Happy Wednesday! Here’s your NCMS Morning Rounds.

April 28, 2021

Get an Insider’s Perspective on the NCMS’ Medical Team Task Force’s Work

Two legislative proposals — SB345-PA Team-based Practice, which the NCMS supports, and SB249/HB277-The SAVE Act, which we oppose, — are being considered at the NC General Assembly this session. Both aim to modify the regulation of Advanced Practice Providers (APP), albeit in very different ways. The NCMS’ Medical Team Task Force was charged several years ago with examining the current laws regulating APPs and whether the regulations need modification.

Please join the conversation on Wednesday, May 5 at 6 p.m. when Medical Team Task Force chair, Robert ‘Charlie’ Monteiro, MD, will review the task force’s charge, the key issues it has addressed thus far and its recommendations to the NCMS Board of Directors on PA team-based care.

Register here for this free, hour-long webinar.

NCMS Joins Other Groups in Urging Ban on Flavored Tobacco Products

The NCMS has joined with public health, health equity and other groups to urge the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to remove menthol cigarettes, flavored e-cigarettes and certain other flavored tobacco products from the market. The FDA has committed itself to respond by tomorrow, Thursday, April 29, to a citizen petition filed seven years ago calling on it to prohibit menthol flavored cigarettes.

As outlined in a letter to North Carolina’s Congressional representatives, the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee in 2011 and the agency’s own scientific review in 2013 documented the substantial harms to public health caused by menthol cigarettes.

Tobacco use is a major contributor to four of the leading causes of death among Black Americans – heart disease, cancer, stroke and COPD. Youth e-cigarette use is another serious public health concern.

Read the full letter here.

April is National Minority Health Month

During National Minority Health Month, the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) and federal and non-federal partners will focus on the impact COVID-19 is having on racial and ethnic minority and American Indian and Alaska Native communities and underscore the need for these vulnerable communities to get vaccinated as more vaccines become available. The theme for National Minority Health Month is #VaccineReady. Learn more here.

Visit the website (English | Spanish) to access resources to spread the word on social media and to sign up to receive email updates, news and activities.

In the News

Does poor sleep mean a higher dementia risk? Here’s what a new study found, Advisory Board, 4-26-21

Learning Opportunity

Tobacco Free Roadmap: Resources to Help Your Organization Prepare to Be Tobacco Free, Thursday, April 29 from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Beginning July 1, 2022, as part of the NC Medicaid Transformation, all physical and behavioral health facilities that contract with Medicaid must be tobacco-free. Prepare your behavioral health organization to go tobacco free.

Learn more and register here.

If you have policies you’d like your NCMS Board of Directors to consider, please complete the Board input form here. Thanks for reading!