Scholars@Duke
Lesley H. Curtis

Lesley H. Curtis

Professor in Population Health Sciences
Population Health Sciences
lesley.curtis@duke.edu
Duke Box 104023, Durham, NC 27708
215 Morris Street, Suite 210, Durham, NC 27701

Selected Publications

Monitoring in pragmatic trials lessons from the NIH pragmatic trials collaboratory.

Journal Article Contemp Clin Trials · May 2025 The distinguishing characteristics of pragmatic clinical trials merits special attention when developing a monitoring plan. Pragmatic clinical trials are large in scope; participants are often identified from records or routinely collected data; investigat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Assessing the harmonization of structured electronic health record data to reference terminologies and data completeness through data provenance.

Journal Article Learn Health Syst · April 2025 INTRODUCTION: (1) Assess the harmonization of structured electronic health record data (laboratory results and medications) to reference terminologies and characterize the severity of issues. (2) Identify issues of data completeness by comparing complement ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Unified Approach to Health Data Exchange: A Report From the US DHHS.

Journal Article JAMA · March 25, 2025 IMPORTANCE: Health information technology, such as electronic health records (EHRs), has been widely adopted, yet accessing and exchanging data in the fragmented US health care system remains challenging. To unlock the potential of EHR data to improve pati ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of electronic health record updates and changes on the delivery and monitoring of interventions in embedded pragmatic clinical trials.

Journal Article Contemp Clin Trials · January 2025 The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory supports the design and conduct of 32 embedded pragmatic clinical trials, and many of these trials rely on data from the electronic health record (EHR) to monitor outcomes and/or use functionality provided by the EHR ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association Between Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Risks of Early and Recurrent Admissions Among Patients With Newly Diagnosed Heart Failure.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · December 2024 BACKGROUND: Socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with greater risks of hospital readmission and mortality among patients with heart failure (HF). However, it is less clear whether socioeconomic disadvantage has an immediate and lasting impact on the ri ... Full text Link to item Cite

Framework of the strengths and challenges of clinically integrated trials: An expert panel report.

Journal Article Am Heart J · September 2024 The limitations of the explanatory clinical trial framework include the high expense of implementing explanatory trials, restrictive entry criteria for participants, and redundant logistical processes. These limitations can result in slow evidence generati ... Full text Link to item Cite

Contribution of Clinical Trial Event Data by Data Source: A Prespecified Analysis of the ADAPTABLE Randomized Clinical Trial.

Journal Article JAMA Cardiol · September 1, 2024 IMPORTANCE: Pragmatic randomized clinical trials (RCTs) often use multiple data sources to examine clinical events, but the relative contribution of data sources to clinical end-point rates is understudied. OBJECTIVE: To assess the contribution of data sou ... Full text Link to item Cite

Why Evidence Generation Should Matter to Payers and How They Can Help.

Journal Article JAMA · August 2024 ImportanceThe US leads the world in bringing new medical products to market, but the ability to generate evidence to inform clinical practice in postmarket settings needs improvement. Although a diverse group of stakeholders is working to improve ... Full text Cite

Drug development for major chronic health conditions-aligning with growing public health needs: Proceedings from a multistakeholder think tank.

Journal Article Am Heart J · April 2024 The global pharmaceutical industry portfolio is skewed towards cancer and rare diseases due to more predictable development pathways and financial incentives. In contrast, drug development for major chronic health conditions that are responsible for a larg ... Full text Link to item Cite

Incorporating Acute Conditions into Risk-Adjustment for Provider Profiling: The Case of the US News and World Report Best Hospitals Rankings Methodology.

Journal Article Am J Med Qual · March 2024 Several years ago, the US News and World Report changed their risk-adjustment methodology, now relying almost exclusively on chronic conditions for risk adjustment. The impacts of adding selected acute conditions like pneumonia, sepsis, and electrolyte dis ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lessons From COVID-19 for Pandemic Preparedness: Proceedings From a Multistakeholder Think Tank.

Journal Article Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · December 2023 While the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to present global challenges, sufficient time has passed to reflect on lessons learned and use those insights to inform policy and approaches to prepare for the next pandemic. In May 2022, th ... Full text Cite

"Click and mortar" opportunities for digitization and consumerism in trials.

Journal Article Contemp Clin Trials · September 2023 BACKGROUND: Digitization (using novel digital tools and strategies) and consumerism (taking a consumer-oriented approach) are increasingly commonplace in clinical trials, but the implications of these changes are not well described. METHODS: We assembled a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Needles in a Haystack: Finding Qualitative and Quantitative Collaborators in Academic Medical Centers.

Journal Article Acad Med · August 1, 2023 Translational research is a data-driven process that involves transforming scientific laboratory- and clinic-based discoveries into products and activities with real-world impact to improve individual and population health. Successful execution of translat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Effectively Leveraging RWD for External Controls: A Systematic Literature Review of Regulatory and HTA Decisions.

Journal Article Clin Pharmacol Ther · August 2023 Real-world data (RWD)-derived external controls can be used to contextualize efficacy findings for investigational therapies evaluated in uncontrolled trials. As the number of submissions to regulatory and health technology assessment (HTA) bodies using ex ... Full text Link to item Cite

Regulatory and HTA Considerations for Development of Real-World Data Derived External Controls.

Journal Article Clin Pharmacol Ther · August 2023 Regulators and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) bodies are increasingly familiar with, and publishing guidance on, external controls derived from real-world data (RWD) to generate real-world evidence (RWE). We recently conducted a systematic literature r ... Full text Link to item Cite

Fitness of real-world data for clinical trial data collection: Results and lessons from a HARMONY Outcomes ancillary study.

Journal Article Clin Trials · December 2022 BACKGROUND: Despite the extensive use of real-world data for retrospective, observational clinical research, our understanding of how real-world data might increase the efficiency of data collection in patient-level randomized clinical trials is largely un ... Full text Link to item Cite

Concordance Between Patient-Reported Health Data and Electronic Health Data in the ADAPTABLE Trial.

Journal Article JAMA Cardiol · December 1, 2022 IMPORTANCE: Patient-reported health data can facilitate clinical event capture in pragmatic clinical trials. However, few data are available on the fitness for use of patient-reported data in large-scale health research. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the concorda ... Full text Link to item Cite

The impact of COVID-19 on pragmatic clinical trials: lessons learned from the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory.

Journal Article Trials · May 21, 2022 BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has considerably disrupted nearly all aspects of daily life, including healthcare delivery and clinical research. Because pragmatic clinical trials are often embedded within healthcare delivery systems, they may be at high ... Full text Link to item Cite

Inclusion and diversity in clinical trials: Actionable steps to drive lasting change.

Journal Article Contemporary clinical trials · May 2022 BackgroundImproving diversity in clinical trials is essential in order to produce generalizable results. Although the importance of representation has become increasingly recognized, identifying strategies to approach this work remains elusive. Th ... Full text Cite

Evaluating fitness-for-use of electronic health records in pragmatic clinical trials: reported practices and recommendations.

Journal Article J Am Med Inform Assoc · April 13, 2022 OBJECTIVE: To empirically explore how pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) that used real-world data (RWD) assessed study-specific fitness-for-use. METHODS: We conducted interviews and surveys with PCT teams who used electronic health record (EHR) data to asce ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinician Specialty, Access to Care, and Outcomes Among Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease.

Journal Article Am J Med · February 2022 BACKGROUND: Understanding the relationship between patterns of peripheral artery disease and outcomes is an essential step toward improving care and outcomes. We hypothesized that clinician specialty would be associated with occurrence of major adverse vas ... Full text Link to item Cite

Broadening the reach of the FDA Sentinel system: A roadmap for integrating electronic health record data in a causal analysis framework.

Journal Article NPJ digital medicine · December 2021 The Sentinel System is a major component of the United States Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approach to active medical product safety surveillance. While Sentinel has historically relied on large quantities of health insurance claims data, leveragin ... Full text Cite

Psychosocial determinants of cardiovascular events among black Americans with chronic kidney disease or associated risk factors in the Jackson heart study.

Journal Article BMC Nephrol · November 11, 2021 BACKGROUND: Individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD), hypertension (HTN), or diabetes mellitus (DM) are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The extent to which psychosocial factors are associated with increased CVD risk within these in ... Full text Link to item Cite

The association of healthcare disparities and patient-specific factors on clinical outcomes in peripheral artery disease.

