News
Podium Presentation at ISPOR Describes New Method of Predicting Treatment Failure in HIV Infection
A new model developed by PHAR and presented at ISPOR's 15th Annual International Meeting in Atlanta can be used to predict the likelihood of virologic failure of combination antiretroviral therapy in patients with HIV infection. The model harnesses routinely collected pharmacy data and can be used to calculate the cost of virologic failure or to monitor changing patterns of virologic resistance within a health plan.
Tanya Bentley joins PHAR as Director, Health Economics and Outcomes Research.
Before joining PHAR, Tanya was a research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, a project director at the Veterans Health Administration Center for the Study of Healthcare Provider Behavior, and an adjunct research scientist at the RAND Corporation. Tanya has extensive experience in cost-effectiveness analysis, decision-analytic modeling, outcomes research, and related theoretical analyses. She is an active member of the Society for Medical Decision Making and serves as the editor-in-chief of the society's newsletter. She is also a member of ISPOR and APHA, and she teaches decision analysis at USC.
New test reduces chemo use
Survey data presented at the 2009 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium suggests that a new genomic test reduces chemotherapy use in women being treated for lymph node- positive breast cancer. Dr. Ruth Oratz, a medical oncologist at The Women's Oncology & Wellness Practice, along with investigators from PHAR, LLC and Genomic Health, Inc. (Redwood City, CA) presented data from a survey of 160 oncologists showing that test results helped them target chemotherapy more efficiently, reducing treatment intensity among those who had a low risk of recurrence.
PHAR paper #1 in premier Ob-Gyn journal; gets top marks from BMJ
A paper coauthored by Michael Broder and Eunice Chang was the most read article in the May 2009 issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. The same paper was rated "7 out of 7" by the BMJ Evidence Center and found to be "directly and highly relevant to practice." The study, "Ovarian conservation at the time of hysterectomy and long-term health outcomes in the nurses' health study," was a joint effort by PHAR and researchers from medical schools at Harvard, UCLA, Stanford, and USC. The review is available at Evidence Updates from the BMJ Evidence Center.
No Way To Save Money By Improving Healthcare Quality
Policymakers contemplating how to pay for greater access to healthcare have proposed improving quality as one way to save money, but researchers at Partnership for Health Analytic Research (PHAR, LLC), the UCLA Center for Surgical Outcomes and Quality (CSOQ), and RAND studied a comprehensive set of quality indicators and concluded that improving healthcare quality saves lives but costs money. The research was presented at the 14th Annual International Meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), which was held on May 16-20, 2009, in Orlando, Florida.
Common Surgery May Be Unnecessary
As reported by CBS News and the New York Times, investigators from UCLA, PHAR, LLC, and Harvard Medical School recently studied more than 29,000 nurses over 24 years and found a greater risk of death for women whose ovaries were removed during hysterectomy compared with those whose ovaries were not removed. Alan DeCherney, MD, director of reproductive endocrinology at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, believes the study will have a nationwide impact, leading to a revision of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines on when to remove ovaries. The complete study can be found online in Obstetrics & Gynecology and appears in the May 2009 print edition of the journal.
New Asthma Measure May Help Plans Improve Quality
PHAR's poster entitled "Predicting Performance on a Proposed Asthma Quality Measure" was presented at the 21st Annual Meeting & Showcase of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) on April 17, 2009, in Orlando, Florida. The abstract was published in the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy (JMCP) in March 2009.
Asthma Guidelines Rarely Followed
As reported in Medscape, only 15% of moderate-to-severe asthma patients have appropriate step up-care after an exacerbation. These findings were presented in two posters at the 2009 American Academy of Asthma Allergy & Immunology (AAAAI) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Both abstracts were published in the February 2009 supplement to The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
NIH Delphi Panel
Dr. Broder led the 2nd round of an NIH-sponsored expert panel meeting. The panel's multi-year project, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Office of Research on Women's Health, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is engaged in developing a new classification system for uterine fibroids.
Asthma Task Force Project
PHAR, LLC was selected by the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Joint Quality Measures Task Force to conduct an analysis related to the next generation of asthma quality measures. The analysis was published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
COPD/Asthma in Medicare
The Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, the official publication of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, has published a paper authored by PHAR and GlaxoSmithKline entitled "Economic burden in direct costs of concomitant chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma in a Medicare Advantage population." The paper describes the cost and health service utilization associated with asthma and COPD in a population of Medicare beneficiaries.
PHAR Abstracts at AAAAI
Two PHAR abstracts, "Assessment of Healthcare Utilization Associated with Integrated Healthcare Association's Pay For Performance (P4P) Asthma Measure, Appropriate Use of Rescue Inhalers" and "Assessment of Healthcare Utilization Associated with Integrated Healthcare Association's Pay For Performance (P4P) Asthma Measure, Appropriate Use of Rescue Inhalers," were accepted for oral presentation at the 2008 meeting of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI), which was held March 14-18, 2008, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both abstracts were published in the February 2008 supplement to The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
PHAR Poster at IDSA
PHAR presented their poster "Impact of Culture Results on Timing of Anti-Infective Therapy in Hospitalized Patients with Serious Infections" at the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) 45th Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.
PHAR Holds NIH Panel
PHAR President Michael Broder moderated a National Institutes of Health (NIH) expert panel meeting in Bethesda, Maryland. Results of the expert consensus process will be presented at the NIH-sponsored 3rd International Congress on Uterine Fibroids.
NIH Picks PHAR
PHAR, LLC was selected by the National Institutes of Health to organize an expert panel conference on "Developing a Classification System for Uterine Fibroids." The cross-disciplinary panel met at the NIH in September 2007 to develop a new system for classifying uterine fibroids.
PHAR works with Harvard
PHAR, LLC is collaborating with Harvard's Nurses' Health Study to examine the health impact of oophorectomy done at the time of hysterectomy. This study will be the largest ever done to assess the risks and benefits of the common practice of routinely removing a woman's ovaries if she has a hysterectomy. The Nurses' Health Study, begun in 1976, is an NIH-funded study of the risk factors of chronic diseases in women.
PHAR Poster Awarded
PHAR's poster entitled "Persistence and Compliance with Omalizumab and Other Asthma Controller Medications within a Managed-Care Population" was selected as "The Best of Healthcare Education, Delivery and Quality (HCEDQ)" at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI).
