Pharmacist hypertension management using an electronic health record-based approach.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the impact of the chronic medication optimization pharmacist (CMOP) program on blood pressure (BP) control and time to goal compared with usual care in the ambulatory care setting. STUDY DESIGN: This was a retrospective cohort study that included patients from June 2018 to June 2020 who were seen in an ambulatory care clinic for hypertension management. METHODS: Patients aged 18 to 80 years were divided into 2 cohorts based on hypertension management by usual care or the CMOP program. Patients were enrolled in the CMOP program either by referral or identification via a data analytics tool. The primary outcome assessed the proportion of patients within BP goal (< 140/90 mm Hg) at 3 months. Secondary outcomes assessed the proportion of patients within goal at 6 months, time and number of visits to goal, and adherence (CMOP cohort only). RESULTS: The primary end point demonstrated a greater proportion of patients within goal in the CMOP cohort compared with usual care (69.4% vs 42.3%; P < .001). The CMOP cohort also displayed a greater proportion of patients achieving goal within 6 months (75.7% vs 60.4%; P = .014) and faster time to goal (42.99 vs 63.12 days; P = .002), but more visits (1.67 vs 1.18; P = .001). Lastly, adherence improved from 50.4% to 72.1% in the patients with a documented adherence assessment in the pharmacist group (P = .03). CONCLUSIONS: The pharmacist intervention improved BP control in a primarily African American patient population compared with usual care. Future studies should assess the sustainability of this intervention.

Associations Between Community Sociodemographics and Performance in HEDIS Quality Measures: A Study of 22 Medical Centers in a Primary Care Network.

Evaluation and payment for health plans and providers have been increasingly tied to their performance on quality metrics, which can be influenced by patient- and community-level sociodemographic factors. The aim of this study was to examine whether performance on Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures varied as a function of community sociodemographic characteristics at the primary care clinic level. Twenty-two primary care sites of a large multispecialty group practice were studied during the period of April 2013 to June 2016. Significant associations were found between sites' performance on selected HEDIS measures and their neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics. Outcome measures had stronger associations with sociodemographic factors than did process measures, with a range of significant correlation coefficients (absolute value, regardless of sign) from 0.44 to 0.72. Sociodemographic factors accounted for as much as 25% to 50% of the observed variance in measures such as HbA1c or blood pressure control.