Pharmacist Review of Chronic Inhaler Therapy Appropriateness for Hospitalized Patients with COPD or Asthma.

INTRODUCTION: Patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease rely on inhaler therapy to reduce disease progression and exacerbation risk. Patients admitted to the hospital are at an increased risk for exacerbations and readmission if their inhaler therapy upon discharge is not aligned with current guidelines and/or affordable. OBJECTIVE: Assess the appropriateness of the chronic inhaler regimen for patients admitted to the hospital based on clinical practice guidelines and insurance coverage. METHODS: A sub-study was designed to analyze a cohort of a single-center, pragmatic, prospective randomized controlled trial at a large academic medical center. Patients admitted to a medicine service with a pharmacist and prescribed a long-acting inhaler were included. Participants randomized to a pharmacist-led intervention were assessed for inhaler appropriateness based on clinical guidelines and patient insurance. The objective of this sub-study is to assess the number of inhalers identified as inappropriate based on the pharmacist's review. A patient was considered to have an inappropriate inhaler regimen if any of their inhalers were inconsistent with guideline recommendations or not covered by insurance. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize appropriate inhaler use. RESULTS: The study pharmacist reviewed 552 unique inhalers for 348 patients. Overall, 42% of inhalers were inappropriate, affecting 50.3% of participants. 20% of inhalers were inappropriate based on insurance, 26% were inappropriate based on guidelines, and 7% were inappropriate based on both criteria. Recommendations were placed via a pharmacy consult for 198 patients (57%), most recommending an inhaler initiation (55%), followed by inhaler discontinuation (38%). CONCLUSION: A pharmacist-led review of chronic inhaler therapy for patients admitted to the hospital identified the need for a change in therapy based on financial or clinical guidelines in over half of the patients reviewed. Interventions to increase the appropriateness of prescribed inhalers are needed to reduce disease progression and disease exacerbation.

Exploring the Perceived Value of a Personalized Informatics Tool to Anticipate and Mitigate Patient Risk.

Health care systems are implementing a myriad of strategies to improve patient outcomes and reduce both adverse events and unplanned readmissions. These approaches include interventions related to people, processes, and technology. This article describes the development of a technology-based model in the form of an actionable risk profile, which was used by one inpatient surgical unit (people) during a daily care team briefing (process). The risk profile was evaluated for its perceived value to the care team as a method of organizing care and anticipating patients' needs. Preliminary findings of the proof of concept are presented along with recommendations for practice and research.

Effect of a Handover Tool on Efficiency of Care and Mortality for Interhospital Transfers.

BACKGROUND: Interhospital transfer is frequent, and transferred patients experience delays in the provision of care and higher mortality rates when compared to patients directly admitted. The interhospital handover is a key opportunity to improve care but has not been evaluated. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of a universal handover tool on timeliness of care, length of stay (LOS), and mortality among interhospital transfer patients. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS: Retrospective cohort of patients transferred to an academic medical center between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010 with interrupted time-series design. INTERVENTION: One-page handover tool containing information critical for immediate patient care instituted hospital-wide on July 1, 2010. The handover tool was completed by the transferring physician and available for review before patient arrival. MEASUREMENTS: Time-to-admission order entry, LOS after transfer, in-hospital mortality. RESULTS: There was no significant change in the time-to-admission order entry after implementation (47 minutes vs. 45 minutes, adjusted P = 0.94). There was a nonstatistically significant reduction in LOS after implementation (6.5 days vs. 5.8 days, adjusted P = 0.06). In-hospital mortality for transfer patients declined significantly in the postintervention period from 12.0% to 8.9% (adjusted odds ratio, 0.68; 95% confidence interval, 0.47 - 0.99, P = 0.04). There was no change in mortality for the concurrent control group. CONCLUSION: Implementation of a standardized handover tool for interhospital transfer was feasible and may be associated with significant reductions in length of stay and mortality. Widespread adoption of similar tools may improve outcomes in this high-risk population. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2017;12:23-28.

Code status and resuscitation options in the electronic health record.

