Scholars@Duke
Ester Kim Nilles

Ester Kim Nilles

Biostatistician, Senior
Duke Clinical Research Institute

Scholarly Works

Evaluating fitness-for-use of electronic health records in ascertaining baseline characteristics and clinical outcomes in clinical trials: insights from the VESALIUS EHR demonstration project.

Journal article Trials · April 25, 2026 INTRODUCTION: A tremendous amount of clinical data is collected and stored in electronic health records (EHRs). Whether this data can be harnessed at scale to facilitate clinical trial conduct remains to be seen. METHODS: The Effect of Evolocumab in Patien ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neonatal outcomes of pregnancy in women with congenital heart disease.

Journal article Am Heart J · January 2026 BACKGROUND: Infants born to women with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at increased risk for adverse outcomes compared with the general population. There are few large, contemporary studies examining the relationship between CHD severity, maternal risk ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association Between age or Duration of Diagnosis in Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Response to Mavacamten Treatment: Exploratory Analysis of the EXPLORER-HCM Trial.

Journal article J Card Fail · June 2025 BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In patients with symptomatic, obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), it is unclear if response to cardiac myosin inhibition varies with older age or a longer duration of diagnosis. This study evaluated the response of these sub ... Full text Link to item Cite

Mavacamten for Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy With or Without Hypertension: Post-Hoc Analysis of the EXPLORER-HCM Trial.

Journal article JACC Heart Fail · March 2024 BACKGROUND: Hypertension (HTN) is common in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), but its effect on the treatment of left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) obstruction is undefined. Although elevated systolic blood pressure (SBP) may impact dynam ... Full text Link to item Cite

Examining COVID-19 testing and vaccination behaviors by heritage and linguistic preferences among Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish RADx-UP participants.

Journal article Prev Med Rep · October 2023 The Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish (hereafter, "Hispanic") populations in the U.S. bear a disproportionate burden of COVID-19-related outcomes, including disease incidence and mortality. Developing culturally appropriate national public health services for H ... Full text Link to item Cite

Optimizing data integration in trials that use EHR data: lessons learned from a multi-center randomized clinical trial.

Journal article Trials · September 1, 2023 BACKGROUND: Despite great promise, trials that ascertain patient clinical data from electronic health records (EHR), referred to here as "EHR-sourced" trials, are limited by uncertainty about how existing trial sites and infrastructure can be best used to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Contemporary patterns of lipoprotein(a) testing and associated clinical care and outcomes.

Conference Am J Prev Cardiol · June 2023 OBJECTIVE: Elevated lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is associated with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, yet little is known about Lp(a) testing patterns in real-world practice. The objective of this analysis was to determine how Lp(a) testing is used in clin ... Full text Link to item Cite

Seasonal variation in blood pressure control across US health systems.

Journal article J Hypertens · May 1, 2023 OBJECTIVE: We aimed to characterize seasonal variation in US population-based blood pressure (BP) control and BP-related metrics and evaluate the association between outdoor temperature and BP control variation. METHODS: We queried electronic health record ... Full text Link to item Cite

Disruption in Blood Pressure Control With the COVID-19 Pandemic: The PCORnet Blood Pressure Control Laboratory.

Journal article Mayo Clin Proc · May 2023 OBJECTIVE: To explore trends in blood pressure (BP) control before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Health systems participating in the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) Blood Pressure Control Laboratory S ... Full text Link to item Cite

Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, and COVID-19-related outcomes: A patient-level analysis of the PCORnet blood pressure control lab.

Journal article Am Heart J Plus · January 2022 SARS-CoV-2 accesses host cells via angiotensin-converting enzyme-2, which is also affected by commonly used angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), raising concerns that ACEI or ARB exposure may portend di ... Full text Link to item Cite

Tracking Blood Pressure Control Performance and Process Metrics in 25 US Health Systems: The PCORnet Blood Pressure Control Laboratory.

Journal article J Am Heart Assoc · November 2, 2021 Background The National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network Blood Pressure Control Laboratory Surveillance System was established to identify opportunities for blood pressure (BP) control improvement and to provide a mechanism for tracking improveme ... Full text Link to item Cite

Improving Safe Sleep Modeling in the Hospital through Policy Implementation.

Journal article Maternal and child health journal · November 2017 Introduction Sleep-related infant deaths are major contributors to Tennessee's high infant mortality rate. The purpose of this initiative was to evaluate the impact of policy-based efforts to improve modeling of safe sleep practices by health care provider ... Full text Cite