"Genetics & Your Practice" Online is Launched

Free Web Site Helps Busy Health Care Professionals

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., JUNE 22, 2004 – A free Web site that provides practical “how-to” information and tools to help health care professionals integrate genetics into their  practices has been launched by the March of Dimes.

“Genetics & Your Practice Online” (marchofdimes.com/gyponline), developed by the March of Dimes with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is intended for use by physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners, as well as other health care providers.  The site illustrates step-by-step processes for taking an accurate family history, genetic testing and screening, and referring to genetic services.  Tools for implementing these processes are easily downloaded off the site, making it accessible for a variety of professionals and practical to use.

“Genetics plays a central role in health care today,” says Ricka Wolman, M.D., M.P.H.,  associate medical director of the March of Dimes.  “'Genetics & Your Practice Online' helps busy professionals make good use of their time to improve their skills in the practical side of genetics.  This also will enhance the quality of exchange between professionals and patients.”

“The Internet provides an accessible platform for distributing ‘Genetics & Your Practice Online,'” says Robin E. Mockenhaupt, Ph.D., M.P.H., interim senior vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  “By supporting this, we're helping the March of Dimes get one step closer to its goal of improving maternal and infant health in America.”

A customizable feature of the new site allows health care professionals to receive content relevant to the type of patients they see, for example, preconception/prenatal, or infants/children, or adolescents/adults.  Free continuing medical education credits can be obtained through interactive case studies due to a joint sponsorship between the March of Dimes and Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care.  It concentrates its grantmaking in four goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to quality health care at reasonable cost; to improve the quality of care and support for people with chronic health conditions; to promote healthy communities and lifestyles; and to reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse -- tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs.