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Time to Collaborate with the FibroCollaborative Working Group

Forget GPs who don’t know anything about Fibro – we can now help them (although it is much more reassuring when they know their medical stuff)!

Four fibromyalgia specialists – Lesley M Arnold, Daniel J Clauw, L Jean Dunegan, and Dennis C Turk – have developed an educational framework that primary care doctors can use as a guide to best practices in fibromyalgia case management. Yippee!

The guide – A Framework for Fibromyalgia Management for Primary Care Providers - was published in the May 2012 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Although aimed at GPs. the guide is written clearly and succinctly enough to help us inform ourselves as it educates and guides our doctors.

Special features include:

1. A flow chart of key FM case management tasks and objectives.

2. A table of basic pharmaceutical therapy guidance – e.g., dosing considerations and possible outcomes/implications for each FDA-approved drug option mentioned.

4. Links to educational resources that are helpful to inform patients;

5. And, for physicians, links to 45 footnoted sources in the medical literature that provide ‘evidence-based’ background for many aspects of fibromyalgia and FM patient care discussed in the guide.

The new Framework for Fibromyalgia Management for Primary Care Providers is part of the FibroCollaborative Working Group’s 2010 Roadmap for Change – an initiative sponsored by Pfizer and supported by representatives of more than 20 fibromyalgia medical/professional and advocacy organisations across the US.