Journal Article Am Heart J · September 2021 BACKGROUND: PAD increases the risk of cardiovascular mortality and limb loss, and disparities in treatment and outcomes have been described. However, the association of patient-specific characteristics with variation in outcomes is less well known. METHODS ... Full text Link to item Cite

Life expectancy and voting patterns in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Journal Article SSM Popul Health · September 2021 INTRODUCTION: In the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, voters in communities with recent stagnation or decline in life expectancy were more likely to vote for the Republican candidate than in prior Presidential elections. We aimed to assess the association ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical Effectiveness of Sacubitril/Valsartan Among Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · August 17, 2021 Background Sacubitril/Valsartan has been highly efficacious in randomized trials of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). However, the effectiveness of sacubitril/valsartan in older patients hospitalized for HFrEF in real-world US practice ... Full text Link to item Cite

The role of machine learning in clinical research: transforming the future of evidence generation.

Journal Article Trials · August 16, 2021 BACKGROUND: Interest in the application of machine learning (ML) to the design, conduct, and analysis of clinical trials has grown, but the evidence base for such applications has not been surveyed. This manuscript reviews the proceedings of a multi-stakeh ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

The use of electronic health records for recruitment in clinical trials: a mixed methods analysis of the Harmony Outcomes Electronic Health Record Ancillary Study.

Journal Article Trials · July 19, 2021 BACKGROUND: The electronic health record (EHR) contains a wealth of clinical data that may be used to streamline the identification of potential clinical trial participants. However, there is little empirical information on site-level facilitators of and b ... Full text Link to item Cite

Accounting for quality improvement during the conduct of embedded pragmatic clinical trials within healthcare systems: NIH Collaboratory case studies.

Journal Article Healthc (Amst) · June 2021 Embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs) and quality improvement (QI) activities often occur simultaneously within healthcare systems (HCSs). Embedded PCTs within HCSs are conducted to test interventions and provide evidence that may impact public health ... Full text Link to item Cite

Comparative Effectiveness of Aspirin Dosing in Cardiovascular Disease.

Journal Article N Engl J Med · May 27, 2021 BACKGROUND: The appropriate dose of aspirin to lower the risk of death, myocardial infarction, and stroke and to minimize major bleeding in patients with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is a subject of controversy. METHODS: Using an open ... Full text Link to item Cite

Medical chart validation of inpatient diagnosis codes for transfusion-related acute lung injury 2013-2015.

Journal Article Transfusion · March 2021 INTRODUCTION: Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), an adverse event occurring during or within 6 hours of transfusion, is a leading cause of transfusion-associated fatalities reported to the US Food and Drug Administration. There is limited infor ... Full text Link to item Cite

Designing, Conducting, Monitoring, and Analyzing Data from Pragmatic Randomized Clinical Trials: Proceedings from a Multi-stakeholder Think Tank Meeting.

Journal Article Ther Innov Regul Sci · November 2020 In late 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlined a framework for evaluating the possible use of real-world evidence (RWE) to support regulatory decision-making. This framework was created to facilitate studies that would generate high-quality ... Full text Link to item Cite

Life Expectancy and Voting Patterns in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

Journal Article · October 28, 2020 AbstractIntroductionIn the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, voters in communities with recent stagnation or decline in life expectancy were more likely to vote for the Republican candidate ... Full text Cite

Recommendations for Reporting Machine Learning Analyses in Clinical Research.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · October 2020 Use of machine learning (ML) in clinical research is growing steadily given the increasing availability of complex clinical data sets. ML presents important advantages in terms of predictive performance and identifying undiscovered subpopulations of patien ... Full text Link to item Cite

Applying patient-reported outcome methodology to capture patient-reported health data: Report from an NIH Collaboratory roundtable.

Journal Article Healthc (Amst) · September 2020 Patient-reported health data provide information for pragmatic clinical trials that may not be readily available from electronic health records or administrative claims data. In this report, we present key considerations for collecting patient-reported hea ... Full text Link to item Cite

Model-Based Algorithms for Detecting Peripheral Artery Disease Using Administrative Data From an Electronic Health Record Data System: Algorithm Development Study.

Journal Article JMIR Med Inform · August 19, 2020 BACKGROUND: Peripheral artery disease (PAD) affects 8 to 10 million Americans, who face significantly elevated risks of both mortality and major limb events such as amputation. Unfortunately, PAD is relatively underdiagnosed, undertreated, and underresearc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) and its treatment: an NIH Collaboratory study of claims data.

Journal Article Support Care Cancer · June 2020 PURPOSE: Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a disabling complication of many chemotherapies. We investigated the feasibility of using health plan claims and administrative data to identify CIPN occurrence by comparing patients who receive ... Full text Link to item Cite

Data Quarantine in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · June 2020 Full text Link to item Cite

Computable Phenotype Implementation for a National, Multicenter Pragmatic Clinical Trial: Lessons Learned From ADAPTABLE.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · June 2020 BACKGROUND: Many large-scale cardiovascular clinical trials are plagued with escalating costs and low enrollment. Implementing a computable phenotype, which is a set of executable algorithms, to identify a group of clinical characteristics derivable from e ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association of Implantable Device Measured Physical Activity With Hospitalization for Heart Failure.

Journal Article JACC Heart Fail · April 2020 OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of physical activity (PA) level and longitudinal PA trajectory with a composite heart failure hospitalization and mortality endpoint over a 5-year follow-up period following implantation ... Full text Link to item Cite

Care continuity impacts medicare expenditures of older adults: Fact or fiction?

Journal Article Healthc (Amst) · March 2020 BACKGROUND: Older adults with cardiometabolic conditions are typically seen by multiple providers. Management by multiple providers may compromise care continuity and increase health expenditures for older adults, which may partly explain the inverse assoc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Considerations for using distributed research networks to conduct aspects of randomized trials.

Journal Article Contemp Clin Trials Commun · March 2020 Stakeholders in the clinical research enterprise are aligned around the need to make clinical research in general, and randomized controlled trials in particular, more meaningful and efficient. To that end, we have built distributed research networks (DRNs ... Full text Link to item Cite

Assessing Quality of Surgical Real-World Data from an Automated Electronic Health Record Pipeline.

Journal Article J Am Coll Surg · March 2020 BACKGROUND: Significant analysis errors can be caused by nonvalidated data quality of electronic health records data. To determine surgical data fitness, a framework of foundational and study-specific data analyses was adapted and assessed using conformanc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Measuring Health.

Journal Article Prim Care · December 2019 Primary care clinicians care for an extremely diverse range of patients, and they therefore have numerous opportunities to measure and act to improve the health of various populations. In order to take effective actions to improve the health of their patie ... Full text Link to item Cite

Claims-based cardiovascular outcome identification for clinical research: Results from 7 large randomized cardiovascular clinical trials.

Journal Article American heart journal · December 2019 BackgroundMedicare insurance claims may provide an efficient means to ascertain follow-up of older participants in clinical research. We sought to determine the accuracy and completeness of claims- versus site-based follow-up with clinical event c ... Full text Cite

Ischemic and Bleeding Outcomes in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation and Contraindications to Oral Anticoagulation.

Journal Article JACC Clin Electrophysiol · December 2019 OBJECTIVES: This study sought to describe clinical outcomes among patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and contraindications to oral anticoagulation (OAC). BACKGROUND: Treatment with OAC prevents stroke and death in patients with AF, but may be contraind ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of physiologic pacing versus right ventricular pacing among patients with left ventricular ejection fraction greater than 35%: A systematic review for the 2018 ACC/AHA/HRS guideline on the evaluation and management of patients with bradycardia and cardiac conduction delay: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society.

Journal Article Heart Rhythm · September 2019 BACKGROUND: It is unclear whether physiologic pacing by either cardiac biventricular pacing (BiVP) or His bundle pacing (HisBP) may prevent adverse structural and functional consequences known to occur among some patients who receive right ventricular paci ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of Physiologic Pacing Versus Right Ventricular Pacing Among Patients With Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction Greater Than 35%: A Systematic Review for the 2018 ACC/AHA/HRS Guideline on the Evaluation and Management of Patients With Bradycardia and Cardiac Conduction Delay: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · August 20, 2019 BACKGROUND: It is unclear whether physiologic pacing by either cardiac biventricular pacing (BiVP) or His bundle pacing (HisBP) may prevent adverse structural and functional consequences known to occur among some patients who receive right ventricular paci ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Burden of Congestion in Patients Hospitalized With Acute Decompensated Heart Failure.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · August 15, 2019 Congestion is associated with adverse outcomes in heart failure (HF) patients. We characterized congestion in patients hospitalized for HF and examined the association between congestion severity at admission and postdischarge outcomes. Using the OPTIMIZE- ... Full text Link to item Cite

Addressing guideline and policy changes during pragmatic clinical trials.