AIM: The advance discussion and documentation of code-status is important in preventing undesired cardiopulmonary resuscitation and related end of life interventions. Code-status documentation remains infrequent and paper-based, which limits its usefulness. This study evaluates a tool to document code-status in the electronic health records at a large teaching hospital, and analyzes the corresponding data. METHODS: Encounter data for patients admitted to the Medical Center were collected over a period of 12 months (01-APR-2012-31-MAR-2013) and the code-status attribute was tracked for individual patients. The code-status data were analyzed separately for adult and pediatric patient populations. We considered 131,399 encounters for 83,248 adult patients and 80,778 encounters for 55,656 pediatric patients in this study. RESULTS: 71% of the adult patients and 30% of the pediatric patients studied had a documented code-status. Age and severity of illness influenced the decision to document code-status. Demographics such as gender, race, ethnicity, and proximity of primary residence were also associated with the documentation of code-status. CONCLUSION: Absence of a recorded code-status may result in unnecessary interventions. Code-status in paper charts may be difficult to access in cardiopulmonary arrest situations and may result in unnecessary and unwanted interventions and procedures. Documentation of code-status in electronic records creates a readily available reference for care providers.

The effect of reducing maximum shift lengths to 16 hours on internal medicine interns' educational opportunities.

PURPOSE: To evaluate educational experiences of internal medicine interns before and after maximum shift lengths were decreased from 30 hours to 16 hours. METHOD: The authors compared educational experiences of internal medicine interns at Vanderbilt University Medical Center before (2010; 47 interns) and after (2011; 50 interns) duty hours restrictions were implemented in July 2011. The authors compared number of inpatient encounters, breadth of concepts in notes, exposure to five common presenting problems, procedural experience, and attendance at teaching conferences. RESULTS: Following the duty hours restrictions, interns cared for more unique patients (mean 118 versus 140 patients per intern, P = .005) and wrote more history and physicals (mean 73 versus 88, P = .005). Documentation included more total concepts after the 16-hour maximum shift implementation, with a 14% increase for history and physicals (338 versus 387, P < .001) and a 10% increase for progress notes (316 versus 349, P < .001). There was no difference in the median number of selected procedures performed (6 versus 6, P = 0.94). Attendance was higher at the weekly chief resident conference (60% versus 68% of expected attendees, P < .001) but unchanged at morning report conferences (79% versus 78%, P = .49). CONCLUSIONS: Intern clinical exposure did not decrease after implementation of the 16-hour shift length restriction. In fact, interns saw more patients, produced more detailed notes, and attended more conferences following duty hours restrictions.

Initiation of sulfonylureas versus metformin is associated with higher blood pressure at one year.

PURPOSE: To determine if incident oral antidiabetic drug (OAD) use was associated with 12-month systolic blood pressure (BP) and if this was mediated through body mass index (BMI) changes. METHODS: A retrospective cohort of veterans with hypertension who initiated metformin (n = 2057) or sulfonylurea (n = 1494) between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2007 in the Veterans Administration Mid-South Network was assembled. Patients were included if they had complete covariates, including 12-month BP and BMI, and persisted on therapy for 12 months. Linear regression was conducted to investigate the effect of OADs on 12-month systolic BP adjusting for demographics, glycated hemoglobin, creatinine, BMI, health care utilization, and comorbidities, including cardiovascular disease (CVD). A second analysis examined if these effects were mediated by BMI change. The secondary outcome was the proportion of patients who had a controlled BP (≤ 140/90 mmHg) at 12 months adjusted for baseline BP and covariates. RESULTS: Patients were white (82%) males (97%) with median age of 64 years (interquartile range [IQR] 57, 72), and 27% had history of CVD. Sulfonylurea users had a 1.33 mmHg (0.16, 2.50, p = 0.03) higher 12-month systolic BP than metformin users. The median change in BMI from OAD initiation to 12 months was -0.76 (IQR -1.78, 0.07) and 0.21 (IQR -0.57, 1.03) among metformin and sulfonylurea users, respectively. In a model adjusting for BMI change, the difference in 12-month systolic BP between sulfonylurea and metformin users became insignificant (0.23 (-1.00, 1.45), p = 0.72), while one BMI unit change was associated with an increase in 12-month systolic BP of 1.07 mmHg (0.74, 1.40, p < 0.0001). At 12 months, 68.3% of metformin patients had controlled BP versus 64.2% of sulfonylurea patients (p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Compared with metformin, sulfonylurea initiation was associated with increased systolic BP at 12 months, which appears to be mediated by the differential effects of these drugs on BMI.

Natural language processing improves identification of colorectal cancer testing in the electronic medical record.

