Practice Transformation
Employers lack transparency into specialty drug outcomes
A Pharmaceutical Strategies Group report finds that specialty drugs continue to be a top focus for plan sponsors, at least in part because of costs. And as it stands, sponsors don’t have much insight into the impact of such drugs. “More than 80% of plan sponsors have access to reporting on their total healthcare costs,” PSG’s Tracy Spencer said in a prepared statement. “However, clinical outcomes of adherence, persistency and clinical efficacy were reported less often (71% and 31%, respectively). Employee productivity had the lowest reporting rate: 23%.” (Benefits Pro; report announcement)
Think you have ADHD? TikTok may help you get drugs
Cerebral has been in the news, but it is just one of the dozens of new “buzzy” online startups offering easy access to mental health medication, the New York Times reports. As these sites were gaining traction, regulators were — because of the pandemic — relaxing rules and allowing clinicians to prescribe stimulants and other medications online without an initial in-person evaluation. Even more concerning, some of these companies promoting ADHD meds via TikTok and other social media. (New York Times)
Evidence & Innovation
Taking patients off opioids too quickly is dangerous
Rapid dose decrease — that exceeds current chronic pain management guidelines — among patients receiving high-dose, long-term opioid therapy(HDLTOT) is associated with increased risk of opioid-related harm, according to research published in JAMA Network Open. “These findings reinforce concerns about the safety of precipitous opioid dose reductions for patients receiving HDLTOT and highlight the need for clinicians to monitor patients closely in the long term when reducing opioid doses.” (JAMA Network Open)
Pharmacy robots aren’t helping, warn doctors
As pharmacy chains rely on automation to fill prescriptions, some raise patient safety concerns, Becker’s Hospital Review reports. Among them: Matthew Sewell, MD, PharmD, and Purvi S. Parikh, MD. Parikh argues that these robots aren’t making work more efficient for pharmacists: “They’re not planning to use the robot to help an already overworked profession, but instead it’s adding more on their plate.” Sewell agrees: “CVS, Walgreens are pushing for pharmacists to have more and more responsibilities that benefit the bottom line of that [chain] drugstore, but it’s not benefiting patients because it’s creating issues with safety.” (Becker’s Hospital Review)
Acute care telehealth visits lead to more follow-up
Telehealth appointments for acute conditions were more likely than in-person appointments to result in a follow-up visit, according to research published in JAMA Network Open. In contrast, the findings — based on data from nearly 41 million patients — showed similar follow-up rates between initial telehealth and in-person visits for patients with chronic conditions. “The contrasting patterns of follow-up care among members receiving telehealth for acute and chronic conditions have implications for health services during and after the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to researchers. (mHealth Intelligence; JAMA Network Open)
Policy Solutions
VBC drives interoperability
Value-based care, in tandem with the 21st Century Cures Act (which requires payers and providers to exchange data) represent the greatest advancement in interoperability since the concept first emerged, according to Healthcare Finance. “It is essential for payers and providers to get access to clinical data and utilize that clinical data to improve the way they provide care,” says Joerg Schwarz, head of healthcare interoperability strategy at cloud software company Infor. Providers now have an incentive to actively manage the health of populations they’re responsible for, but “they can only do that if they have good data.” (Healthcare Finance)
In Case You Missed It!
ACTION NEEEDED BY June 2, 2022
To inform federal policy, the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network (HCPLAN) — of which GTMRx is a supporting member — is seeking 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, 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. (HCPLAN; GTMRx recommendations)
Thursday: Capps to moderate APG panel
This Thursday, June 2, Katherine Capps GTMRx co-founder and executive director, will moderate a panel discussion, “Leverage Medication Management Services to Achieve the Quadruple Aim,” at America’s Physician Groups Annual Conference 2022. The panelists are 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 will discuss 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.
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.