Journal Article Clin Trials · August 2019 While conducting a set of large-scale multi-site pragmatic clinical trials involving high-impact public health issues such as end-stage renal disease, opioid use, and colorectal cancer, there were substantial changes to both policies and guidelines relevan ... Full text Link to item Cite

Systematic Review for the 2018 AHA/ACC/AACVPR/AAPA/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the Management of Blood Cholesterol: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · June 25, 2019 BACKGROUND: The 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines for the treatment of blood cholesterol found little evidence to support the use of nonstatin lipid-modifying medications to reduce atherosclerotic cardiovascular dise ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neck circumference and cardiovascular outcomes: Insights from the Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2019 BACKGROUND: Emerging data suggest that neck circumference (NC) is associated with cardiometabolic risk factors. Limited research is available regarding the association between NC and cardiovascular outcomes in African Americans. METHODS: Using data from th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Use of Medicare Claims to Identify Adverse Clinical Outcomes After Mitral Valve Repair.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Interv · May 2019 BACKGROUND: Clinical event committees are commonly employed for event validation in clinical studies, but little is known about the comparative performance of administrative claims data versus clinician-triggered event adjudication for ascertainment of adv ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Emergence of Population Health in US Academic Medicine: A Qualitative Assessment.

Journal Article JAMA Netw Open · April 5, 2019 IMPORTANCE: In response to rapidly growing interest in population health, academic medical centers are launching department-level initiatives that focus on this evolving discipline. This trend, with its potential to extend the scope of academic medicine, h ... Full text Link to item Cite

Interventional Therapy Versus Medical Therapy for Secundum Atrial Septal Defect: A Systematic Review (Part 2) for the 2018 AHA/ACC Guideline for the Management of Adults With Congenital Heart Disease: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · April 2, 2019 Secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) is the most common adult congenital heart defect and can present with wide variation in clinical findings. With the intention of preventing morbidity and mortality associated with late presentation of ASD, consensus guid ... Full text Link to item Cite

Medical Therapy for Systemic Right Ventricles: A Systematic Review (Part 1) for the 2018 AHA/ACC Guideline for the Management of Adults With Congenital Heart Disease: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · April 2, 2019 Patients with systemic morphological right ventricles (RVs), including congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries and dextro-transposition of the great arteries with a Mustard or Senning atrial baffle repair, have a high likelihood of devel ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pragmatic clinical trials offer unique opportunities for disseminating, implementing, and sustaining evidence-based practices into clinical care: Proceedings of a workshop.

Conference Healthc (Amst) · March 2019 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Health Care Systems (HCS) Research Collaboratory hosted a workshop to explore challenges and strategies for the dissemination, implementation, and sustainability of findings from pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) embe ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association of Primary Care Providers' Beliefs of Statins for Primary Prevention and Statin Prescription.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · February 5, 2019 Background The 2013 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Cholesterol Treatment Guideline increased the number of primary prevention patients eligible for statin therapy, yet uptake of these guidelines has been modest. Little is known o ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship Between Hospital Characteristics and Early Adoption of Angiotensin-Receptor/Neprilysin Inhibitor Among Eligible Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · February 5, 2019 Background The angiotensin-receptor/neprilysin inhibitor ( ARNI ) sacubitril/valsartan reduces hospitalization and mortality for patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. However, adoption of ARNI into clinical practice has been slow. Fac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Statistical Code for Clinical Research Papers.

Journal Article Ann Intern Med · January 1, 2019 Full text Link to item Cite

Incidence of statin use in older adults with and without cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus, January 2008- March 2018.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2019 BACKGROUND: Data from randomized controlled trials and observational studies on older adults who take statins for primary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease are limited. To determine the incidence of statin use in older adults with and wi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Systematic Review for the 2017 ACC/AHA/AAPA/ABC/ACPM/AGS/APhA/ASH/ASPC/NMA/PCNA Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article Circulation · October 23, 2018 Objective To review the literature systematically and perform meta-analyses to address these questions: 1) Is there evidence that self-measured blood pressure (BP) without other augmentation is superior to office-based measurement of BP for achieving bette ... Full text Link to item Cite

Advanced imaging and hospice use in end-of-life cancer care.

Journal Article Support Care Cancer · October 2018 INTRODUCTION: Advanced imaging can inform prognosis and may be a mechanism to de-escalate unnecessary end-of-life care in patients with cancer. Associations between greater use of advanced imaging and less-aggressive end-of-life care in real-world practice ... Full text Link to item Cite

Systematic review for the 2017 AHA/ACC/HRS guideline for management of patients with ventricular arrhythmias and the prevention of sudden cardiac death: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society.

Journal Article Heart Rhythm · October 2018 BACKGROUND: Although large randomized clinical trials have found that primary prevention use of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) improves survival in patients with cardiomyopathy and heart failure symptoms, patients who receive ICDs in pract ... Full text Link to item Cite

Leveraging electronic health records for clinical research.

Journal Article Am Heart J · August 2018 Electronic health records (EHRs) can be a major tool in the quest to decrease costs and timelines of clinical trial research, generate better evidence for clinical decision making, and advance health care. Over the past decade, EHRs have increasingly offer ... Full text Link to item Cite

Atrial fibrillation in an African-American cohort: The Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · August 2018 BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an important public health problem across race/ethnic groups. Data from US cohort studies initiated in the 1980s suggest a higher prevalence of AF risk factors among African-Americans (AAs) than whites, but lower AF ... Full text Link to item Cite

Assessment of transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) after blood transfusion

Conference PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY · August 1, 2018 Link to item Cite

Relation of Early Repolarization (J Point Elevation) to Mortality in Blacks (from the Jackson Heart Study).

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · July 15, 2018 Conflicting data exist regarding the associations of early repolarization (ER) with electrocardiogram (ECG) and clinical outcomes in blacks. We examined the association of ER defined by J point elevation (JPE) and all-cause mortality, and heart failure (HF ... Full text Link to item Cite

Linking a Total Ankle Arthroplasty Registry to Medicare Inpatient Claims without Unique Identifiers.

Journal Article J Bone Joint Surg Am · June 20, 2018 BACKGROUND: Linking clinical registries to administrative claims data enables researchers to capitalize on the specific strengths of each data source with respect to the depth, breadth, and completeness of information. The objectives of this study were to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Home-Time After Discharge Among Patients Hospitalized With Heart Failure.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · June 12, 2018 BACKGROUND: Surveys of patients with cardiovascular disease have suggested that "home-time"-being alive and out of any health care institution-is a prioritized outcome. This novel measure has not been studied among patients with heart failure (HF). OBJECTI ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early impact of guideline publication on angiotensin-receptor neprilysin inhibitor use among patients hospitalized for heart failure.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2018 BACKGROUND: On May 20, 2016, US professional organizations in cardiology published joint treatment guidelines recommending the use of angiotensin-receptor neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI) for eligible patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction ( ... Full text Link to item Cite

Intentional and unintentional medication non-adherence in African Americans: Insights from the Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2018 BACKGROUND: Non-adherence to medications is common and leads to suboptimal outcomes. Non-adherence can be intentional (e.g., deciding to skip dosages) or unintentional (e.g., forgetting), yet few studies have distinguished these reasons. An improved unders ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evaluation of the Vitek MS v3.0 Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry System for Identification of Mycobacterium and Nocardia Species.

Journal Article J Clin Microbiol · June 2018 This multicenter study was designed to assess the accuracy and reproducibility of the Vitek MS v3.0 matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry system for identification of Mycobacterium and Nocardia species com ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association Between Prompt Defibrillation and Epinephrine Treatment With Long-Term Survival After In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest.

Journal Article Circulation · May 8, 2018 BACKGROUND: Prior studies have reported higher in-hospital survival with prompt defibrillation and epinephrine treatment in patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA). Whether this survival benefit persists after discharge is unknown. METHODS: We link ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evaluating Foundational Data Quality in the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet®).

Journal Article EGEMS (Wash DC) · April 13, 2018 INTRODUCTION: Distributed research networks (DRNs) are critical components of the strategic roadmaps for the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration as they work to move toward large-scale systems of evidence generation. The Nati ... Full text Link to item Cite

Medicare utilization, screening, and costs among participants in the Southeastern Diabetes Initiative: A population-based evaluation.

