Pharmacotherapy in Older Adults with Cardiovascular Disease: Report from an American College of Cardiology, American Geriatrics Society, and National Institute on Aging Workshop.

OBJECTIVES: To identify the top priority areas for research to optimize pharmacotherapy in older adults with cardiovascular disease (CVD). DESIGN: Consensus meeting. SETTING: Multidisciplinary workshop supported by the National Institute on Aging, the American College of Cardiology, and the American Geriatrics Society, February 6-7, 2017. PARTICIPANTS: Leaders in the Cardiology and Geriatrics communities, (officers in professional societies, journal editors, clinical trialists, Division chiefs), representatives from the NIA; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; Food and Drug Administration; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, pharmaceutical industry, and trainees and early career faculty with interests in geriatric cardiology. MEASUREMENTS: Summary of workshop proceedings and recommendations. RESULTS: To better align older adults' healthcare preferences with their care, research is needed to improve skills in patient engagement and communication. Similarly, to coordinate and meet the needs of older adults with multiple comorbidities encountering multiple healthcare providers and systems, systems and disciplines must be integrated. The lack of data from efficacy trials of CVD medications relevant to the majority of older adults creates uncertainty in determining the risks and benefits of many CVD therapies; thus, developing evidence-based guidelines for older adults with CVD is a top research priority. Polypharmacy and medication nonadherence lead to poor outcomes in older people, making research on appropriate prescribing and deprescribing to reduce polypharmacy and methods to improve adherence to beneficial therapies a priority. CONCLUSION: The needs and circumstances of older adults with CVD differ from those that the current medical system has been designed to meet. Optimizing pharmacotherapy in older adults will require new data from traditional and pragmatic research to determine optimal CVD therapy, reduce polypharmacy, increase adherence, and meet person-centered goals. Better integration of the multiple systems and disciplines involved in the care of older adults will be essential to implement and disseminate best practices. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:371-380, 2019.

Optimization of Drug Prescription and Medication Management in Older Adults with Cardiovascular Disease.

Cardiovascular disease increases incrementally with age and elderly patients concomitantly sustain multimorbidities, with resultant prescription of multiple medications. Despite conforming with disease-specific cardiovascular clinical practice guidelines, this polypharmacy predisposes many elderly individuals with cardiovascular disease to adverse drug events and non-adherence. Patient-centered care requires that the clinician explore with each patient his or her goals of care and that this shared decision-making constitutes the basis for optimization of medication management. This approach to aligning therapies with patient preferences is likely to promote patient satisfaction, to limit morbidity, and to favorably affect healthcare costs.

Utilizing an integrated infrastructure for outcomes research: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the ability of an integrated health information infrastructure to support outcomes research. METHODS: A systematic review of articles published from 1983 to 2012 by Regenstrief Institute investigators using data from an integrated electronic health record infrastructure involving multiple provider organisations was performed. Articles were independently assessed and classified by study design, disease and other metadata including bibliometrics. RESULTS: A total of 190 articles were identified. Diseases included cognitive, (16) cardiovascular, (16) infectious, (15) chronic illness (14) and cancer (12). Publications grew steadily (26 in the first decade vs. 100 in the last) as did the number of investigators (from 15 in 1983 to 62 in 2012). The proportion of articles involving non-Regenstrief authors also expanded from 54% in the first decade to 72% in the last decade. During this period, the infrastructure grew from a single health system into a health information exchange network covering more than 6 million patients. Analysis of journal and article metrics reveals high impact for clinical trials and comparative effectiveness research studies that utilised data available in the integrated infrastructure. DISCUSSION: Integrated information infrastructures support growth in high quality observational studies and diverse collaboration consistent with the goals for the learning health system. More recent publications demonstrate growing external collaborations facilitated by greater access to the infrastructure and improved opportunities to study broader disease and health outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Integrated information infrastructures can stimulate learning from electronic data captured during routine clinical care but require time and collaboration to reach full potential.

Outpatient adverse drug events identified by screening electronic health records.

