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Practice Transformation

Telehealth boom opened the door to hybrid models
Telehealth is increasingly incorporated in hospitals’ digital roadmaps, according to speakers at the annual HIMSS health care conference. That’s good news for proponents of hybrid care models, who cite the value of meeting patients. The use of hybrid models aligns with the shift to value-based care, Healthcare Dive reports. If providers have a certain amount of funds to take care of a specific population, instead of being paid on a per-visit basis, they can use whichever delivery methods are most effective based on that populations’ clinical presentation. (Healthcare Dive)
Generic drug shortages ahead
The closing of a Teva Pharmaceuticals plant in California could spell shortages of 24 generic sterile injectable drugs, including five essential medications, according to the End Drug Shortages Alliance (EDSA). EDSA called on group purchasing organizations to formulate strategies to provide more redundancy for essential medications. Clinicians should practice good stewardship when ordering, prescribing, and administering the affected drugs. And the FDA should expedite approval of any applications for drugs affected by the plant closure—or consider importation. (CIDRAP)

Evidence & Innovation

Kids, caregivers can’t tell if inhaler is empty
Pediatric patients and their caregivers cannot reliably identify when their inhaler is empty, according to a study involving 157 children with asthma and their caregivers, published in the BMJ journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. Nearly 74% could not identify when an inhaler was empty. The authors argue that regulators should mandate dose counters on all inhalers, pharmaceutical companies should improve their educational information regarding identification of empty inhalers. (MedscapeBMJ Archives of Disease in Childhood)

Policy Solutions

Medicaid directories don’t reflect reality
Insurer directories may overstate the availability of doctors for Medicaid patients, according to a study in Health Affairs. About 16% of adult primary care physicians listed in Medicaid managed care networks filed no Medicaid claims in a year. This “raises concerns that private insurers may be ‘padding’ the Medicaid managed care networks.” About a third of outpatient primary care and specialist physicians contracted with Medicaid managed care plans in their sample saw fewer than 10 Medicaid beneficiaries in a year. “Our findings suggest that current network adequacy standards might not reflect actual access.” (Health Affairs)
FDA approves limited imports from Canada
Pharmacists and drug wholesalers can import certain prescription medicines from Canada for up to two years as part of state programs designed to lower drug costs, according to final FDA guidance. Both the Biden and Trump administrations embraced limited importation to bring down health costs, Axios reports. However, many experts view the policy as having limited impact. (Axios)
AMA won’t support opioid training legislation
The Medication Access and Training Expansion Act would require doctors complete a one-time, eight-hour training course on treating patients with opioid and other substance use disorders as a condition of being able to prescribe controlled substances. It has the support of nearly every doctors’ group that focuses on addiction treatment—except the AMA. In a letter to lawmakers, the AMA explains that its position stems from its long-standing opposition to lawmakers imposing federal mandates on the practice of medicine. Its resistance is drawing criticism, STAT reports. (STAT News)

In Case You Missed It!

