AUGS Prolapse Consensus Conference Announced with Patient Advocates

Mesh Medical Device News Desk, October 16, 2016 ~ AUGS Prolapse Consensus Conference Announced. Patient Advocates work with industry for change.

The AUGS 2016 Prolapse Consensus Conference will be held November 10-11, 2016 in Baltimore, MD to “bring together thought leaders representing private and public stakeholders who are actively engaged in prolapse treatment and research to identify the current, critical steps required for improving treatment and reducing the impact of prolapse on women’s lives.”

Scientists and clinicians actively engaged in research or in the practice of women with pelvic floor disorders are invited to attend.  Stakeholders are invited too.  Who are stakeholders?

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Identified as the Stakeholders are:

*AUGS Investigators/researchers

*Funding Agencies

*Industry partners

*Patient Advocacy groups

Attendees will have an opportunity to help shape the future action plan by participating in working group sessions.
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Who are the patient advocacy groups?

Patient represents include Missy Lavender and Sherrie Palm, and their nonprofit organizations.

Former businesswoman, Lavender is the Executive Director of the Chicago-based Women's Health Foundation whose mission is to improve women’s pelvic health and wellness by, “Driving cutting-edge research initiatives,” as well as develop education and fitness programs and serve as a national resource on pelvic wellness.

The group was formed in 2004 after Ms. Lavender experienced POP, incontinence and sexual health issues.  And soon afterward the organization shifted from information around specific dysfunction to a focus of pelvic health “Below the Belt,” as they describe it, “now embraced by industry as a goal for women and girls.”

The  group recently partnered with HealthyWomen on a project which is supported by a corporate advisory board and Pfizer, Allergan, Poise, the Divacup, Osphena pill to treat dyspareunia made by Shionogi Inc. a Japanese drugmaker.   See the Corporate Advisory Board.

Sherrie Palm, based in Wisconsin, runs the nonprofit, APOPS Association for Pelvic Organ Prolapse. Filed as a nonprofit corporation with the state of Wisconsin in September 2010, her website provides information about POP and links to health professional members of AUGS.  She became an AUGS member in September 2012.  Palm continues to support and promote surgical mesh telling that surgery without mesh often fails in one to five years.

On her website she thanks sponsors Coloplast, Boston Scientific,  Thermi, Laborie, MD Custom RX, Incontrol, A Women’s Touch

Here is the APOPS page on mesh.  APOPS on Questions to ask your doctor about POP mesh repair.

Her organization is for women who have been diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse or suspect they are experiencing the symptoms.  She advocates surgery as one option for women, the one she chose to find relief.

Palm believes industry is part of the solution, which she calls "building bridges."

You can contact her for her fee schedule. She appears in this YouTube video.

She writes on October 12, 2016 in her blog:

“Last week I returned to home base following Astellas/AUA/Urology Care Foundation sponsored advocacy coalition round table in Baltimore. Advocacy coming together to generate positive change in policy is a good thing, especially when healthcare, industry, research, and academia participate in the process. Healthcare policy evolves slowly when one sector alone bangs the drum; it advances more effectively when voices from all sectors come together in a way that acknowledges patient voice is the cornerstone. If you want to know what the true impact of any condition is, ask the patient.”

AUGS Prolapse Consensus Conference

November 10, 11, 2016

Hilton Baltimore

401 West Pratt Street

Baltimore. MD

Here is the announcement
http://www.augs.org/p/cm/ld/fid=824