U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Update - Opportunity for Public Comment

Behavioral Counseling Interventions to Promote a Healthful Diet and Physical Activity


The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is inviting public comment on its draft recommendation statement on behavioral counseling interventions to promote a healthful diet and physical activity for cardiovascular disease prevention in adults. This draft recommendation is an update of the USPSTF 2002 recommendation on behavioral counseling in primary care to promote physical activity and a partial update of its 2003 recommendation on behavioral counseling in primary care to promote a healthy diet.( the part of the recommendation that dealt with counseling patients at risk of cardiovascular disease was not updated at this time. )

To provide comments, please go to http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/tfcomment.htm. The opportunity to comment on this draft recommendations statement is available until March 22, 2011.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is working to make its recommendations clearer and more useful. This is part of its ongoing effort to keep its work and methods clear to the public it serves. The USPSTF is a national, independent panel of medical experts that makes recommendations, based on scientific evidence, to primary care doctors and other health care providers about which clinical preventive services they should offer their patients.

Physician comment sought on proposed Joint Commission Primary Care Home Requirements

The Joint Commission (TJC) is developing a Primary Care Home (PCH) designation as an optional add-on to its Ambulatory Care Accreditation Program. As part of this process, TJC has released for review Proposed Standards outlining requirements with which ambulatory care centers seeking PCH designation must comply.


A preliminary analysis suggests that the Proposed Standards are not entirely congruent with AMA policy on the patient-centered medical home as adopted by the AMA House of Delegates. In particular, the Proposed Standards do not appear to require that the PCH be led by a physician.

All physicians are encouraged to review the Proposed Standards and respond to TJC by completing a short survey on the TJC Web site. Physicians may also submit general comments to TJC via the Web site. The deadline to complete the survey or submit comments is March 14.

http://www.jointcommission.org/standards_information/field_reviews.aspx?StandardsFieldReviewId=4ebBa9OiwpyfXwx3k3wI39cTCPh7XyqNM%2fvSme1yjzg%3d