Faculty Bibliography

BACKGROUND:Only half of patients with hypertension have adequately controlled blood pressure. Clinical decision support (CDS) has the potential to overcome barriers to delivering guideline-recommended care and improve hypertension management. However, optimal strategies for scaling CDS have not been well established, particularly in small, independent primary care practices which often lack the resources to effectively change practice routines. Practice facilitation is an implementation strategy that has been shown to support process changes. Our objective is to evaluate whether practice facilitation provided with hypertension-focused CDS can lead to improvements in blood pressure control for patients seen in small primary care practices. METHODS/DESIGN/METHODS:We will conduct a cluster randomized control trial to compare the effect of hypertension-focused CDS plus practice facilitation on BP control, as compared to CDS alone. The practice facilitation intervention will include an initial training in the CDS and a review of current guidelines along with follow-up for coaching and integration support. We will randomize 46 small primary care practices in New York City who use the same electronic health record vendor to intervention or control. All patients with hypertension seen at these practices will be included in the evaluation. We will also assess implementation of CDS in all practices and practice facilitation in the intervention group. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS:The results of this study will inform optimal implementation of CDS into small primary care practices, where much of care delivery occurs in the U.S. Additionally, our assessment of barriers and facilitators to implementation will support future scaling of the intervention. CLINICALTRIALS/RESULTS:gov Identifier: NCT05588466.

BACKGROUND:Beart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. However, shortfalls in prescribing of proven therapies, particularly mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) therapy, account for several thousand preventable deaths per year nationwide. Electronic clinical decision support (CDS) is a potential low-cost and scalable solution to improve prescribing of therapies. However, the optimal timing and format of CDS tools is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS/RESULTS:We developed two targeted CDS tools to inform cardiologists of gaps in MRA therapy for patients with HFrEF and without contraindication to MRA therapy: (1) an alert that notifies cardiologists at the time of patient visit, and (2) an automated electronic message that allows for review between visits. We designed these tools using an established CDS framework and findings from semistructured interviews with cardiologists. We then pilot tested both CDS tools (n = 596 patients) and further enhanced them based on additional semistructured interviews (n = 11 cardiologists). The message was modified to reduce the number of patients listed, include future visits, and list date of next visit. The alert was modified to improve noticeability, reduce extraneous information on guidelines, and include key information on contraindications. CONCLUSIONS:The BETTER CARE-HF (Building Electronic Tools to Enhance and Reinforce CArdiovascular REcommendations for Heart Failure) trial aims to compare the effectiveness of the alert vs. the automated message vs. usual care on the primary outcome of MRA prescribing. To our knowledge, no study has directly compared the efficacy of these two different types of electronic CDS interventions. If effective, our findings can be rapidly disseminated to improve morbidity and mortality for patients with HFrEF, and can also inform the development of future CDS interventions for other disease states. (Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT05275920).

Background Angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitors (ARNI) reduce mortality and hospitalization for patients with heart failure. However, relatively high copayments for ARNI may contribute to suboptimal adherence, thus potentially limiting their benefits. Methods and Results We conducted a retrospective cohort study within a large, multi-site health system. We included patients with: ARNI prescription between November 20, 2020 and June 30, 2021; diagnosis of heart failure or left ventricular ejection fraction ≤40%; and available pharmacy or pharmacy benefit manager copayment data. The primary exposure was copayment, categorized as $0, $0.01 to $10, $10.01 to $100, and >$100. The primary outcome was prescription fill nonadherence, defined as the proportion of days covered <80% over 6 months. We assessed the association between copayment and nonadherence using multivariable logistic regression, and nonbinarized proportion of days covered using multivariable Poisson regression, adjusting for demographic, clinical, and neighborhood-level covariates. A total of 921 patients met inclusion criteria, with 192 (20.8%) having $0 copayment, 228 (24.8%) with $0.01 to $10 copayment, 206 (22.4%) with $10.01 to $100, and 295 (32.0%) with >$100. Patients with higher copayments had higher rates of nonadherence, ranging from 17.2% for $0 copayment to 34.2% for copayment >$100 (P<0.001). After multivariable adjustment, odds of nonadherence were significantly higher for copayment of $10.01 to $100 (odds ratio [OR], 1.93 [95% CI, 1.15-3.27], P=0.01) or >$100 (OR, 2.58 [95% CI, 1.63-4.18], P<0.001), as compared with $0 copayment. Similar associations were seen when assessing proportion of days covered as a proportion. Conclusions We found higher rates of not filling ARNI prescriptions among patients with higher copayments, which persisted after multivariable adjustment. Our findings support future studies to assess whether reducing copayments can increase adherence to ARNI and improve outcomes for heart failure.

