Research Projects Page

Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy (VSP) embeds pharmacists within an outpatient MS clinic to provide medication management and address barriers to adherence. We found an average adherence rate of 94% as measured by proportion of days covered (PDC), with 89% of all VSP patients achieving the industry standard of 80% PDC. Additionally, results indicate that ensuring financial assistance and low out-of-pocket costs are associated with high adherence to DMT within an integrated specialty clinic.

Universal HCV screening was recently suggested to have the biggest impact on cascade of care improvement. The objective of this study was to compare cascade of care completion rates among patients referred for HCV treatment from traditional referral sources to those referred from the emergency department. We found that patient demographics vary between the two referral sources and patients referred from the emergency department had significantly lower linkage and engagement in HCV care.

Interim results of the Phase IV single-arm study assessing the rate of symptomatic VTE over 6 months in patients with MM receiving immunomodulatory therapy and apixaban for primary prevention. No patients experienced a VTE, stroke, hemorrhage, or MI at this three month interim analysis.

An increasing number of specialists and non-specialists are developing clinical programs to treat and cure hepatitis C virus (HCV). The goal of this paper is to evaluate and describe optimal strategies to improve outcomes related to HCV care delivery.

This study was the first in a multi-phase project to identify rates and reasons for non-adherence and implement programs within VSP to reduce non-adherence. Those clinics with the lowest rates of adherence were likely to have clinically appropriate reasons for disruptions in therapy that may lead to a less than optimal PDC rate based on current calculations.

Pharmacists at health system-based specialty pharmacies have the opportunity to improve patient care by providing comprehensive medication management for patients prescribed specialty medication. This manuscript describes how Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy integrated pharmacy services into existing outpatient specialty disease clinics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which improved patient access to therapy and continuity of care.

The objective of this study was to identify factors associated with movement through the HCV CoC after referral to a multidisciplinary ID clinic to sustained virologic response (SVR), including both general and historically difficult to treat populations.

Given the shortage of suitable donor hearts for cardiac transplantation, and the favorable safety and efficacy of current agents used to treat hepatitis C virus(HCV), our institution recently piloted transplantation of select patients using HCV-positive donors. In the era of highly effective DAAs, the use of HCV-positive donors represents a potential approach to safely expand the donor pool.

Based on recent clinical trial data, most patients who fail HCV treatment with direct acting antiviral agents now have excellent retreatment options. In this article, we review the current state of the evidence for HCV retreatment after DAA failure.

Many patients do not complete the two year course of teriparatide. In this study, we explored factors related to teriparatide completion. We found that smoking status significantly impacted teriparatide completion. Additionally, most patients required some form of financial assistance for teriparatide use.