GTMRx Workgroup Update
On May 31, Sarah Billups, Pharm.D., BCPS, associate professor, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Chelsea Ganger, program specialist, University of Colorado Medicine, Office of Value Based Performance?, presented to the GTMRx Payment and Policy Solutions Workgroup about the Primary Care First (PCF) model and University of Colorado Medicine’s experience in transitioning from Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) to PCF.
GTMRx Recommendations and Comments to HCPLAN
To inform federal policy, the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network (HCPLAN) — of which GTMRx is a supporting member — sought feedback on its definition of “accountable care” and the Accountable Care Commitment Curve. HCPLAN’s definition is as follows: “Accountable care aligns care teams to help realize the best achievable health outcomes for all through comprehensive, high-value, affordable, longitudinal, person-centered care.” The curve is illustrated here. GTMRx has shared our recommendations and comments (which were due on June 2), and we encourage you to echo and support our recommendations to advance services that will optimize medication use (CMM) as part of all ACO offerings, emphasizing the value and importance of an interprofessional team working in collaborative practice alongside the patient and their clinician(s) and the importance of a person-centered, accountable medication use process designed to ensure that all medications used are appropriate, effective, safe and taken as intended and that the patient is willing and able to take those medications. (HCPLANGTMRx recommendations)
Last Thursday: Capps moderated APG panel
Thursday, June 2, Katherine Capps GTMRx co-founder and executive director, moderated a panel discussion, “Leverage Medication Management Services to Achieve the Quadruple Aim,” at America’s Physician Groups Annual Conference 2022. The panelists were Michael Stiffman, MD, MSPH, of HealthPartners Medical Group; Peter Teichman, MD, MPH, of Asante Physician Partners; Maisha Draves, MD, MPH, of The Permanente Medical Group; Bob Matthews of  MediSync. They discussed how expanding the role of clinical pharmacists improves efficiency and effectiveness of person-centered, team-based care; eases the primary care workload; improves patient outcomes; and decreases total cost of care.
Join us June 15 12-1 pm ET for a webinar
Building, Managing and Sustaining Your CMM Practice
Where is CMM available? What quality measures are being used to evaluate the value of CMM? What do CMM staffing models look like? How mature are CMM practices and what are the various needs based on stages of maturity?
GTMRx is developing a growing registry of CMM practices to gauge availability of these services across the country! This is an important and exciting contribution, and we invite you to learn more about this work and opportunities as this registry expands.
As a sneak peak of this important work, GTMRx workgroup leadership will highlight preliminary findings of the National Registry of CMM Practices© by the GTMRx Institute and feature real-world examples of CMM in practice to showcase the maturation of practice:
  • Early stage CMM practice (1-2 years)
  • Mid-level stage CMM practice (10+)
  • Fully mature CMM practice (20+)
Join in with your questions during the panel discussion. Learn from organizations at various lengths of maturity shedding light on the benefits of a more widely adoption of CMM and the challenges of getting there.
Register here.

Celebrating 3 Years of Impact: GTMRx Institute Turns 3!

The Get The Medications Right Institute (GTMRx) is celebrating 3 years of impact and advancement of our goals. Now, more than ever we remain committed and anchored in our mission and goals to:
  • A personalized, patient-centered, systematic and coordinated approach to medication use will vastly improve outcomes and reduce overall health care costs.
  • We must align systems of care to integrate comprehensive medication management, engaging patients to ensure that they are willing and able to take those medications that are indicated, effective, and safe, to optimize their outcomes.
  • We need immediate delivery system, payment, and policy transformation to streamline clinical trials and reduce costs of bringing drugs to market while enabling successful, broad-scale adoption of integrated, comprehensive medication management (CMM) services.
  • Appropriate diagnosis and access to advanced diagnostics with companion/complementary and pharmacogenetics (PGx) testing is essential to target correct therapy.
  • Success requires team-based, patient-centered care models that recognize appropriately skilled clinical pharmacists as medication experts who work in collaborative practice with physicians and other providers.
Thank you to all who have joined us and aided in our mission to advance personalized, patient centered, team-based care. If you aren’t already a part of the Institute, you can join us by agreeing to our belief statements here: https://gtmr.org/become-a-signing-member/
A Comprehensive Overview of the Institute, It’s Vision, Mission and Leadership
The Get the Medications Right Institute is working to decrease misuse, overuse and underuse of medications and avoid waste by advancing comprehensive medication management to ensure appropriate and personalized use of medications and gene therapies. Learn more in this brochure.
Interested in supporting our work?
Please contact Jeff Hanson (e: [email protected])
Join us to be part of meaningful change
Irma, like many others, struggles as a result of our current trial-and-error approach to medication. That is why we advocate for a new, comprehensive approach to medication use and prescribing. As a non-profit 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organization, the GTMRx Institute and Foundation relies on funding from our supporting members. We ask that you consider becoming a Supporting Signing Member so we can continue to provide relevant, timely resources to get the medications right!
If you’re interested in supporting the Institute or Foundation at a higher level, please contact us. Your dollars will bring about meaningful change for people like Irma.

Become a Supporting Member Today

AmazonSmile is an easy way for 0.5% of your qualified purchases go to the GTMRx Foundation at no cost to you. And signing up is simple—go to smile.amazon.com and select “Get the Medications Right Foundation” as your charity of choice. If you prefer to directly donate instead, you can do so here.
Adding the foundation on AmazonSmile will help us continue to provide no cost educational webinars, issue briefs, weekly news briefs and promote the need for transformation of our current system of medication use through social media campaigns.
The GTMRx Institute is supported by our Founding Funders, Executive Members and Strategic Partners.
  See past issues of our weekly news brief here
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