Peter Millard presents at National Institutes of Health conference in Bethesda, Maryland

Peter Millard, M.D., Ph.D., adjunct professor in UNE's School of Community and Population Health, was invited to speak at a conference sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, titled, “Vitamin D: Moving Toward Evidence-based Decision Making in Primary Care,” on December 2 –3 in Bethesda, Maryland. The conference aimed to discuss the value of testing for vitamin D deficiency and treating it with supplements.

Millard presented data from a national database extracted from the Athena electronic medical record involving 900,000 doctor-visits per month, showing a high level of Vitamin D testing among primary care physicians. Millard stated that the high level of testing being conducted at high cost for supplements  with uncertain benefits was a less efficient strategy than conducting definitive research, which would be far cheaper in the long run.