"The Effect of Nurse Managers on Heart Failure Complications in a Minority Community: A Randomized Trial," Annals of Internal Medicine: The study, by Jane Sisk of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and colleagues, examines the effects of nurse-managed care for minority heart failure patients. For the study, researchers randomly assigned 406 heart failure patients, most of whom were black or Hispanic, to either a nurse manager -- who counseled patients on their conditions and diets, provided physician feedback, ordered tests and helped change prescription drugs as needed -- or usual care, in which patients received consumer guidelines for managing heart failure. The study finds that patients in the nurse-managed group had fewer hospitalizations and could perform everyday activities better than those in the other group (Sisk et al., "The Effect of Nurse Managers on Heart Failure Complications in a Minority Community: A Randomized Trial," Annals of Internal Medicine, 8/15).