Journal Article Prim Care Diabetes · April 2018 AIMS: Type 2 diabetes mellitus imposes significant burdens on patients and health care systems. Population-level interventions are being implemented to reach large numbers of patients at risk of or diagnosed with diabetes. We describe a population-based ev ... Full text Link to item Cite

Permanent pacemaker use among patients with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction: Findings from the Acute Decompensated Heart Failure National Registry (ADHERE) National Registry.

Journal Article Am Heart J · April 2018 BACKGROUND: Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction may be associated with chronotropic incompetence, but little is known about the incidence and prevalence of permanent pacemaker use in this population or factors associated with its use. METHODS: W ... Full text Link to item Cite

Soluble Inflammatory Markers and Risk of Incident Fractures in Older Adults: The Cardiovascular Health Study.

Journal Article J Bone Miner Res · February 2018 Several in vitro and animal studies have showed that inflammatory markers play a role in bone remodeling and pathogenesis of osteoporosis. Additionally, some human longitudinal studies showed suggestive associations between elevated inflammatory markers an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Access to routine care and risks for 30-day readmission in patients with cardiovascular disease.

Journal Article Am Heart J · February 2018 BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that access to routine medical care is associated with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic diseases. However, studies have not examined whether patient-reported difficulties in access to care are associated wi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Overtreatment and Deintensification of Diabetic Therapy among Medicare Beneficiaries.

Journal Article J Gen Intern Med · January 2018 BACKGROUND: Deintensification of diabetic therapy is often clinically appropriate for older adults, because the benefit of aggressive diabetes treatment declines with age, while the risks increase. OBJECTIVE: We examined rates of overtreatment and deintens ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prescriber continuity and medication availability in older adults with cardiometabolic conditions.

Journal Article SAGE Open Med · 2018 BACKGROUND: Many older adults have multiple conditions and see multiple providers, which may impact their use of essential medications. OBJECTIVE: We examined whether the number of prescribers of these medications was associated with the availability of me ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Hospital and clinical care costs associated with atrial fibrillation for Medicare beneficiaries in the Cardiovascular Health Study and the Framingham Heart Study.

Journal Article SAGE Open Med · 2018 BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation is increasingly prevalent as the US population ages and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Care for patients with atrial fibrillation can be costly, US health care costs are comparatively high, and there ... Full text Link to item Cite

Socioeconomic, Psychosocial and Behavioral Characteristics of Patients Hospitalized With Cardiovascular Disease.

Journal Article Am J Med Sci · December 2017 BACKGROUND: Recent studies have drawn attention to nonclinical factors to better understand disparities in the development, treatment and prognosis of patients with cardiovascular disease. However, there has been limited research describing the nonclinical ... Full text Link to item Cite

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Trajectories of Hospitalization in US Men and Women With Heart Failure.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · November 16, 2017 BACKGROUND: Prior studies have documented racial and ethnic disparities in hospitalization among patients with heart failure (HF). However, racial/ethnic differences in trajectories of hospitalization following the diagnosis of HF have not been well charac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pragmatic clinical trials embedded in healthcare systems: generalizable lessons from the NIH Collaboratory.

Journal Article BMC Med Res Methodol · September 18, 2017 BACKGROUND: The clinical research enterprise is not producing the evidence decision makers arguably need in a timely and cost effective manner; research currently involves the use of labor-intensive parallel systems that are separate from clinical care. Th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Representativeness of Medicare Participants in the Jackson Heart Study for African American Medicare Beneficiaries.

Journal Article Epidemiology · September 2017 BACKGROUND: The Jackson Heart Study (JHS) assesses cardiovascular disease risk factors among African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi. Whether characteristics of JHS participants differ from those of a broader African American population are unknown. METH ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Metabolic Syndrome and Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · August 23, 2017 BACKGROUND: Prior studies have demonstrated a link between the metabolic syndrome and increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. Whether the metabolic syndrome is associated with sudden cardiac death is uncertain. METHODS AND RESULTS: We characterized the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pacing as a Treatment for Reflex-Mediated (Vasovagal, Situational, or Carotid Sinus Hypersensitivity) Syncope: A Systematic Review for the 2017 ACC/AHA/HRS Guideline for the Evaluation and Management of Patients With Syncope: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · August 1, 2017 OBJECTIVES: To determine, using systematic review of the biomedical literature, whether pacing reduces risk of recurrent syncope and relevant clinical outcomes among adult patients with reflex-mediated syncope. METHODS: MEDLINE (through PubMed), EMBASE, an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cardiovascular events and hospital resource utilization pre- and post-transcatheter mitral valve repair in high-surgical risk patients.

Journal Article Am Heart J · July 2017 UNLABELLED: MitraClip is an approved therapy for mitral regurgitation (MR); however, health care resource utilization pre- and post-MitraClip remains understudied. METHODS: Patients with functional and degenerative MR at high surgical risk in the EVEREST I ... Full text Link to item Cite

Identifying Nonclinical Factors Associated With 30-Day Readmission in Patients with Cardiovascular Disease: Protocol for an Observational Study.

Journal Article JMIR Res Protoc · June 15, 2017 BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of hospitalization in older adults and high readmission rates have attracted considerable attention as actionable targets to promote efficiency in care and to reduce costs. Despite a plethora of ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Effect of Clinical Care Location on Clinical Outcomes After Peripheral Vascular Intervention in Medicare Beneficiaries.

Journal Article JACC Cardiovasc Interv · June 12, 2017 OBJECTIVES: Modifications in reimbursement rates by Medicare in 2008 have led to peripheral vascular interventions (PVI) being performed more commonly in outpatient and office-based clinics. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of this ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pericardial fat volume and incident atrial fibrillation in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article Obesity (Silver Spring) · June 2017 OBJECTIVE: To determine whether greater pericardial fat volume would be associated with increased risk of incident atrial fibrillation (AF). METHODS: In the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Jackson Heart Study, pericardial fat volume was quantifie ... Full text Link to item Cite

Putting Prognosis Into Perspective.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · June 2017 Full text Link to item Cite

Use of Antiarrhythmic Medications in Medicare Part D Patients With an Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator and Ventricular Tachycardia.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · May 1, 2017 Ventricular tachycardia (VT) is common in cardiomyopathy patients with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator. This analysis evaluated antiarrhythmic medication use and change in use over time in patients with VT and structural heart disease. Query of M ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Learning Healthcare System and Cardiovascular Care: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.

Journal Article Circulation · April 4, 2017 The learning healthcare system uses health information technology and the health data infrastructure to apply scientific evidence at the point of clinical care while simultaneously collecting insights from that care to promote innovation in optimal healthc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prescriber Continuity and Disease Control of Older Adults.

Journal Article Med Care · April 2017 BACKGROUND: Medicare beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions are typically seen by multiple providers, particularly specialists. Clinically appropriate referrals to multiple specialists may compromise the continuity of care for multiple chronic cond ... Full text Link to item Cite

National patterns in intensity and frequency of outpatient care for apparent treatment-resistant hypertension.

Journal Article Am Heart J · April 2017 BACKGROUND: Apparent treatment-resistant hypertension (aTRH) is associated with an increased risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes. We studied the frequency and intensity of care for aTRH among participants aged 65 years and older in the US-based REGARDS ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early Adoption of Sacubitril/Valsartan for Patients With Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction: Insights From Get With the Guidelines-Heart Failure (GWTG-HF).

Journal Article JACC Heart Fail · April 2017 OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and variation in angiotensin receptor/neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI) prescription among a real-world population with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). BACKGROUND: The U.S. Food ... Full text Link to item Cite

2016 AHA/ACC Guideline on the Management of Patients With Lower Extremity Peripheral Artery Disease: Executive Summary: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article Circulation · March 21, 2017 UNLABELLED: Since 1980, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and American Heart Association (AHA) have translated scientific evidence into clinical practice guidelines with recommendations to improve cardiovascular health. These guidelines, based on sy ... Full text Link to item Cite

Resting Heart Rate and Long-term Outcomes Among the African American Population: Insights From the Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article JAMA Cardiol · February 1, 2017 IMPORTANCE: Increased resting heart rate is associated with worse outcomes in studies of mostly white populations, but its significance is not well established in African Americans persons whose cardiac comorbidities and structural abnormalities differ. OB ... Full text Link to item Cite

Electronic health records to facilitate clinical research.

