Latest Conference Content

As one might expect, lung cancer is one of the major focuses at each CHEST conference. The following are highlights from this year's recently released abstracts and late-breaking studies.

Although there have been a wide variety of disease states covered at this year's CHEST conference, much of the focus has been on those under the umbrella of pulmonary vascular disease, such as pulmonary arterial hypertension and deep vein thrombosis. Here are some of the new study highlights related to pulmonary vascular disease.

Jun Chiong, MD, MPH, FACC, FCCP, Associate Professor of Medicine, Loma Linda University Medical Center, states the US healthcare system does not utilize a team-based approach.

Robert Frantz, MD, FACC, Director, Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic, Mayo Clinic, says that the issue of cost is an important factor in treating patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.

The following are highlights of abstracts that focus on readmission rates, an increasingly important subject for hospitals that are subject to evolving rules and regulations as they relate to reimbursement.

Craig Lilly, MD, Professor of Medicine, Anesthesiology and Surgery, Director, UMass Memorial eICU Program, says that technologies must be integrated as well as embraced by the workforce.

The CHEST 2012 meeting features a number of newly published studies for a wide variety of disease states ranging from tuberculosis to lung disease. The following are highlights of hypertension abstracts.

Edward Zawada, MD, MACP, Vice President of Scientific Affairs, Medical Director, Intensivist Program, Medical Director, eICU Program, Avera Medical Group Nephrology, says that the Tele-Intensive Care Program provides the skill set required to care for critically ill patients.

Robert Frantz, MD, FACC, Director, Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic, Mayo Clinic, discusses the rate of bloodstream infections in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension treated with Veletri. Dr Franz also talks about the PROSPECT registry analysis.

Brian Carlin, MD, FCCP, Allegheny General Hospital, discusses the challenges in reducing 30-day readmission rates, specifically as they apply to congestive heart failure, pneumonia, and COPD. The biggest challenge is setting up a coordinated team care effort, says Dr Carlin.

Hundreds of new abstracts were published for CHEST 2012. Here are some of the highlights around the topic of quality of life as they relate to various disease states.

In this video, Aaron McKethan, PhD, Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, RxAnte, talks about new strategies to improve patient medication adherence.

There exists a need for a standard of care to ensure that each patient's medications are appropriate, effective, safe, and able to be taken as intended. Medication therapy management (MTM) is a professional service that can help meet this need. Although the practice of providing comprehensive MTM services by phone has many positive attributes, there are many challenges associated with this type of intervention.

Brian Sweet, RPh, MBA, Executive Director, Health Care Alliances, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, talks about the progress that has been made to-date in integrating clinical data elements with administrative claims data.

Medication assessments directly impact the way a drug is covered, and drugs with better quality data with a higher level of certainty are more favorably covered. Accurately assessing the evidence for new medications will help payers summarize a drug's benefit-to-risk ratio.

In this video, Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, Senior Clinical Consultant, Emerging Therapeutics Express Scripts, Inc, talks about the impact that biosimilar medications could potentially have on the specialty pharmacy market.

Edith Rosato, RPh, IOM, the chief executive officer of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, recently shared the organization's Top 5 strategic priorities for the coming year.

In this video, Feng Zeng, PhD, Senior Health Economist, MedImpact, discusses how the implementation of copayment reduction in the gap in 2011 influenced adherence measures for oral diabetes medications.

The role of the pharmacist in the care of patients with cancer is evolving. Pharmacists can help optimize treatment outcomes for each patient through use of patient-specific and disease-specific strategies.

In this video, David Nau, PhD, talks about data challenges as they relate to medication adherence measures. "One data challenge that Medicare plans face is getting all of the prescription field data from the pharmacist," says Dr. Nau.

Managed care pharmacists can help optimize outcomes in patients with age-related eye disease by addressing concerns regarding affordability of therapy, instructing patients on proper eye drop instillation, and evaluating the effects of different therapies. Ophthalmologists and optometrists should take part in managed care formulary discussions to help achieve optimal patient care.

In this video, Mark Zitter, MBA, talks about the implications of Co-Pay Offset Programs for managed care. "Co-pay programs affect managed care very differently depending on the nature of the program," says Zitter. "These programs are tremendously varied."

During a preconference session at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2012 Educational Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, industry experts met to discuss the ways in which heterogeneity shapes therapeutic decisions, patient outcomes, and coverage policies.

The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's (AMCP) 2012 Educational Conference will take place in Cincinnati, OH, October 3-5 at the Duke Energy Convention Center.

Len Nichols, PhD, Professor of Health Policy and Director, GMU Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics, College of Health and Human Services, George Mason University, says that if states do not expand their Medicaid programs half of the uninsured will continue without coverage. States will continue to pay for healthcare inefficiently while patients receive suboptimal care.

Although there are contentions regarding its mechanisms, health policy and managed care authorities agree that the ultimate goal of healthcare reform is to increase access, improve quality, decrease costs, and measure progress. The initiative of further integrating digital health systems and implementing health information technology continues to receive substantial support and growth in a positive direction.

Peter Cunningham, PhD, Senior Fellow and Director of Quantitative Research, Center for Studying Health System Change, says that delivery systems should be moved more towards care management in order to deal with the high levels of wasteful care and emergency room use associated with Medicaid.

Robert Berenson, MD, FACP, Institute Fellow, Health Policy Center, Urban Institute, thinks that new healthcare delivery models are inevitable due to the behavior of physicians and providers who have abused fee-for-service. Dr. Berenson says that there has been unacceptable growth in the bias of fee-for-service activities, and new delivery models are necessary to improve quality and costs in healthcare.