Latest Conference Articles

Monday morning at the ADA's 72nd Scientific Sessions featured the National Scientific & Health Care Achievement Awards Presentation and Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award Lecture. This year's recipient of the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award was David Altshuler, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, for his work on genetic-based research regarding the inherited basis of type 2 diabetes, cholesterol levels, myocardial infarction, and a number of other conditions.

Roman Hovorka, PhD, talks about the prohibitive costs in continuous glucose monitoring. He states that if these costs can be reduced there will be wider acceptance and therefore a benefit to diabetes care.

View some of the photos from the American Diabetes Association's 72nd Scientific Sessions.

Dr. Margaret Powers says that currently genetic testing does not motivate behavior change and weight loss in diabetes care. Patients who did not receive the test did just as well with behavior changes as patients who knew they were high risk through genetic testing.

Medication adherence is a complex topic that involves many barriers and obstacles; however, as Elizabeth A. Walker, PhD, RN, CDE, Director of the Prevention and Control Core, Einstein Diabetes Research and Training Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, told her audience at this year's ADA 72nd Scientific Sessions, we must do something.

Thomas Hoerger, PhD, talks about minimizing costs while achieving better diabetes care.

To further develop an already existing Nurse Clinic model at Kaiser Permanente Riverside, researchers in this study developed an internal specialized diabetes training program using the American Association of Diabetes Educators and American Diabetes Association guidelines to improve effectiveness.

As a new era of personalized medicine continues to provide clues between genetic makeups and predispositions to certain disease states, researchers and providers are able to come up with more targeted therapies for patient populations.

Felicia Hill-Briggs, PhD, states that adherence and quality of life outcomes are equally important as comparative effectiveness research in clinical trials.

In this video, Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, talks about the overall cost implications to diabetes management through behavioral change.

To date, there has been no real-world comparative data published on the initiation of injectable therapy with insulin glargine disposable pen (GLA-P) of glucagons-like peptide-1 agonist liraglutide (LIRA) among type 2 diabetes patients. On day 1 of the American Diabetes Association's 72nd Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, PA, an abstract was released by Levin et al which provided data from this exact comparative analysis.

Diabetes is a chronic condition that has been shown to be directly related to obesity and heart-related conditions. The strain that diabetes costs put on the healthcare system are well documented. At this year's 72nd Scientific Sessions, the American Diabetes Association featured several studies that aim to help rein in diabetes costs. Here are two studies that were highlighted.

Andrew J. M. Boulton, MD, describes the impact of non-invasive glucose monitoring devices on adherence and hospital admission rates.

The 72nd Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) will take place from June 8-12 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.

In this video, Beckie Fenrick, PharmD, MDA, Senior Director, Medical Operations, Care Models and Affordability Solutions, Florida Blue, speaks about oncoloytic therapies. In particular, Fenrick talks about new strategies for managing oncolytic therapies without sacrificing outcomes.

In this video, Debbie Stern, RPh, Vice President, Rxperts Inc, speaks about the trends in specialty pharmacy management and what lies on the horizon.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the increase in the shortage of critical drugs could potentially become a major public health emergency.

Debbie Stern, RPh; Becki Fenrick, PharmD, MBA; and Michael Fine, MD, presented on specialty pharmacy management trends on Friday.

Shelly Spiro, RPh, FASCP, Director of the Pharmacy e-Health Information Technology Collaborative, provided an overview of pharmacy Health Information Technology (HIT) during her presentation The Roadmap for Pharmacy HIT Integration on Friday.

In this video, Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, Senior Clinical Consultant, Emerging Therapeutics Express Scripts, Inc, speaks about specialty therapy classes that have a lot of activity in the pharmaceutical pipeline.

In this video, Mark Zitter, MBA, CEO of the Zitter Group, speaks about how oncology pathways are affecting drug use.

The specialty market has experienced a significant rate of growth as well as increased costs over the past few years thanks to a broader use of specialty medications to treat common and rare diseases.

One of the more popular sessions at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy 24th Annual Meeting on Thursday featured Paul Frostin, PhD, Director, Health Research and Education Program, Employee Benefit Research Institute, on the topic of health insurance exchanges.

In this video, David Nau, PhD, RPh, CPHQ, Senior Director, Quality Strategies Pharmacy Quality Alliance, Inc, discusses quality improvement models.

Many patients with type 2 diabetes could avoid the long-term complications of their disease by ensuring consistent and proper glycemic control. With insulin use decreasing in recent years and the use of newer agents increasing, treatment regiments have changed drastically. Newer options may affect rates of glycemic control but may also be adding to the complexity of clinical decision making, as well as the management of benefits for plans and payers.

Also on the agenda for day one at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 24th Annual Meeting in San Francisco was a satellite symposium that focused on analyzing and applying evidence to improve the cost/benefit and risk/benefit outcomes in multiple sclerosis. One of the overarching themes throughout the 5 presentations that comprised the program was medication adherence.

Wednesday morning at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy 24th Annual Meeting featured a satellite symposium that focused on the evolving role of managed care and oncology pharmacy management. The presentations by distinguished faculty reviewed current evidence-based data to enable decision making based on indicators of treatment outcomes for multiple myeloma; demonstrated the use of comparative effectiveness research (CER) as a decision support tool; and evaluated innovative pharmacy benefit models and specialty management services.

Keynote session discussed healthcare reform and implications for managed care pharmacy.