BACKGROUND: Difficulty identifying patients in need of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening contributes to low screening rates. OBJECTIVE: To use Electronic Health Record (EHR) data to identify patients with prior CRC testing. DESIGN: A clinical natural language processing (NLP) system was modified to identify 4 CRC tests (colonoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy, fecal occult blood testing, and double contrast barium enema) within electronic clinical documentation. Text phrases in clinical notes referencing CRC tests were interpreted by the system to determine whether testing was planned or completed and to estimate the date of completed tests. SETTING: Large academic medical center. PATIENTS: 200 patients ≥ 50 years old who had completed ≥ 2 non-acute primary care visits within a 1-year period. MEASURES: Recall and precision of the NLP system, billing records, and human chart review were compared to a reference standard of human review of all available information sources. RESULTS: For identification of all CRC tests, recall and precision were as follows: NLP system (recall 93%, precision 94%), chart review (74%, 98%), and billing records review (44%, 83%). Recall and precision for identification of patients in need of screening were: NLP system (recall 95%, precision 88%), chart review (99%, 82%), and billing records (99%, 67%). LIMITATIONS: Small sample size and requirement for a robust EHR. CONCLUSIONS: Applying NLP to EHR records detected more CRC tests than either manual chart review or billing records review alone. NLP had better precision but marginally lower recall to identify patients who were due for CRC screening than billing record review.

Hypercalcemia in pregnancy: a case of milk-alkali syndrome.

Milk-alkali syndrome is a rare cause of hypercalcemia characterized by the triad of hypercalcemia, renal insufficiency, and metabolic alkalosis that results from the overconsumption of calcium containing products. In the setting of pregnancy where there is a physiologic increase in calcium absorption, milk-alkali syndrome can be potentially life threatening. We report a case of a 26-year-old woman in her second trimester of pregnancy who presented with 2 weeks of flank pain, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, headache, and lightheadedness. The history revealed consumption of a large quantity of milk, calcium carbonate antacid, and calcium-containing prenatal vitamins. Her symptoms and hypercalcemia resolved with intravenous fluids and a loop diuretic. With the increased use of calcium carbonate for peptic ulcer disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and osteoporosis, milk-alkali syndrome has experienced a resurgence and must be considered in the differential diagnosis of hypercalcemia. In this clinical vignette we review the literature on milk-alkali syndrome in pregnancy and discuss important diagnostic and therapeutic considerations when managing the pregnant patient with hypercalcemia.

Extracting timing and status descriptors for colonoscopy testing from electronic medical records.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates are low despite confirmed benefits. The authors investigated the use of natural language processing (NLP) to identify previous colonoscopy screening in electronic records from a random sample of 200 patients at least 50 years old. The authors developed algorithms to recognize temporal expressions and 'status indicators', such as 'patient refused', or 'test scheduled'. The new methods were added to the existing KnowledgeMap concept identifier system, and the resulting system was used to parse electronic medical records (EMR) to detect completed colonoscopies. Using as the 'gold standard' expert physicians' manual review of EMR notes, the system identified timing references with a recall of 0.91 and precision of 0.95, colonoscopy status indicators with a recall of 0.82 and precision of 0.95, and references to actually completed colonoscopies with recall of 0.93 and precision of 0.95. The system was superior to using colonoscopy billing codes alone. Health services researchers and clinicians may find NLP a useful adjunct to traditional methods to detect CRC screening status. Further investigations must validate extension of NLP approaches for other types of CRC screening applications.

Quality improvement initiatives improve hypertension care among veterans.

BACKGROUND: We implemented a quality improvement initiative to improve hypertension care at Veterans Affairs-Tennessee Valley Healthcare System. METHODS AND RESULTS: We implemented multiple interventions among 2 teaching hospitals, 5 community-based outpatient clinics, and 4 contract clinic sites. Goals of the program were to (1) improve measurement and documentation of blood pressure (BP), (2) initiate outpatient patient education, (3) emphasize VA/Department of Defense hypertension treatment algorithms to providers, (4) emphasize external peer review program performance goals, and (5) initiate feedback of each clinic's performance. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients seen each week with a diagnosis of hypertension who had their last available BP in control (< or =140/90 mm Hg). Observation time was 40 weeks (14 weeks preintervention, 8 weeks intervention implementation, and 18 weeks postintervention), during which there were 55 586 unique clinic visits for hypertension. After intervention deployment, there was an absolute improvement of 4.2% in BP control (preintervention 61.5% [12 245/19 908] versus postintervention 65.7% [15 809/24 059], P<0.0001). Teaching hospital A had an absolute improvement of 1.4% (63.4% [3544/5591] versus 64.8% [4581/7073], P=0.108). Teaching hospital B showed a 0.8% absolute improvement in BP control (59.7% [2577/4315] versus 60.5% [3416/5650], P=0.456). The community-based outpatient clinics had a combined absolute improvement of 8.6% (60.2% [5252/8728] versus 68.8% [6895/10025], P<0.0001). The contract clinics had a combined improvement of 1.5% (68.4% [872/1274] versus 69.9% [917/1311], P=0.409). Results were sustained 1 year after intervention. CONCLUSIONS: After implementing small, focused, and inexpensive interventions, BP control improved 4.2%, thereby improving the quality of hypertension care.

