6 Reasons to Check Out Cleveland Clinic at ACG 2015

This year’s American College of Gastroenterology annual conference will focus on key trends important to your GI practice. We asked Cleveland Clinic gastroenterologist Carol Burke, MD, incoming president-elect of the American College of Gastroenterology, to identify these trends. Here’s what she had to say:

Improving quality and price – The transformation in healthcare incorporates a move away from pay-for- service toward paying for the value of the services provided. Value is a function of quality and cost. The ACG practice management course and sessions throughout the annual ACG meeting will provide an update on strategies and tools such as GIQuIC to ensure we have an armamentarium to maximize value to our patients.

Better polyp detection – The most well-attended sessions will focus on how to improve the quality of colonoscopy. Leading research on the impact of additional staff in the endo suite focusing on ADR, devices to improve polyp detection, and the impact of training and report cards to monitor and change physician performance will be reviewed.

Superbugs and endoscopy – Several patients undergoing endoscopy procedures have contracted infections from endoscopes including carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). Prevention of endoscopic infections is a key concern for gastroenterologists. Strategic approaches and panel discussion will be led by The Mount Sinai Hospital’s David A. Greenwald, MD, FACG, on Tuesday, Oct. 20.

Cleveland Clinic physicians and researchers will present dozens of research studies. Here is a sampling:

1. Predicting surgery – Jean-Paul Achkar, MD, led a team of researchers who developed an algorithm that accurately predicts the need for early surgery for patients with Crohn’s disease (CD). The implications include identifying patients who should receive aggressive CD treatment early in disease course.
2. Post-polypectomy intervals – Research by Sajan Jiv Singh Nagpal, MD, Madhusudhan Sanaka MD, Dr. Burke and others suggest that young patients with precancerous polyps can follow the same post-polypectomy surveillance recommendations as adults over 50 years, which are based upon their baseline polyp characteristics.
3. Aspirin may help nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) – Bashar Mohamad, MD, Ibrahim Hanouneh, MD, and Naim Alkhouri, MD, and co-authors will show the impact of daily aspirin use on liver steatosis in NAFLD patients.
4. Patients don’t know they have NAFLD – Alkhouri and others also will present research showing that the majority of patients undergoing liver transplant evaluation for cirrhosis were unaware of underlying NAFLD until they presented with features of portal hypertension.
5. Liver transplants, young adults and hepatitis C – Mohamad, Hanouneh and Alkhouri and Nizar Zein, MD will share research demonstrating that people who had hepatitis C in childhood experience low patient and graft survival following liver transplant, highlighting the need for aggressive diagnosis and treatment in young adults with HCV.
6. Upper endoscopy vs. angiographic embolization – Ari Garber, MD, Maged Rizk, MD, John Vargo, MD, MPH, and Sunguk Jang, MD, will present data supporting EGD for the first recurrent bleeding episode. In the study, hemostatis was 3.5 times more likely to be achieved vs. patients who received angiographic embolization.

Follow Dr. Burke on Twitter @burkegastrodoc and follow the conversation with Cleveland Clinic physicians on Twitter via the hashtag #ACG2015