While the present case count for Ebola in the U.S. and the likelihood of a significant outbreak of the disease both remain extremely low, out of an abundance of caution and to support the health and safety of our patients and staff, we have developed Ebola screening protocols and patient education materials that you can expect to see and hear about as you visit or call our practices.

CALL US FIRST

Should you or a family member who is a patient meet any of the criteria below,

Influenza, sometimes simply called “flu,” is a serious illness. Every flu season is different, and influenza infection can affect people differently. Even healthy people can get very sick from the flu and spread it to others. Therefore, the single best way to protect against the flu is to get vaccinated each year.

Many people have questions about the flu and the flu vaccine. Dr. Ben Kruskal, Chief of Infectious Disease at Harvard Vanguard,

The following is testimony given to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health by Dr. Ben Kruskal, chief of infectious disease at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, on Thursday, October 23.

Good afternoon Chairman Sanchez, Chairman Keenan and members of the Public Health Committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to testify. My name is Dr. Ben Kruskal. I am the chief of infectious disease at Harvard Vanguard and I am responsible for coordinating infectious disease related policies and procedures across all of Atrius Health.

John crossed the finish line of the 2014 Boston Marathon in 4 hours and 32 minutes, but his journey actually started a year earlier.

Hoping to get out of Boston ahead of Marathon and Red Sox traffic to coach lacrosse in Wayland, John, General Counsel for The Life is good Company, left the company’s Boylston Street office just after 2:30 p.m. on April 15, 2013. He was strolling down Boylston Street to get his car from a parking garage when the first bomb went off.

The Atrius Health medical groups including Harvard Vanguard are participating in the Mass HIway, a secure statewide computer database that assists in connecting your healthcare providers so your health information can be more easily shared between them.

The Mass HIway does not store patients’ medical records or any health information; instead, and only with your consent, you allow your healthcare organization to send demographic information about you to the Mass HIway to be stored in a secure database.

Recently, Atrius Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Lopez took part in a workshop in Washington, DC hosted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council entitled “The Future of Home Health Care.” He joined experts from across the healthcare industry to examine trends affecting Medicare’s home health care coverage and the changes needed to optimally serve patients and the U.S. health care system in the future.

Whether you want to improve your overall health, lose weight, demonstrate your compassion for animals, or help the environment, there are numerous reasons to eat fewer foods that come from animals. If you have thought about this before but didn’t know how to start, take a moment to read this story – I hope it will give you some ideas and inspiration to get started.

Talking to seriously ill patients about their prognosis, the trajectory of their illness, and their treatment options can be a difficult conversation for clinicians to initiate. Patients are also uncomfortable proactively sharing their feelings on the topic with their physician or their families.  Because of the silence, there is typically a big gap between what a patient wants and what actually happens.

According to a Massachusetts Commission on End of Life Care/Massachusetts AARP survey done in 2005,

To our patients and visitors:

As you may have heard, a patient was briefly in the Braintree Harvard Vanguard office on Sunday 10/12 with a question raised of Ebola virus infection. At the moment, things are looking like the probability that this patient has Ebola is quite low.

The patient, who was clinically stable, was quickly ushered out of the building and into his own car to reduce any potential exposure of others,

The following is a statement that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center released on Sunday night about a patient being evaluated there that had been at our Braintree practice earlier in the day:

Earlier today, we had been asked to accept in transfer a patient who had reported traveling from Liberia. While Liberia is an area where Ebola is present, after our initial evaluation, this patient does not appear to meet CDC criteria to be considered someone at high risk for Ebola and the likelihood of Ebola Virus Disease is extremely low.