Journal Article Clin Res Cardiol · January 2017 Electronic health records (EHRs) provide opportunities to enhance patient care, embed performance measures in clinical practice, and facilitate clinical research. Concerns have been raised about the increasing recruitment challenges in trials, burdensome a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Management of newly treated diabetes in Medicare beneficiaries with and without heart failure.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · January 2017 BACKGROUND: Several diabetes mellitus (DM) therapies are associated with worse heart failure (HF) outcomes, yet limited data exist characterizing routine DM management based on HF status. HYPOTHESIS: DM medications prescribed for patients with HF will diff ... Full text Link to item Cite

Characterization of Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonist Therapy Initiation in High-Risk Patients With Heart Failure.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · January 2017 BACKGROUND: Heart failure guidelines recommend routine monitoring of serum potassium, and renal function in patients treated with a mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA). How these recommendations are implemented in high-risk patients or according to ... Full text Link to item Cite

The PCORnet Learning Cycle.

Conference AMIA · 2017 Cite

Associations Between Blood Pressure and Outcomes Among Blacks in the Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · December 7, 2016 BACKGROUND: In 2014, new hypertension guidelines liberalized blood pressure goals for persons 60 years and older. Little is known about the implications for blacks. METHODS AND RESULTS: Using data from 2000 through 2011 for 5280 participants in the Jackson ... Full text Link to item Cite

Use of the landmark method to address immortal person-time bias in comparative effectiveness research: a simulation study.

Journal Article Stat Med · November 20, 2016 Observational comparative effectiveness and safety studies are often subject to immortal person-time, a period of follow-up during which outcomes cannot occur because of the treatment definition. Common approaches, like excluding immortal time from the ana ... Full text Link to item Cite

Few Disparities in Baseline Laboratory Testing After the Diuretic or Digoxin Initiation by Medicare Fee-For-Service Beneficiaries.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · November 2016 BACKGROUND: Despite the persistence of significant disparities, few evaluations examine disparities in laboratory testing by race/ethnicity, age, sex, Medicaid eligibility, and number of chronic conditions for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries' newly ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Changing Landscape of Randomized Clinical Trials in Cardiovascular Disease.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · October 25, 2016 Large randomized clinical trials in cardiovascular disease have proliferated over the past 3 decades, with results that have influenced every aspect of cardiology practice. Despite these advances, there remains a substantial need for more high-quality evid ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association Between Therapeutic Hypothermia and Survival After In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest.

Journal Article JAMA · October 4, 2016 IMPORTANCE: Therapeutic hypothermia is used for patients following both out-of-hospital and in-hospital cardiac arrest. However, randomized trials on its efficacy for the in-hospital setting do not exist, and comparative effectiveness data are limited. OBJ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risk Factors for Incident Carotid Artery Revascularization among Older Adults: The Cardiovascular Health Study

Journal Article Cerebrovascular Diseases Extra · September 7, 2016 Background: Population-based risk factors for carotid artery revascularization are not known. We investigated the association between demographic and clinical characteristics and incident carotid artery revascularization in a cohort of older adults. Method ... Full text Cite

Duration of Dual Antiplatelet Therapy: A Systematic Review for the 2016 ACC/AHA Guideline Focused Update on Duration of Dual Antiplatelet Therapy in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · September 6, 2016 BACKGROUND: The optimal duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) after implantation of newer-generation drug-eluting stents (DES) remains uncertain. Similarly, questions remain about the role of DAPT in long-term therapy of stable post-myocardial infar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Use of Heart Failure Medical Therapies Among Patients With Left Ventricular Assist Devices: Insights From INTERMACS.

Journal Article J Card Fail · September 2016 BACKGROUND: Use of left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) for treatment of advanced heart failure has expanded significantly over the past decade. However, concomitant use of heart failure medical therapies after implant is poorly characterized. METHODS A ... Full text Link to item Cite

Appropriate baseline laboratory testing following ACEI or ARB initiation by Medicare FFS beneficiaries.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · September 2016 BACKGROUND: Laboratory testing to identify contraindications and adverse drug reactions is important for safety of patients initiating angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs). Rates and predictors of appropria ... Full text Link to item Cite

Significant Morbidity and Mortality Among Hospitalized End-Stage Liver Disease Patients in Medicare.

Journal Article J Pain Symptom Manage · September 2016 CONTEXT: For end-stage liver disease (ESLD) patients, care focuses on managing the life-threatening complications of portal hypertension, causing high resource utilization. OBJECTIVES: To describe the end-of-life trajectory of hospitalized ESLD patients in ... Full text Link to item Cite

Significant variation in P2Y12 inhibitor use after peripheral vascular intervention in Medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article Am Heart J · September 2016 UNLABELLED: There is no consensus regarding whether to use antithrombotic medications in patients with peripheral artery disease after lower-extremity peripheral vascular intervention. OBJECTIVES: The main hypothesis is that significant variation exists re ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Obesity and Heart Failure Epidemics Among African Americans: Insights From the Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article J Card Fail · August 2016 BACKGROUND: Higher rates of obesity and heart failure have been observed in African Americans, but associations with mortality are not well-described. We examined intermediate and long-term clinical implications of obesity in African Americans and associat ... Full text Link to item Cite

TRENDS IN THE CARE AND OUTCOMES OF MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES, 2002-2011.

Journal Article Endocr Pract · August 2016 OBJECTIVE: To summarize characteristics of Medicare beneficiaries with type 2 diabetes and to describe changing trends in care and outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of a nationally representative 5% sample of fee-for-service Medi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Frequency of Disparities in Laboratory Testing After Statin Initiation in Subjects ≥65 Years.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · August 1, 2016 Laboratory testing is important for the safety of older adults initiating statins, but there has been little examination of laboratory testing disparities by race/ethnicity, age, gender, Medicaid eligibility, and multimorbidity. The study's purpose was to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Development and validation of a risk model for in-hospital worsening heart failure from the Acute Decompensated Heart Failure National Registry (ADHERE).

Journal Article Am Heart J · August 2016 BACKGROUND: A subset of patients hospitalized with acute heart failure experiences in-hospital worsening heart failure, defined as persistent or worsening signs or symptoms requiring an escalation of therapy. METHODS: We analyzed data from the Acute Decomp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Antihyperglycemic Medication Use Among Medicare Beneficiaries With Heart Failure, Diabetes Mellitus, and Chronic Kidney Disease.

Journal Article Circ Heart Fail · July 2016 BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus, heart failure (HF), and chronic kidney disease are common comorbidities, but overall use and safety of antihyperglycemic medications (AHMs) among patients with these comorbidities are poorly understood. METHODS AND RESULTS: U ... Full text Link to item Cite

Comparative Effectiveness of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Among Patients With Heart Failure and Atrial Fibrillation: Findings From the National Cardiovascular Data Registry's Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator Registry.

Journal Article Circ Heart Fail · June 2016 BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation is common in patients with heart failure, but outcomes of patients with both conditions who receive cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator (CRT-D) compared with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level and statin use among Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes mellitus.

Journal Article Diab Vasc Dis Res · May 2016 At the time of this study, guidelines recommended a primary goal of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level less than 100 mg/dL for all patients, an optional goal of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol less than 70 mg/dL for patients with overt cardiovas ... Full text Link to item Cite

Report of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Working Group: An Integrated Network for Congenital Heart Disease Research.

Journal Article Circulation · April 5, 2016 The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened a working group in January 2015 to explore issues related to an integrated data network for congenital heart disease research. The overall goal was to develop a common vision for how the rapidly increa ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risk Stratification for Arrhythmic Events in Patients With Asymptomatic Pre-Excitation: A Systematic Review for the 2015 ACC/AHA/HRS Guideline for the Management of Adult Patients With Supraventricular Tachycardia: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines and the Heart Rhythm Society.

Journal Article Circulation · April 2016 ObjectiveTo review the literature systematically to determine whether noninvasive or invasive risk stratification, such as with an electrophysiological study of patients with asymptomatic pre-excitation, reduces the risk of arrhythmic events and i ... Full text Cite

Surgery for aortic dilatation in patients with bicuspid aortic valves

Journal Article The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery · April 2016 Full text Cite

Long-Term Outcomes Among Elderly Survivors of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · March 15, 2016 BACKGROUND: Most studies on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest have focused on immediate survival. However, little is known about long-term outcomes and resource use among survivors. METHODS AND RESULTS: Within the national CARES registry, we identified 16 206 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Good Clinical Practice Guidance and Pragmatic Clinical Trials: Balancing the Best of Both Worlds.

