of fibromyalgia using medical treatments, medications, home remedies, and natural products.
Read the full article at Medical News Today
Melville, NY – January 28, 2018 – ProCare Pain Solutions, a division of North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA) announced today that an innovative research study it conducted in 2016 and 2017 has been published in the January 3, 2018 edition of the prestigious Pain Practice journal. The article, entitled Clinical Characteristics of Fibromyalgia in a Chronic Pain Population, is the first in a series of three underwritten by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and can be viewed here: https://napaanesthesia.com/files/Gostine_et_al-2018-Pain_Practice.pdf
The ingenious goal of the study was to determine if diagnostic information on fibromyalgia could be elicited from data already routinely gathered from patient electronic health records (EHR). After reviewing thousands of patient records, the results revealed that multiple co-morbidities, diagnoses, musculoskeletal procedures and treatment intensity correlated well with the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. It suggests that a predictive model could be developed to identify the diagnosis earlier in the course of the disease process, leading to earlier and more proactive treatment.
Fibromyalgia is a common condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, joint stiffness, and fatigue, and can be difficult to diagnose. The gold standard tests, the Widespread Pain Index (WPI) and the Symptom Severity Index (SSI) are rarely employed in primary care or in pain clinics, and are difficult to integrate into general electronic health records. This work paves the way for the effective use of underutilized ‘dark’ data in the EHR to diagnose fibromyalgia, and possibly other conditions, that can be of value in the care of patients.
“This article and the research done at ProCare Pain Solutions highlights our commitment to provide the best care possible for our patients as well as educate our colleagues, and advance the profession of pain medicine,” said Fred Davis, MD, one of the lead authors on the study.
Additional work has been undertaken by ProCare Pain Solutions to develop an algorithm that can be incorporated into their practice EHR as a clinical decision-making support tool, alerting physicians to the possibility of fibromyalgia. It is an example of how ProCare’s EHRs are incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) elements, providing more value to our practices and better care for our patients. Furthermore, the algorithms developed will be able to be readily be applied to other practice EHRs.
About ProCare Pain Solutions
Originally created in 1994 to service the management needs of ProCare Co-Founders Drs. Fred Davis and
Mark Gostine’s clinical practice, ProCare began and continues to build on the foundation of helping local practices connect with their surrounding communities and deliver exceptional patient care.
Serving Michigan communities for the past 20+ years, the company has been involved in practice development and management, and medical research. ProCare is also responsible for the creation of the PRISM™ Care Management System, a medical intelligence system that incorporates a multidimensional pain health and outcomes tool to assess the unique personal pain experience of each patient. In 2016, ProCare joined North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA), one of the leading single-specialty anesthesia and perioperative management companies in the US, to expand the organization’s efforts on helping patients across the nation manage and alleviate acute and chronic pain through a data-driven patient experience system. For more information, go to www.procarepain.com.
About North American Partners in Anesthesia
As a clinician-led organization, North American Partners in Anesthesia (NAPA) is redefining healthcare, delivering unsurpassed excellence to its partners and patients every day. In three decades, NAPA has grown to become one of the nation’s leading single-specialty anesthesia and perioperative management companies, serving more than one million patients annually in more than 200 healthcare facilities throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Southeast. For more information, please visit www.napaanesthesia.com.
About The Doctors Company
Founded and led by physicians, The Doctors Company (www.thedoctors.com) is the nation’s largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer, with 80,000 members and over $4 billion in assets, and is rated A by A.M. Best Company and Fitch Ratings. To learn more about data-driven insights and to stay up to date on industry trends, follow and subscribe to The Doctors Company on Twitter (@doctorscompany), YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.
Media Contact: Barbara Cerrone
North American Partners in Anesthesia
P: (516) 532-6715
E: bcerrone@napaanesthesia.com
Fibromyalgia frequently goes undiagnosed for a very long time, but clinicians may already have clues to its detection, hidden in patients’ existing electronic medical records.
Did you know that 15 million adults suffer from depression? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, depression is the fourth leading cause of disability and is projected to become even greater in the future.
Pain and depression go hand-in-hand – leading to lower quality of life, reduced work function and increased healthcare utilization. In fact, we’ve found that 50% of our pain clinic patients have depression. Caring for these patients is complicated, presenting an urgent need to develop new treatments that can significantly improve their lives.
Through extensive research, ketamine, an IV anesthetic drug developed in the 1970’s, has been found to have new applications for certain types of chronic pain and depression that is resistant to other treatment.
Recognizing the need to bring this treatment to more of our patients, ProCare Pain Solutions formed a multidisciplinary work group including a team of nationally recognized pain specialists from within our organization and external renowned psychiatrists and pain specialists. This past February, the group gathered at NAPA’s corporate headquarters in Melville, NY, to review scientific literature and develop standardized guidelines and protocols related to KIT to be implemented across NAPA and ProCare’s network of pain medicine practices.
As innovators in pain medicine, several of our pain management physicians already have extensive knowledge and experience using ketamine in the pain clinic setting settings. Seacoast Pain Institute of New England and Michigan Pain Consultants will be the first practices in our network to be rolling out the new standardized guidelines and develop locally-based marketing plans to inform the community of ProCare’s KIT services available. Through our PRISMTM care management system, our physicians have the ability to gather clinical outcomes and create a data informed value-based approach to care to further refine such treatments and bring the best results to our patients. Over the coming months, ketamine infusion therapy will be offered at other affiliated ProCare pain practices – bringing relief to a new population of our patients.
Grand Rapids, MI – June 13, 2017 – ProCare Pain Solutions, a NAPA Company, formerly known as ProCare Systems, Inc., is proud to announce the launch of its comprehensive rebranding effort. In addition to the adoption of a new brand and logo, ProCare Pain Solutions has simultaneously debuted its redesigned website, procarepain.com which showcases the organization’s strategic approach and key service offerings. The rebrand is an extension of the company’s partnership with NAPA to expand its efforts to help patients across the nation manage and alleviate acute and chronic pain through a data-driven patient experience system.