Transgender Care Experiences, Barriers, and Recommendations for Improvement in a Large Integrated Health Care System in the United States.

Purpose: Transgender individuals who pursue gender affirmation medical procedures often need to navigate a complex health system and interact with multiple health care providers in primary and specialty care. We sought to better understand patient, provider, and system level barriers to transgender care in a large integrated health care system in California. Methods: Three 90-min focus groups were conducted with 13 transgender individuals who received specialty care between April and August 2018 in Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Results: Participants cited common adversities such as misgendering and system-wide insensitivity during health care encounters and low levels of understanding of their transgender experience among primary care providers. Provider-patient relationship improvements were recommended for pre- and postsurgical care and service-provider sensitivity training. Suggestions include better care coordination, reducing redundancy in clearance for specialty care services, and enhancing patient support for navigation of gender affirmation services. Participants requested careful consideration when implementing systemwide routine processes such as using pronouns and names when calling patients in for visits or describing procedures on service invoices. Conclusions: Education and training programs for improving transgender care competency and enhancing care coordination between primary care and specialty care for transgender patients are warranted. Including transgender voices with lived-experience as active stakeholders in ongoing efforts such as community advisory boards to identify care gaps may facilitate patient-centered and culturally sensitive transgender care and increased patient satisfaction. Policy Implications: There is a need for systematic training for transgender care competent providers and enhancement of care coordination between primary care and specialty care.

Chronic and Sustained High-Dose Opioid Use in an Integrated Health System.

INTRODUCTION: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain released in 2016 had led to decreases in opioid prescribing. This study sought to examine chronic and sustained high-dose prescription opioid use in an integrated health system. METHODS: A serial cross-sectional study was conducted in 2021 to estimate the annual age-adjusted prevalence and incidence of chronic and high-dose opioid use among demographically diverse noncancer adults in an integrated health system in Southern California during 2013-2020. Interrupted time-series analysis with segmented regression was conducted to estimate changes in the trends in annual rates before (2013-2015) and after (2017-2020) the 2016 guideline, treating 2016 as a wash-out period. RESULTS: Prevalence and incidence of chronic use and sustained high-dose use had started to decrease after a health system intervention program before the 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guideline release and continued to decline after the guideline. Among those with sustained high-dose use, there was a substantial decrease in persons with an average daily dosage ≥90 morphine milligram equivalent and concurrent benzodiazepine use. An accelerated decrease in prevalent chronic use after the guideline was observed (slope change: -11.1 [95% CI= -20.3, -1.9] users/10,000 person-years, p=0.03). The incidence of chronic use and sustained high-dose use continued to decrease after the guideline release but at a slower pace. CONCLUSIONS: Implementing evidence-based prescribing guidelines was associated with a decrease in chronic and sustained high-dose prescription opioid use.

Identifying Suicidal Ideation and Attempt From Clinical Notes Within a Large Integrated Health Care System.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a natural language processing algorithm to identify suicidal ideation/attempt from free-text clinical notes. METHODS: Clinical notes containing prespecified keywords related to suicidal ideation/attempts from 2010 to 2018 were extracted from our organization's electronic health record system. A random sample of 864 clinical notes was selected and equally divided into 4 subsets. These subsets were reviewed and classified as 1 of the following 3 suicidal ideation/attempt categories (current, historical, and no) by experienced research chart abstractors. The first 3 data sets were used to develop the rule-based computerized algorithm sequentially and the fourth data set was used to evaluate the algorithm's performance. The validated algorithm was then applied to the entire study sample of clinical notes. RESULTS: The computerized algorithm correctly identified 23 of the 26 confirmed current suicidal ideation/attempts and all 10 confirmed historical suicidal ideation/attempts in the validation data set. It produced an 88.5% sensitivity and a 100.0% positive predictive value for current suicidal ideation/attempts, and a 100.0% sensitivity and positive predictive value for historical suicidal ideation/attempts. After applying the computerized algorithm to the entire set of study notes, we identified a total of 1,050,287 current ideation/attempt events and 293,037 historical ideation/attempt events documented in clinical notes. Those for which current ideation/attempt events were documented were more likely to be female (59.5%), 25-44 years old (28.3%), and White (43.4%). CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that a computerized algorithm can effectively identify suicidal ideation/attempts from clinical notes. This algorithm can be utilized in support of suicide prevention research programs and patient care quality improvement initiatives.

Trends in Statin Use 2009-2015 in a Large Integrated Health System: Pre- and Post-2013 ACC/AHA Guideline on Treatment of Blood Cholesterol.

PURPOSE: Implementation of the 2013 ACC/AHA cholesterol treatment guideline is likely to vary by statin benefit group. The aim of this study was to document trends in statin use before and after introduction of the ACC/AHA guideline. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study with annual cohorts from 2009 to 2015 among members of Kaiser Permanente Southern California aged ≥ 21 years. Members were categorized into four mutually exclusive statin benefit groups: atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), LDL-C ≥ 190 mg/dL in the last year, diabetes (aged 40-75 years), and 10-year ASCVD risk ≥ 7.5% (aged 40-75 years). RESULTS: The cohorts ranged from 1,993,755 members in 2009 to 2,440,429 in 2015. Approximately 5% of patients had ASCVD, 1% had LDL-C ≥ 190 mg/dL, 6% had diabetes, and 10% had a 10-year ASCVD risk ≥ 7.5% each year. Trends in statin use were stable for adults with ASCVD (2009 78%; 2015 80%), recent LDL-C ≥ 190 mg/dL (2009 45%; 2015 44%), and diabetes (2009 74%; 2015 73%), but increased for patients with 10-year ASCVD risk ≥ 7.5% (2009 36%; 2015 47%). High-intensity statin use also increased 142% and 54% among patients with LDL-C ≥ 190 mg/dL and those with ASCVD ≤ 75 years of age, respectively. Moderate-to-high intensity statin utilization increased over 50% among those with a 10-year ASCVD risk ≥ 7.5%. CONCLUSIONS: Statin use increased substantially among patients with 10-year ASCVD risk ≥ 7.5% and use of appropriate statin dosage increased in each of the four statin benefit groups between 2009 and 2015; however, there is room for improvement.