Journal Article Circulation · March 1, 2016 Randomized, clinical trials are commonly regarded as the highest level of evidence to support clinical decisions. Good Clinical Practice guidelines have been constructed to provide an ethical and scientific quality standard for trials that involve human su ... Full text Link to item Cite

Chemotherapy costs associated with receipt of the adoption of oncotype DX in early-stage breast cancer within the SEER-Medicare population.

Conference Journal of Clinical Oncology · March 1, 2016 32 Background: The Oncotype DX (ODX) multigene assay has been previously suggested to result in an overall reduction in the use of adjuvant chemotherapy and associated costs for women with early stage, estrogen receptor (ER)-posi ... Full text Cite

Surgery for Aortic Dilatation in Patients With Bicuspid Aortic Valves: A Statement of Clarification From the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article Circulation · February 16, 2016 Two guidelines from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), and collaborating societies address the risk of aortic dissection in patients with bicuspid aortic valves and severe aortic enlargement: the "2010 ACCF/AHA/ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Surgery for Aortic Dilatation in Patients With Bicuspid Aortic Valves: A Statement of Clarification From the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · February 16, 2016 Two guidelines from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), and collaborating societies address the risk of aortic dissection in patients with bicuspid aortic valves and severe aortic enlargement: the "2010 ACCF/AHA/ ... Full text Link to item Cite

Resource Use in the Last Year of Life Among Patients Who Died With Versus of Prostate Cancer.

Journal Article Clin Genitourin Cancer · February 2016 UNLABELLED: We conducted a retrospective analysis of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare data of men with prostate cancer. Among 34,727 patients, those who died of their prostate cancer had more hospice and outpatient use, less inpatient a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical Effectiveness of Hydralazine-Isosorbide Dinitrate Therapy in Patients With Heart Failure and Reduced Ejection Fraction: Findings From the Get With The Guidelines-Heart Failure Registry.

Journal Article Circ Heart Fail · February 2016 BACKGROUND: In clinical trials, hydralazine-isosorbide dinitrate (H-ISDN) for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction reduced morbidity and mortality among black patients and patients with intolerance to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or ang ... Full text Link to item Cite

Study of Cardiovascular Health Outcomes in the Era of Claims Data: The Cardiovascular Health Study.

Journal Article Circulation · January 2016 BackgroundIncreasingly, the diagnostic codes from administrative claims data are being used as clinical outcomes.Methods and resultsData from the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) were used to compare event rates and risk factor associati ... Full text Cite

Early and Long-term Outcomes of Older Adults after Acute Care Encounters for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation.

Journal Article Ann Am Thorac Soc · December 2015 RATIONALE: Older patients are at high risk of death and rehospitalization after hospitalizations for acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AE-COPD). Emergency department visits comprise a substantial portion of acute care encounters ... Full text Link to item Cite

Differences in health care use and outcomes by the timing of in-hospital worsening heart failure.

Journal Article American heart journal · December 2015 BackgroundPatients hospitalized with acute heart failure may experience worsening symptoms requiring escalation of therapy. In-hospital worsening heart failure is associated with worse in-hospital and postdischarge outcomes, but associations betwe ... Full text Cite

Association Between Use of the 21-Gene Recurrence Score Assay and Receipt of Chemotherapy Among Medicare Beneficiaries With Early-Stage Breast Cancer, 2005-2009.

Journal Article JAMA Oncol · November 2015 IMPORTANCE: Guidelines recommend consideration of chemotherapy for most patients with early-stage, estrogen receptor-positive, invasive breast cancer in the absence of additional prognostic information. The 21-gene recurrence score (RS) assay has been show ... Full text Link to item Cite

Linkage of Laboratory Results to Medicare Fee-for-Service Claims.

Journal Article Med Care · November 2015 BACKGROUND: Medicare is the single largest purchaser of laboratory testing in the United States, yet test results associated with Medicare laboratory claims have historically not been available. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to describe both the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Depressive Symptoms and Risk of Cardiovascular Events in Blacks: Findings From the Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article Circulation. Cardiovascular quality and outcomes · November 2015 BackgroundMost studies of depression and cardiovascular risk have been conducted in white populations. We investigated this association in a community-based cohort of blacks.Methods and resultsWe used data from the Jackson Heart Study to ... Full text Cite

Association Between Comorbidities and Outcomes in Heart Failure Patients With and Without an Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator for Primary Prevention.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · August 6, 2015 BACKGROUND: Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy is associated with improved outcomes in patients with heart failure (HF), but whether this association holds among older patients with multiple comorbid illnesses and worse HF burden remains ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Contraindications to anticoagulation therapy and eligibility for novel anticoagulants in older patients with atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article Cardiovasc Ther · August 2015 AIMS: Oral anticoagulation therapy prevents stroke and improves survival in patients with atrial fibrillation, but the therapy is underutilized. We sought to identify the prevalence of contraindications for oral anticoagulation and the proportion of patien ... Full text Link to item Cite

Effectiveness of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators in survivors of inhospital cardiac arrest.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2015 BACKGROUND: Although implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) reduce mortality in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, their effectiveness in survivors of "inhospital" cardiac arrest-a population with different arrest etiologies and higher i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Geographic variation in the use of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation among Medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2015 BACKGROUND: Catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation is used increasingly in older patients, yet the risks and benefits are not completely understood. With such uncertainty, local medical opinion may influence catheter ablation use. METHODS: In a 100% sam ... Full text Link to item Cite

Does Age Influence Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Use and Outcome?

Journal Article JACC Heart Fail · June 2015 OBJECTIVES: This study sought to describe the use of CRT-D and its association with survival for older patients. BACKGROUND: Many patients who receive cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator (CRT-D) in practice are older than those included in ... Full text Link to item Cite

Primary prevention implantable cardioverter defibrillators in end-stage kidney disease patients on dialysis: a matched cohort study.

Journal Article Nephrol Dial Transplant · May 2015 BACKGROUND: Sudden cardiac death is the leading cause of death among end-stage kidney disease patients (ESKD) on dialysis, but the benefit of primary prevention implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) in this population is uncertain. We conducted th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Initial Trends in the Use of the 21-Gene Recurrence Score Assay for Patients With Breast Cancer in the Medicare Population, 2005-2009.

Journal Article JAMA Oncol · May 2015 IMPORTANCE: In 2006, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services approved coverage for the use of the 21-gene recurrence score (RS) assay in women with early-stage, estrogen receptor-positive, node-negative breast cancers to help guide recommendations for ... Full text Link to item Cite

Costs, effectiveness, and workload impact of management strategies for women with an adnexal mass

Journal Article Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey · April 22, 2015 Full text Cite

Trends in settings for peripheral vascular intervention and the effect of changes in the outpatient prospective payment system.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · March 10, 2015 BACKGROUND: Peripheral vascular intervention (PVI) is an effective treatment option for patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). In 2008, Medicare modified reimbursement rates to encourage more efficient outpatient use of PVI in the United States. OB ... Full text Link to item Cite

Ventricular conduction and long-term heart failure outcomes and mortality in African Americans: insights from the Jackson Heart Study.

Journal Article Circ Heart Fail · March 2015 BACKGROUND: QRS prolongation is associated with adverse outcomes in mostly white populations, but its clinical significance is not well established for other groups. We investigated the association between QRS duration and mortality in African Americans. M ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Adjuvant chemotherapy after resection of N1 non-small cell lung cancer: differential impact of new evidence on physician and patient decisions.

Journal Article J Thorac Dis · March 2015 BACKGROUND: Adjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy (ACT) after resection of stages II-IIIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) modestly increased survival in several clinical trials. This study evaluated the subsequent impact of those trials on ACT use in cl ... Full text Link to item Cite

Benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy after resection of stage II (T1-2N1M0) non-small cell lung cancer in elderly patients.

Journal Article Ann Surg Oncol · February 2015 BACKGROUND: We evaluated the use and efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy after resection of T1-2N1M0 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in elderly patients. METHODS: Factors associated with the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients older than 65 years of ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and survival in older women.

Journal Article JACC Heart Fail · February 2015 OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess the benefit of primary prevention implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) in women. BACKGROUND: Clinical trials of primary prevention ICDs enrolled a limited number of women. METHODS: Using a prope ... Full text Link to item Cite

Primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillators in older racial and ethnic minority patients.