BACKGROUND:Guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT) dramatically improves outcomes in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Our goal was to examine GDMT use in community patients with newly diagnosed HFrEF. METHODS AND RESULTS/RESULTS:We performed a population-based, retrospective cohort study of all Olmsted County, Minnesota residents with newly diagnosed HFrEF (EF≤40%) 2007-2017. We excluded patients with contraindications to medication initiation. We examined use of beta blockers, HF beta blockers (metoprolol succinate, carvedilol, bisoprolol), ACEi/ARB/ARNI, and MRA in the first year after HFrEF diagnosis. We used Cox models to evaluate the association of being seen in a HF clinic with initiation of GDMT. From 2007-2017, 1160 patients were diagnosed with HFrEF (mean age 69.7 years, 65.6% men). Most eligible patients received beta blockers (92.6%) and ACEi/ARB/ARNI (87.0%) in the first year. However, only 63.8% of patients were treated with a HF beta blocker, and few received MRAs (17.6%). In models accounting for the role of HF clinic in initiation of these medications, being seen in a HF clinic was independently associated with initiation of new GDMT across all medication classes, with HR (95% CI) of 1.54 (1.15-2.06)for any beta blocker, 2.49 (1.95-3.20) for HF beta blockers, 1.97 (1.46-2.65) for ACEi/ARB/ARNI, and 2.14 (1.49-3.08) for MRAs. CONCLUSIONS:In this population-based study, most patients with newly diagnosed HFrEF received beta blockers and ACEi/ARB/ARNIs. GDMT use was higher in patients seen in a HF clinic, suggesting potential benefit of referral to a HF clinic for patients with newly diagnosed HFrEF.

BACKGROUND:National registries reveal significant gaps in medical therapy for patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), but may not accurately (or fully) characterize the population eligible for therapy. OBJECTIVE:We developed an automated, electronic health record-based algorithm to identify HFrEF patients eligible for evidence-based therapy, and extracted treatment data to assess gaps in therapy in a large, diverse health system. METHODS:In this cross-sectional study of all NYU Langone Health outpatients with EF ≤ 40% on echocardiogram and an outpatient visit from 3/1/2019 to 2/29/2020, we assessed prescription of the following therapies: beta-blocker (BB), angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACE-I)/angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB)/angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI), and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA). Our algorithm accounted for contraindications such as medication allergy, bradycardia, hypotension, renal dysfunction, and hyperkalemia. RESULTS:We electronically identified 2732 patients meeting inclusion criteria. Among those eligible for each medication class, 84.8% and 79.7% were appropriately prescribed BB and ACE-I/ARB/ARNI, respectively, while only 23.9% and 22.7% were appropriately prescribed MRA and ARNI, respectively. In adjusted models, younger age, cardiology visit and lower EF were associated with increased prescribing of medications. Private insurance and Medicaid were associated with increased prescribing of ARNI (OR = 1.40, 95% CI = 1.02-2.00; and OR = 1.70, 95% CI = 1.07-2.67). CONCLUSIONS:We observed substantial shortfalls in prescribing of MRA and ARNI therapy to ambulatory HFrEF patients. Subspecialty care setting, and Medicaid insurance were associated with higher rates of ARNI prescribing. Further studies are warranted to prospectively evaluate provider- and policy-level interventions to improve prescribing of these evidence-based therapies.

