Retail Clinics

WASHINGTON — The Council for Responsible Nutrition on Monday announced plans for a joint education effort with the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Foundation to help raise the level of awareness within the supplement industry and with consumers about the valuable role of nurse practitioners in the quest for good health.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The healthcare-reform bill promised to dramatically expand coverage for Americans, but healthcare consumer confidence hasn’t necessarily kept up, according to data released Monday by Thomson Reuters.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Caremark's MinuteClinic has entered into an agreement with the National Patient Safety Foundation to become the nation's first retail clinic provider to implement the Ask Me 3 health literacy program.

MinuteClinic will launch the program in early 2011 in its approximately 500 medical clinics located inside select CVS/pharmacy stores in 26 states and the District of Columbia.

WAYNE, N.J. — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new oral contraceptive developed by Bayer.

Safyral is a combination of Yasmin, also developed by Bayer, with 451 mcg levomefolate calcium, which is a B vitamin known as a folate. It is the second oral contraceptive from Bayer that features folate.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — In a major alliance to foster preventive health in the United States, Walgreens has partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services to provide free flu vaccinations to as many as 350,000 low-income and uninsured Americans.

Walgreens will provide more than $10 million worth of vouchers for free flu shots, which HHS will help distribute.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — The Little Clinic has appointed Eileen Myers as director of prevention and health management. She will be responsible for leading the health-and-wellness initiatives and for overseeing the rollout of an expanded scope of services for the clinic operator.

WASHINGTON — According to a new report released Friday by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a provision in the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that requires employers to provide nursing breaks and a private, sanitary place to express breast milk for most mothers employed on an hourly basis will drive breast-feeding rates up by 4% in the first six months. That translates into as many as 165,000 new moms breast-feeding each year, or more than 1 million new moms in six years, noted Robert Drago, director of research with IWPR.

NEW YORK — Community-based healthcare models, and the nurse practitioners who work within them, are particularly helpful in assisting diabetes patients with such underlying health conditions as depression, according to a recent study published on Nurse.com.