Journal Article Circ Arrhythm Electrophysiol · February 2015 BACKGROUND: Racial and ethnic minorities are under-represented in clinical trials of primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). This analysis investigates the association between primary prevention ICDs and mortality among Medicare, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relation of dyspnea severity on admission for acute heart failure with outcomes and costs.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · January 1, 2015 Hospitalization for heart failure (HF) is frequently related to dyspnea, yet associations among dyspnea severity, outcomes, and health care costs are unknown. The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of patients hospitalized for acute HF b ... Full text Link to item Cite

Costs, effectiveness, and workload impact of management strategies for women with an adnexal mass.

Journal Article J Natl Cancer Inst · January 2015 BACKGROUND: We compared the estimated clinical outcomes, costs, and physician workload resulting from available strategies for deciding which women with an adnexal mass should be referred to a gynecologic oncologist. METHODS: We used a microsimulation mode ... Full text Link to item Cite

Perioperative beta blockade in noncardiac surgery: a systematic review for the 2014 ACC/AHA guideline on perioperative cardiovascular evaluation and management of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines.

Journal Article Circulation · December 9, 2014 OBJECTIVE: To review the literature systematically to determine whether initiation of beta blockade within 45 days prior to noncardiac surgery reduces 30-day cardiovascular morbidity and mortality rates. METHODS: PubMed (up to April 2013), Embase (up to Ap ... Full text Link to item Cite

Periprocedural imaging and outcomes after catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article Heart · December 2014 OBJECTIVE: Catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) has become an increasingly safe and effective therapy. This has been partly attributed to the use of adjunctive imaging modalities. We aimed to describe the use and associated outcomes of periprocedu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Transient and persistent worsening renal function during hospitalization for acute heart failure.

Journal Article Am Heart J · December 2014 BACKGROUND: Transient and persistent worsening renal function (WRF) may be associated with different risks during hospitalization for acute heart failure. We compared outcomes of patients hospitalized for acute heart failure with transient, persistent, or ... Full text Link to item Cite

ACC/AHA/AACVPR/AAFP/ANA concepts for clinician-patient shared accountability in performance measures: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Performance Measures.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · November 18, 2014 Developed in collaboration with the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and the American Medical Association–Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement Endorsed by the American Society of Healt ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy versus medical therapy alone among patients with heart failure: analysis of the ICD Registry and ADHERE.

Conference Circ Heart Fail · November 2014 BACKGROUND: Cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator (CRT-D) reduces morbidity and mortality among selected patients with heart failure in clinical trials. The effectiveness of this therapy in clinical practice has not been well studied. METHOD ... Full text Link to item Cite

Readmission rates and long-term hospital costs among survivors of an in-hospital cardiac arrest.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · November 2014 BACKGROUND: Although an in-hospital cardiac arrest is common, little is known about readmission patterns and an inpatient resource use among survivors of an in-hospital cardiac arrest. METHODS AND RESULTS: Within a large national registry, we examined long ... Full text Link to item Cite

Long-term outcomes following development of new-onset atrial fibrillation during sepsis.

Journal Article Chest · November 2014 BACKGROUND: New-onset atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with adverse outcomes during a sepsis hospitalization; however, long-term outcomes following hospitalization with sepsis-associated new-onset AF are unclear. METHODS: We used a Medicare 5% sample ... Full text Link to item Cite

Methodological considerations in observational comparative effectiveness research for implantable medical devices: an epidemiologic perspective.

Journal Article Am J Epidemiol · November 1, 2014 Medical devices play a vital role in diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases and are an integral part of the health-care system. Many devices, including implantable medical devices, enter the market through a regulatory pathway that was not designed ... Full text Link to item Cite

Survival after primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillator placement among patients with chronic kidney disease.

Journal Article Circ Arrhythm Electrophysiol · October 2014 BACKGROUND: Guidelines recommend that implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) candidates have an estimated longevity of ≥1 year. Longevity can be affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD). METHODS AND RESULTS: Using the National Cardiovascular Data Reg ... Full text Link to item Cite

Anti-VEGF treatment patterns for neovascular age-related macular degeneration among medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article Am J Ophthalmol · September 2014 PURPOSE: To examine the use of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy in clinical practice among patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. METHODS: Among 459 237 Medicare beneficia ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between anticoagulation therapy and risks of mortality and readmission among patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · September 2014 BACKGROUND: Patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation are at higher risk of thromboembolic events than patients with heart failure alone. Yet, the use of anticoagulation therapy varies in clinical practice, especially among older patients, for wh ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cost analysis of periprocedural imaging in patients undergoing catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · July 15, 2014 Cardiovascular imaging is an important part of procedural planning and safety for catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF). However, the costs of imaging surrounding catheter ablation of AF have not been described. Medicare fee-for-service data were u ... Full text Link to item Cite

In-hospital worsening heart failure and associations with mortality, readmission, and healthcare utilization.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · July 11, 2014 BACKGROUND: A subset of patients hospitalized with acute heart failure experiences worsening clinical status and requires escalation of therapy. Worsening heart failure is an end point in many clinical trials, but little is known about its prevalence in cl ... Full text Link to item Cite

Four health data networks illustrate the potential for a shared national multipurpose big-data network.

Journal Article Health Aff (Millwood) · July 2014 Information in electronic health data that are drawn from large populations of patients is transforming health care, public health practice, and clinical research. This article describes our experience in developing data networks that repurpose electronic ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association between prophylactic implantable cardioverter-defibrillators and survival in patients with left ventricular ejection fraction between 30% and 35%.

Journal Article JAMA · June 4, 2014 IMPORTANCE: Clinical trials of prophylactic implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) have included a minority of patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) between 30% and 35%. Because a large number of ICDs in the United States are im ... Full text Link to item Cite

Electronic clinical laboratory test results data tables: lessons from Mini-Sentinel.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · June 2014 PURPOSE: Developing electronic clinical data into a common data model posed substantial challenges unique from those encountered with administrative data. We present here the design, implementation, and use of the Mini-Sentinel Distributed Database laborat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Comparative effectiveness of cardiac resynchronization therapy with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator versus defibrillator therapy alone: a cohort study.

Journal Article Ann Intern Med · May 6, 2014 BACKGROUND: Trials comparing implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy with cardiac resynchronization therapy with a defibrillator (CRT-D) are limited to selected patients treated at centers with extensive experience. OBJECTIVE: To compare outco ... Full text Link to item Cite

Trends in the use and outcomes of ventricular assist devices among medicare beneficiaries, 2006 through 2011.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · April 15, 2014 OBJECTIVES: This study sought to examine trends in mortality, readmission, and costs among Medicare beneficiaries receiving ventricular assist devices (VADs) and associations between hospital-level procedure volume and outcomes. BACKGROUND: VADs are an opt ... Full text Link to item Cite

Redistribution of health care costs after the adoption of positron emission tomography among medicare beneficiaries with non-small-cell lung cancer, 1998-2005.

Journal Article J Thorac Oncol · April 2014 INTRODUCTION: Treatment patterns and cost implications of increased positron emission tomography imaging use since Medicare approval in 1998 are not well understood. We examined rates of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy and inpatient and total healt ... Full text Link to item Cite

Combined use of warfarin and oral P2Y12 inhibitors in patients with atrial fibrillation and acute coronary syndrome.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · March 2014 BACKGROUND: Although atrial fibrillation (AF) occurs frequently in patients hospitalized with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), strategies for prevention of thromboembolic complications are poorly characterized. HYPOTHESIS: We sought to examine exposure to wa ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between atrial fibrillation and early outcomes of patients with heart failure and reduced or preserved ejection fraction.

Journal Article Am Heart J · March 2014 BACKGROUND: The relative impact of atrial fibrillation on early outcomes of patients with heart failure with reduced or preserved ejection fraction (EF) is unknown. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of clinical registry data linked to Medi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Enhancing case ascertainment of Parkinson's disease using Medicare claims data in a population-based cohort: the Cardiovascular Health Study.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · February 2014 PURPOSE: We sought to improve a previous algorithm to ascertain Parkinson's disease (PD) in the Cardiovascular Health Study by incorporating additional data from Medicare outpatient claims. We compared our results to the previous algorithm in terms of base ... Full text Link to item Cite

Outcomes of medicare beneficiaries with heart failure and atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article JACC Heart Fail · February 2014 OBJECTIVES: This study sought to examine the long-term outcomes of patients hospitalized with heart failure and atrial fibrillation. BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation is common among patients hospitalized with heart failure. Associations of pre-existing and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Adherence and persistence in the use of warfarin after hospital discharge among patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article J Card Fail · January 2014 BACKGROUND: Postdischarge adherence and long-term persistence in the use of warfarin among patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation without contraindications have not been fully described. METHODS AND RESULTS: We identified patients with heart f ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical course of atrial fibrillation in older adults: the importance of cardiovascular events beyond stroke.