OBJECTIVES: Relatively little is known about rates of outpatient adverse drug events (ADEs), and most health systems do not routinely identify them. We developed a computerized ADE measurement process and used it to detect ADEs from electronic health records and then categorized them according to type, preventability, and severity. METHODS: The rules used represent combinations of variables including coded medication names, laboratory results, diagnoses, and specific items such as symptoms from free text clinician notes, all obtained from electronic health records. Rules targeted various diagnostic and laboratory abnormalities potentially caused by a broad range of outpatient medications commonly used in primary care. The rules were run on 4 months of data on primary care patients seen in the outpatient setting in 2 large health systems; possible incidents were identified by chart review and validated as ADEs by clinician reviewers, then rated by severity and preventability. RESULTS: The rates of ADEs were 75 ADEs/1000 person-years and 198/1000 person-years at the 2 sites, respectively. The overall rate was 138 ADEs/1000 person-years across the 2 sites. Eleven percent of ADEs were preventable, with a rate of 15 preventable ADEs/1000 person-years across sites. Approximately one-fourth of ADEs were serious or life threatening at both sites. The highest yield rules for identifying preventable ADEs included rules based on drug classes and symptoms, and drug-laboratory rules. CONCLUSIONS: Adverse drug events occurred frequently in routine outpatient care, and many were serious and preventable. Computerized monitoring represents an efficacious approach for identifying ambulatory ADEs, although it needs additional refinement. In addition, site-specific variations need further exploration.

Undertreatment of osteoporosis in women, based on detection of vertebral compression fractures on chest radiography.

BACKGROUND: Fractures attributable to ostcoporosis are responsible for preventable suffering and health care costs. Until they experience a fracture, many older adults, particularly women, are unaware that they have osteoporosis. Although radiographs taken for reasons other than evaluating the possibility of osteoporosis may suggest the presence of fracture, such fractures often go undetected and effective treatments are not implemented. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to determine the adequacy of treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures in middle-aged and older women in an internal medicine clinic, as ascertained by reports of chest radiography. The hypothesis was that patients having chest radiographs with observable vertebral compression fractures often did not receive adequate treatment. METHODS: This was a retrospective, cross-sectional study conducted at a general internal medicine clinic at a university-affiliated county hospital. The records of an academic internal medicine practice were searched to identify women aged >or=40 years with radiologic evidence of vertebral compression fractures during the period from June 1, 1992, through May 31, 2002. Electronic prescription records were then searched to determine whether patients had received a prescription for a medication for the treatment of osteoporosis. An analysis also was conducted to describe the frequency distribution of various medications for the treatment of osteoporosis. RESULTS: One hundred thirteen women were identified who met the study criteria. Their mean (SD) age was 68.1 (21.9) years. Fifty-six (50%) of these women received pharmacologic treatment for osteoporosis. The most commonly prescribed medications were estrogens (35%), calcitonin (16%), and bisphosphonates (12%). CONCLUSIONS: No more than half of patients identified as having a vertebral compression fracture on chest radiography received even 1 prescription for the treatment of osteoporosis. Because this study did not examine adherence or long-term medication use, the proportion of women who received adequate osteoporosis therapy was probably much less than half. Physicians should be alert to the possible presence of vertebral compression fractures and take a more aggressive approach to treatment when a fracture is present.

Improving medication use for older adults: an integrated research agenda.

Effective health care is a core determinant of successful aging, and medications are one of the most important therapeutic tools of health care providers. Most older adults use at least one prescription drug. Costs for these drugs are a substantial out-of-pocket expense for Medicare beneficiaries, and low-income older adults must weigh these costs against those of other basic needs. Although medications bring welcome relief to millions of elderly persons with age-related conditions, adverse drug events are an important cause of illness and death in these patients. Thus, the appropriate, cost-effective use of medication is central to successful aging. Despite increasing attention to geriatric pharmacotherapy, there is an enormous need for additional research to improve the use of medications among older adults. The necessary research agenda encompasses much more than just the discovery of new drugs; better use of the current pharmacopeia has great potential to improve the lives of older adults. We review four domains of pharmaceutical research: drug discovery and delivery, drug efficacy and safety, pharmacoepidemiology and drug policy, and improved access to and use of drugs. These domains encompass both the pre- and postmarketing phases of drug research. Premarketing research currently has greater magnitude and a better infrastructure than postmarketing research, yet issues arising in the two phases of research are equally important to the health and safety of older adults. A national, federally supported pharmaceutical database could greatly enhance the infrastructure of postmarketing research. However, many major improvements in medication use among older adults will also depend on closing the gap between knowledge and practice and increasing the ability of older adults to manage their medications.