An algorithm to identify incident myocardial infarction using Medicaid data.

PURPOSE: Studies of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and cardiovascular events using administrative data require identification of incident acute myocardial infarctions (AMIs) and information on whether confounders differ by NSAID status. METHODS: We identified patients with a first AMI hospitalization from Tennessee Medicaid files as those with primary ICD-9 discharge diagnosis 410.x and hospitalization stay of > 2 calendar days. Eligible persons were non-institutionalized, aged 50-84 years between 1999-2004, had continuous enrollment and no AMI, stroke, or non-cardiovascular serious medical illness in the prior year. Of 5524 patients with a potential first AMI, a systematic sample (n = 350) was selected for review. Using defined criteria, we classified events using chest pain history, EKG, and cardiac enzymes, and calculated the positive predictive value (PPV) for definite or probable AMI. RESULTS: 337 of 350 (96.3%) charts were abstracted and 307 (91.1%), 6 (1.8%), and 24 (7.1%) events were categorized as definite, probable, and no AMI, respectively. PPV for any definite or probable AMI was 92.8% (95% CI 89.6-95.2); for an AMI without an event in the past year 91.7% (95% CI 88.3-94.2), and for an incident AMI was 72.7% (95% CI 67.7-77.2). Age-adjusted prevalence of current smoking (46.4% vs. 39.1%, p = 0.35) and aspirin use (36.9% vs. 35.9%, p = 0.90) was similar among NSAID users and non-users CONCLUSIONS: ICD-9 code 410.x had high predictive value for identifying AMI. Among those with AMI, smoking and aspirin use was similar in NSAID exposure groups, suggesting these factors will not confound the relationship between NSAIDs and cardiovascular outcomes.

Non-aspirin NSAIDs, cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors and risk for cardiovascular events-stroke, acute myocardial infarction, and death from coronary heart disease.

PURPOSE: To determine if certain non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events: acute myocardial infarction (AMI), stroke, and death from coronary heart disease (CHD). METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of Tennessee Medicaid enrollees aged 35-94 years between 1 January 1999 and 31 December 2005. Eligible persons were non-institutionalized, had continuous enrollment, and had no serious illness prior to cohort entry. Exposure to celecoxib, rofecoxib, valdecoxib, ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, and indomethacin was studied. The outcome was hospitalization for AMI, stroke, or death from CHD among those with and without a history of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) are reported. RESULTS: There were 610 001 persons in the final cohort and 14% had a baseline history of CVD. In those without CVD (N = 525 249) there were 1 566 678 person-years of follow-up and 12 184 events. In this group, non-users had 7.90 events/1000 person-years. Events/1000 person-years were 10.41 for current use of celecoxib (aHR 1.00, 95% CI 0.89-1.13), 10.91 for rofecoxib (aHR 1.21, 95% CI 1.07-1.37), 12.46 for valdecoxib (aHR 1.30 95% CI 1.04-1.61), and 13.25 for indomethacin (aHR 1.36, 95% CI 1.11-1.66) compared to non-users. Among patients with a past history of CVD (N = 84 752) there were 397 977 person-years of follow-up and 10 248 events. Non-users had 28.30 events/1000 person-years. Among those with CVD, rofecoxib use was associated with increased event rate (30.28 events/1000 person-years [aHR 1.21, 95% CI 1.08-1.37]) and naproxen was associated with a decreased event rate (22.66 events/1000 person-years [aHR 0.88, 95% CI 0.79-0.99]). Among new users, the results were similar except risk among naproxen users was no longer different than non-users. CONCLUSIONS: We found an increased risk of cardiovascular events among all and new current users of rofecoxib, valdecoxib, and indomethacin in patients with no history of CVD. Among patients with CVD, all and new current rofecoxib use was associated with an increased risk of a cardiovascular event.

Development of a natural language processing system to identify timing and status of colonoscopy testing in electronic medical records.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates are low despite proven benefits. We developed natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to identify temporal expressions and status indicators, such as "patient refused" or "test scheduled." The authors incorporated the algorithms into the KnowledgeMap Concept Identifier system in order to detect references to completed colonoscopies within electronic text. The modified NLP system was evaluated using 200 randomly selected electronic medical records (EMRs) from a primary care population aged >/=50 years. The system detected completed colonoscopies with recall and precision of 0.93 and 0.92. The system was superior to a query of colonoscopy billing codes to determine screening status.