- Half of Americans Tested Misused Prescription Medications, Lab Tests Show (ptcommunity.com)
Quest Analysis of 3.4 million tests shows evidence of dangerous drug combinations...A majority of test results from patients taking prescription medications show signs of drug misuse—including potentially dangerous drug combinations...The Quest Diagnostics Health Trends study is based on analysis of the company's de-identified laboratory data, believed to be one of the largest nationally representative datasets of objective laboratory information of patients prescribed opioids and other commonly abused medications. Physicians order laboratory services to aid their ability to monitor patients for signs of prescription or illicit drug misuse or abuse...(The report, "Prescription Drug Misuse in America: Diagnostic Insights in the Growing Drug Epidemic")
- evidence of misuse has declined in recent years, 52% of test results showed evidence of potential misuse in 2016, suggesting a majority of patients took their prescribed drugs in ways that were inconsistent with their physician's instruction...
- disturbing patterns of concurrent drug use. Among more than 33,000 specimens tested for opioids, benzodiazepines, and alcohol in 2016, more than 20% were positive for both opioids and benzodiazepines, more than 10% were positive for both opioids and alcohol, and 3% were positive for all three...
- 19% of specimens positive for heroin in 2016 were also positive for nonprescribed fentanyl...
- drug misuse rates were high among most age groups and both genders. However, adolescents (10 to 17 years of age) showed a striking improvement, with the rate dropping from 70% to 29% between 2011 and 2016...
- Misuse rates were higher for men and women of reproductive age (58%) than in the general study population (52%)
- IBM pitched its Watson supercomputer as a revolution in cancer care. It’s nowhere close (statnews.com)
It was an audacious undertaking, even for one of the most storied American companies: With a single machine, IBM would tackle humanity’s most vexing diseases and revolutionize medicine...promoting its signature brand — Watson — IBM sought to capture the world’s imagination, and it quickly zeroed in on a high-profile target: cancer...But three years after IBM began selling Watson to recommend the best cancer treatments to doctors around the world, a STAT investigation has found that the supercomputer isn’t living up to the lofty expectations IBM created for it. It is still struggling with the basic step of learning about different forms of cancer. Only a few dozen hospitals have adopted the system, which is a long way from IBM’s goal of establishing dominance in a multibillion-dollar market...While it has emphatically marketed Watson for cancer care, IBM hasn’t published any scientific papers demonstrating how the technology affects physicians and patients. As a result, its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped...
- Most U.S. Hospitals Use EHRs, CPOE Systems (drugtopics.modernmedicine.com)
The use of health IT has exploded in the last decade, and that means better health care...Electronic health records, computerized prescriber-order-entry systems, and barcode-assisted medication administration systems have now become almost universal in hospitals nationwide...According to the “ASHP National Survey of Pharmacy Practice in Hospital Settings: Prescribing and Transcribing — 2016,” nearly 100% of hospitals across the United States have adopted these technologies...Survey results reveal that the use of health IT by hospitals has led to a rapid increase in “paperless care.”... ASHP CEO, Paul W. Abramowitz, PharmD, said in a statement that, in addition to improving medication safety, the increased use of information technology shows great potential for pharmacists to spend more time providing comprehensive medication therapy management in and across all settings of patient care. “These positive findings move us closer to achieving ASHP’s vision that medication use will be optimal, safe, and effective for all people all of the time.” Abramowitz said.
- Week in Review: September 9, 2017 (pharmacytimes.com)
Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.
- Pharmacies front and center as Florida preps for Hurricane Irma (pharmacist.com)
The pharmacy community is working to make sure Florida residents are prepared as Hurricane Irma bears down on the state. Gov. Rick Scott authorized pharmacies to dispense up to 30-day emergency prescription refills to patients...In addition, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens are emphasizing the importance being prepared by keeping prescriptions stocked, or at least on-hand. "Prescription preparedness is one of the most important steps individuals and families can take in the lead up to potentially severe weather, and CVS Pharmacy is working to ensure that our patients have the medications they need in advance of the storm," says CVS Health EVP retail pharmacy and supply chain Kevin Hourican. Walgreens is reminding patients to follow evacuation orders and get to a safe location before refilling their prescriptions, noting that all locations can access a patient's records and that the Walgreens app can be used to refill prescriptions and pick them up nearby.