Background Acute myocardial infarctions are increasingly common among young adults. We investigated sex and racial differences in the evaluation of chest pain (CP) among young adults presenting to the emergency department. Methods and Results Emergency department visits for adults aged 18 to 55 years presenting with CP were identified in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey 2014 to 2018, which uses stratified sampling to produce national estimates. We evaluated associations between sex, race, and CP management before and after multivariable adjustment. We identified 4152 records representing 29 730 145 visits for CP among young adults. Women were less likely than men to be triaged as emergent (19.1% versus 23.3%, respectively, P<0.001), to undergo electrocardiography (74.2% versus 78.8%, respectively, P=0.024), or to be admitted to the hospital or observation unit (12.4% versus 17.9%, respectively, P<0.001), but ordering of cardiac biomarkers was similar. After multivariable adjustment, men were seen more quickly (hazard ratio [HR], 1.15 [95% CI, 1.05-1.26]) and were more likely to be admitted (adjusted odds ratio, 1.40 [95% CI, 1.08-1.81]; P=0.011). People of color waited longer for physician evaluation (HR, 0.82 [95% CI, 0.73-0.93]; P<0.001) than White adults after multivariable adjustment, but there were no racial differences in hospital admission, triage level, electrocardiography, or cardiac biomarker testing. Acute myocardial infarction was diagnosed in 1.4% of adults in the emergency department and 6.5% of admitted adults. Conclusions Women and people of color with CP waited longer to be seen by physicians, independent of clinical features. Women were independently less likely to be admitted when presenting with CP. These differences could impact downstream treatment and outcomes.

BACKGROUND:Accurately identifying patients with hypoglycemia is key to preventing adverse events and mortality. Natural language processing (NLP), a form of artificial intelligence, uses computational algorithms to extract information from text data. NLP is a scalable, efficient, and quick method to extract hypoglycemia-related information when using electronic health record data sources from a large population. OBJECTIVE:The objective of this systematic review was to synthesize the literature on the application of NLP to extract hypoglycemia from electronic health record clinical notes. METHODS:Literature searches were conducted electronically in PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, CINAHL (EBSCO), PsycINFO (Ovid), IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar, and ACL Anthology. Keywords included hypoglycemia, low blood glucose, NLP, and machine learning. Inclusion criteria included studies that applied NLP to identify hypoglycemia, reported the outcomes related to hypoglycemia, and were published in English as full papers. RESULTS:This review (n=8 studies) revealed heterogeneity of the reported results related to hypoglycemia. Of the 8 included studies, 4 (50%) reported that the prevalence rate of any level of hypoglycemia was 3.4% to 46.2%. The use of NLP to analyze clinical notes improved the capture of undocumented or missed hypoglycemic events using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9), and International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10), and laboratory testing. The combination of NLP and ICD-9 or ICD-10 codes significantly increased the identification of hypoglycemic events compared with individual methods; for example, the prevalence rates of hypoglycemia were 12.4% for International Classification of Diseases codes, 25.1% for an NLP algorithm, and 32.2% for combined algorithms. All the reviewed studies applied rule-based NLP algorithms to identify hypoglycemia. CONCLUSIONS:The findings provided evidence that the application of NLP to analyze clinical notes improved the capture of hypoglycemic events, particularly when combined with the ICD-9 or ICD-10 codes and laboratory testing.

BACKGROUND:Both community health workers and the Project ECHO model of specialist telementoring are innovative approaches to support primary care providers in the care of complex patients with diabetes.We studied the effect of an intervention that combined these two approaches on glycemic control. METHODS:Patients with diabetes were recruited from 10 federally qualified health centers in New Mexico. We used electronic health record (EHR) data to compare HbA1c levels prior to intervention enrollment with HbA1c levels after 3 months (early follow-up) and 12 months (late follow-up) following enrollment. We propensity matched intervention patients to comparison patients from other sites within the same EHR databases to estimate the average treatment effect. RESULTS:Among 557 intervention patients with HbA1c data, mean HbA1c decreased from 10.5% to 9.3% in the pre- versus post-intervention periods (p<0.001). As compared to the comparison group, the intervention was associated with a change in HbA1c of -0.2% (95% CI -0.4%-0.5%) and -0.3 (95% CI -0.5-0.0) in the early and late follow-up cohorts, respectively. The intervention was associated with a significant increase in percent of patients with HbA1c<8% in the late follow-up cohort (8.1%, 95%CI 2.2%-13.9%) but not the early follow-up cohort (3.6%, 95% CI -1.5%-8.7%) DISCUSSION: : The intervention was associated with a substantial decrease in HbA1c in intervention patients, although this improvement was not different from matched comparison patients in early follow-up. While combining community health workers with Project ECHO may hold promise for improving glycemic control, particularly in the longer term, further evaluations are needed.