Anemia Severity Associated with Increased Healthcare Utilization and Costs in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

BACKGROUND: Anemia is a common systemic complication of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and is associated with worse disease outcomes, quality of life, and higher healthcare costs. AIMS: The purpose of this study was to determine how anemia severity impacts healthcare resource utilization and if treatment of anemia was associated with reduced utilization and costs. METHODS: Retrospective chart review of adult patients managed by gastroenterology between 2014 and 2018 at a tertiary referral center. RESULTS: The records of 1763 patients with IBD were included in the analysis, with 966 (55%) patients with CD, 799 (44%) with UC, and 18 (1%) with unspecified IBD. Of these patients, 951 (54%) had anemia. Patients with anemia had significantly more hospitalizations, increased length of stays, more ER, GI, and PCP visits, as well as higher costs when compared to patients with IBD without anemia. Patients with more severe anemia had more healthcare utilization and incurred even higher total costs. Treatment with IV or oral iron did not lower overall utilization or costs, when compared to patients with anemia who did not receive treatment (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that the presence of anemia is correlated with increased resource utilization in patients with IBD, with increase in anemia severity associated with higher utilization and costs. Anemia has been associated with increased disease activity and could represent a marker of more severe disease, possibly explaining these associations. Our results suggest that treating anemia is associated with increased resource utilization; however, further research is needed to investigate this relationship.

Pharmacogenomics education, research and clinical implementation in the state of Minnesota.

Several healthcare organizations across Minnesota have developed formal pharmacogenomic (PGx) clinical programs to increase drug safety and effectiveness. Healthcare professional and student education is strong and there are multiple opportunities in the state for learners to gain workforce skills and develop advanced competency in PGx. Implementation planning is occurring at several organizations and others have incorporated structured utilization of PGx into routine workflows. Laboratory-based and translational PGx research in Minnesota has driven important discoveries in several therapeutic areas. This article reviews the state of PGx activities in Minnesota including educational programs, research, national consortia involvement, technology, clinical implementation and utilization and reimbursement, and outlines the challenges and opportunities in equitable implementation of these advances.

Creating a culture of communication in undergraduate medical education.

Quality communication improves outcomes across a wide variety of health care metrics. However, communication training in undergraduate medical education remains heterogeneous, with real-life clinical settings notably underutilized. In this perspective, the authors review the current landscape in communication training and propose the development of communication-intensive rotations (CIRs) as a method of integrating communication training into the everyday clinical environment. Despite its importance, communication training is often relegated to a "parallel curriculum." Through integration, CIRs can provide opportunities for real-life skills training, decrease parallel curriculum burden, and provide specialty-specific training in preparation for residency. Clear, efficient communication and human connection remain central in a physician's practice. CIRs reinforce these crucial principles. Potential benefits of a CIR model include role modeling of expert communication techniques; real-time, specific feedback on communication behaviors; development of relationship-centered communication skills and human connection, thereby decreasing burnout; and the opportunity for quality communication practices to become habits in a medical student's daily routine.

A system of electronic records developed by a children's hospice.

This paper describes the development, implementation and dissemination of an electronic data collection system for children's hospices in the UK. In 1999, CHASE Hospice Care for Children (CHASE) began providing support for life-limited children and their families in their own homes across south-west London, Surrey and West Sussex. CHASE community team is multidisciplinary and original members of the team had to create all of the necessary administrative systems for collecting and storing information about referrals and care provided to children and their families. The community team had the foresight to record activity statistics from day one of the service. The team worked together to identify information routinely collected that could usefully be stored on a computer database and a simple solution was created for this purpose using Microsoft Access version 2. CHASE was in a privileged position because the commitment to use information technology came from people providing care to children and their families.