- Sticker shock: Obamacare’s specialty drug customers faced big price hikes in 2017 (cnbc.com)
Many Obamacare customers who take specialty drugs had to personally pay anywhere from $262 to $1,762 more each month in 2017 than they did last year for those medications,,,The report, from the insurance comparison site HealthPocket.com, found that the average specialty drug coinsurance fee for the most popular type of Obamacare plans rose by five percentage points from 2016...That increase reflects a trend of insurance plans shifting the burden of directly paying for often-high priced specialty medication onto consumers..,And that burden can be heavy...The report underscored the relatively large change in cost burden on customers of so-called silver individual health plans who use specialty drugs...About 70 percent of all customers who purchase individual coverage through a government-run Obamacare marketplace are enrolled in silver plans. Those plans pay, on average, 70 percent of all of their customers' health costs, with enrollees being personally responsible for the remaining 30 percent...
- Roseman University gets $10M for budding medical school (reviewjournal.com)
Roseman University College of Medicine...announced a $10 million pledge gift from the Engelstad Family Foundation, which will help advance the opening of the school...“This is really a very important moment for the history of Roseman,” said Dr. Mark Penn, founding dean for the medical school. “We don’t have state support, so we rely on other money, resources to support what we try to do. We’re thrilled they want to partner with us this way.”...The donation is the largest in the Henderson university’s history, and kicks off a $66 million fundraising campaign. The medical school will be in Summerlin, where the campus nursing school is...The money is needed to hire critical faculty and staff, an important step as the school continues through a new accreditation process…
- Novartis charged much more in the U.S. for some drugs than in other countries (statnews.com)
An axiom in the overheated debate about prescription drug pricing is that Americans are often charged more than what is paid by people in other countries...the pharmaceutical industry argues that prices are set to fund research for discovering and developing new medicines. This makes sense, of course. But as Americans increasingly complain about rising prices, there has been accompanying angst about the extent to which higher prices in the U.S. are used to essentially subsidize what people pay elsewhere...the U.S. has a hodgepodge of government agencies and private insurers negotiating for medicines, and government health care systems are required to cover so many drugs. In most other countries, the central government is the primary gatekeeper for cost-conscious coverage decisions, which concentrates purchasing and often forces drug makers to lower prices...higher prices may not necessarily reflect higher costs...A higher price doesn’t mean the company had more expenses in the U.S. It will be the rationale they give, but it doesn’t mean they have the cost accounting to back it up."..."Their internal transfer prices are same as the wholesale acquisition cost, or list price, and are based on the amount of revenue they expect to get in each country. These prices tell me that this is what they’re using internally to charge (country) units, but the price isn’t driven by cost to make it in the factory. It’s what they know they can get in that market…This just reflects the U.S. does not have an effective market for evaluating and buying drugs, because when you have a drug that is required to be covered, you don’t have leverage to negotiate."...
- Why the Biosimilar Drug Revolution Hasn’t Arrived (bloomberg.com)
In a word: patents...The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (2010) was...part of the Affordable Care Act. Its essential goal was to infuse competition and lower the prices of drugs that were made from living cells -- so-called biologics...Until the 2010 law, biologics had no fear of competition -- there was no legal way to introduce generic versions into the market -- so they were able to maintain their monopoly price even after their patents expired. The BPCIA was intended to establish mechanisms within the Food and Drug Administration, the Patent and Trademark Office, and the courts that would allow the introduction of "biosimilars." These drugs weren't exact replicas of biologics, but were similar enough, and safe enough, to be used instead of the brand-name drugs...Here we are seven years later. Guess how many biosimilars have made it to market?..Two...companies are forced to fight through thickets of patents to get a biosimilar to market, a law that was supposed to save the U.S. billions will continue to do just the opposite: make it easy for biologic makers to maintain unwarranted monopolies...
- This Week in Managed Care: September 8, 2017 (ajmc.com)
Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network