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Barriers to Lyme disease Treatment: What the data is showing

0.25 CME. In the first study of its kind, two Lyme disease experts gathered data on a question frequently asked by tick-borne disease patients: Why is it so hard to find a Lyme-treating physician, when the need is so great? There are 476,000 new Lyme cases annually, reported from all 50 states, per the CDC. This course answers these questions based on data from a survey of 155 clinicians from 30 states who treat Lyme patients. The study’s goal was to identify the problems that clinicians face when treating these patients, a first step to overcoming these obstacles.

Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD

Instructor

Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD
Education Co-director, Invisible International

Description

In the first study of its kind, two Lyme disease experts gathered data on a question frequently asked by tick-borne disease patients: Why is it so hard to find a Lyme-treating physician, when the need is so great? There are 476,000 new Lyme cases annually, reported from all 50 states, per the CDC. This course answers these questions based on data from a survey of 155 clinicians from 30 states who treat Lyme patients. The study’s goal was to identify the problems that clinicians face when treating these patients, a first step to overcoming these obstacles.

Learning objectives

Understand the inadequacies of current treatment related to persistent symptoms in 44% of the patients presenting with erythema migrans rash
List three barriers to treatment physicians face when working to help Lyme patients
List three reasons physicians report as a cause of diagnostic delays in patients with Lyme disease

This session, Barriers to Lyme disease Treatment: What the data is showing, is approved for 0.25 enduring AAFP Prescribed credits.

AAFP Prescribed credit is accepted by the American Medical Association as equivalent to AMA PRA Category 1 credit(s)™ toward the AMA Physician’s Recognition Award. When applying for the AMA PRA, Prescribed credit earned must be reported as Prescribed, not as Category 1.

The AAFP has reviewed One Health Medical Education for a Changing Climate and deemed it acceptable for AAFP credit. Term of approval is from 01/02/2024 to 01/01/2025. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

References

Johnson LB, Maloney EL. Access to Care in Lyme Disease: Clinician Barriers to Providing Care. Healthcare. 2022; 10(10):1882. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10101882

Aucott JN, Yang T, Yoon I, Powell D, Geller SA, Rebman AW. Risk of post-treatment Lyme disease in patients with ideally-treated early Lyme disease: A prospective cohort study. Int J Infect Dis. 2022 Mar;116:230-237. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2022.01.033. Epub 2022 Jan 21. PMID: 35066160.

https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/humancases.html

Course Content

Video

Quiz (3 questions)

Course evaluation

About Instructor

Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD

Dr. Elizabeth Maloney is a Minnesota family physician. She received her medical degree from the University of Minnesota in 1986 and completed her residency in family medicine at the University in 1989. Early in her career, she practiced in Guam, where lab and other testing modalities were often unavailable. It was here that she honed her clinical skills and learned to translate history and exam findings into clinical diagnoses and treatment plans. Dr. Maloney began reviewing the scientific literature on tick-borne diseases in earnest in 2006. Her initial review was an attempt to understand why some patients did not present or respond as described in review articles and conference lectures. When she discovered that Borrelia burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme disease, is a complex organism, the immune response to it is nuanced and there are gaps in the clinical understanding of Lyme disease, Dr. Maloney changed her focus towards educating medical professionals about tick-borne illnesses. Dr. Maloney began providing accredited continuing medical education courses on Lyme disease for physicians in 2007 and continues to do so. She has also developed similar education for nurses and mental health providers. She has published several papers in peer-reviewed medical journals and is frequently invited to speak to medical professionals across the US. She has served as a consultant to private organizations and government agencies in the US and Canada. In February 2018 she was selected to serve on the Pathogenesis, Transmission and Treatment subcommittee of the federally mandated Tick-borne Disease Working Group. Additionally, she recently accepted an invitation to serve on a peer review committee for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

12 Courses

Barriers to Lyme disease Treatment: What the data is showing

Course Content

About Instructor

Elizabeth L. Maloney, MD

Course Includes