Journal Article Eur Heart J · January 2014 AIMS: Atrial fibrillation increases the risks of stroke, heart failure, and death, and anticoagulation therapy increases the risk of gastrointestinal haemorrhage. However, the relative event rates for these outcomes are not well described. We sought to def ... Full text Link to item Cite

Peripheral arterial testing before lower extremity amputation among Medicare beneficiaries, 2000 to 2010.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · January 2014 BACKGROUND: Despite mild reductions in rates of lower extremity amputation over the past decade, few data exist on the use of arterial testing in patients before amputation. METHODS AND RESULTS: Using Medicare claims from 2000 through 2010, we examined rat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Launching PCORnet, a national patient-centered clinical research network.

Journal Article J Am Med Inform Assoc · 2014 The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has launched PCORnet, a major initiative to support an effective, sustainable national research infrastructure that will advance the use of electronic health data in comparative effectiveness researc ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between atrial fibrillation and early outcomes of patients with heart failure and reduced or preserved ejection fraction.

Journal Article American heart journal · 2014 The relative impact of atrial fibrillation on early outcomes of patients with heart failure with reduced or preserved ejection fraction (EF) is unknown. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of clinical registry data linked to Medicare claims for patie ... Cite

Launching PCORnet, a national patient-centered clinical research network

Journal Article Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association · January 1, 2014 The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has launched PCORnet, a major initiative to support an effective, sustainable national research infrastructure that will advance the use of electronic health data in comparative effectiveness researc ... Full text Cite

Anticoagulation and clinical outcomes in heart failure patients with atrial fibrillation: Findings from the ADHERE registry

Journal Article Journal of Atrial Fibrillation · December 1, 2013 The risks and benefits of anticoagulation for patients with both heart failure and atrial fibrillation are unclear. We hypothesized that anticoagulation was associated with improved clinical outcomes of heart failure patients with atrial fibrillation indep ... Cite

Anticoagulation and Clinical Outcomes in Heart Failure Patients With Atrial Fibrillation: Findings From the ADHERE Registry.

Journal Article J Atr Fibrillation · December 2013 The risks and benefits of anticoagulation for patients with both heart failure and atrial fibrillation are unclear. We hypothesized that anticoagulation was associated with improved clinical outcomes of heart failure patients with atrial fibrillation indep ... Full text Link to item Cite

Postdischarge international normalized ratio testing and long-term clinical outcomes of patients with heart failure receiving warfarin: findings from the ADHERE registry linked to Medicare claims.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · December 2013 BACKGROUND: Effective warfarin thromboprophylaxis requires maintaining anticoagulation within the recommended international normalized ratio (INR) range. INR testing rates and associations between testing and outcomes are not well understood. HYPOTHESIS: I ... Full text Link to item Cite

Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty among Medicare beneficiaries, 2000 to 2009.

Journal Article J Bone Joint Surg Am · November 20, 2013 BACKGROUND: Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty is a less-invasive alternative to total knee arthroplasty for patients with arthritis affecting only the medial or lateral compartment. However, little is known about recent trends in the use of these procedur ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between use of the hospitalist model and quality of care and outcomes of older patients hospitalized for heart failure.

Journal Article JACC Heart Fail · October 2013 OBJECTIVES: This study sought to examine the associations of hospitalist and cardiologist care of patients with heart failure with outcomes and adherence to quality measures. BACKGROUND: The hospitalist model of inpatient care has grown nationally, but its ... Full text Link to item Cite

Who enrolls in the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit program? Medication use among patients with heart failure.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · September 11, 2013 BACKGROUND: Dispensing data from Medicare Part D standalone prescription drug plans are now available, but characteristics of enrollees with heart failure have not been well described. METHODS AND RESULTS: We identified 81 874 patients with prevalent heart ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

QRS duration, bundle-branch block morphology, and outcomes among older patients with heart failure receiving cardiac resynchronization therapy.

Journal Article JAMA · August 14, 2013 IMPORTANCE: The benefits of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in clinical trials were greater among patients with left bundle-branch block (LBBB) or longer QRS duration. OBJECTIVE: To measure associations between QRS duration and morphology and outco ... Full text Link to item Cite

Follow-up of patients with new cardiovascular implantable electronic devices: is adherence to the experts' recommendations associated with improved outcomes?

Journal Article Heart Rhythm · August 2013 BACKGROUND: A 2008 expert consensus statement recommended an in-person follow-up visit between 2 and 12 weeks after the placement of a new cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED). OBJECTIVE: To assess outcomes associated with adherence to the e ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early intravenous heart failure therapy and outcomes among older patients hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure: findings from the Acute Decompensated Heart Failure Registry Emergency Module (ADHERE-EM).

Journal Article Am Heart J · August 2013 BACKGROUND: Timing of initial treatment for acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) varies across hospitals and its impact on outcomes remains poorly defined. We examined the association between time to first intravenous (IV) heart failure (HF) therapy an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of immortal person-time and time scale in comparative effectiveness research for medical devices: a case for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators.

Journal Article J Clin Epidemiol · August 2013 OBJECTIVES: To assess the extent of immortal time bias in estimating the clinical effectiveness of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) and the impact of methods of handling immortal time bias. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: Retrospective population-b ... Full text Link to item Cite

Variations in use of PET among Medicare beneficiaries with non-small cell lung cancer, 1998-2007.

Journal Article Radiology · June 2013 PURPOSE: To explore demographic and regional factors associated with the use of positron emission tomography (PET) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to determine whether their associations with PET use has changed over time. MATERIALS ... Full text Link to item Cite

Transitional adherence and persistence in the use of aldosterone antagonist therapy in patients with heart failure.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2013 BACKGROUND: Aldosterone antagonist therapy is recommended for selected patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction. Adherence to therapy in the transition from hospital to home is not well understood. METHODS: We identified patients with hear ... Full text Link to item Cite

Are we targeting the right metric for heart failure? Comparison of hospital 30-day readmission rates and total episode of care inpatient days.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2013 BACKGROUND: Hospitals are challenged to reduce length of stay (LOS), yet simultaneously reduce readmissions for patients with heart failure (HF). This study investigates whether 30-day rehospitalization or an alternative measure of total inpatient days ove ... Full text Link to item Cite

Atrial fibrillation among Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with sepsis: incidence and risk factors.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2013 BACKGROUND: Newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF) during severe sepsis is associated with increased risks of in-hospital stroke and mortality. However, the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors associated with AF during the sepsis syndromes are unclea ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical effectiveness of anticoagulation therapy among older patients with heart failure and without atrial fibrillation: findings from the ADHERE registry linked to Medicare claims.

Journal Article J Card Fail · June 2013 BACKGROUND: Patients with heart failure are at higher risk for thromboembolic events, even in the absence of atrial fibrillation, but the effect of anticoagulation therapy on outcomes is uncertain. METHODS AND RESULTS: With data from a clinical registry li ... Full text Link to item Cite

Validated, electronic health record deployable prediction models for assessing patient risk of 30-day rehospitalization and mortality in older heart failure patients.

Journal Article JACC Heart Fail · June 2013 OBJECTIVES: The study sought to derive and validate risk-prediction tools from a large nationwide registry linked with Medicare claims data. BACKGROUND: Few clinical models have been developed utilizing data elements readily available in electronic health ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early life predictors of atrial fibrillation-related mortality: evidence from the health and retirement study.

Journal Article Health Place · May 2013 Prior research found that Americans born in 6 southeastern states (the AF-risk zone) had elevated risk of AF-related mortality, but no mechanisms were identified. We hypothesized the association between AF-related mortality and AF-risk zone birth is explai ... Full text Link to item Cite

Costs of newly diagnosed neovascular age-related macular degeneration among medicare beneficiaries, 2004-2008.

Journal Article Retina · April 2013 PURPOSE: To examine associations between newly diagnosed neovascular age-related macular degeneration and direct medical costs. METHODS: This retrospective observational study matched 23,133 Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with neovascular age-related mac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Long-term outcomes in elderly survivors of in-hospital cardiac arrest.

Journal Article N Engl J Med · March 14, 2013 BACKGROUND: Little is known about the long-term outcomes in elderly survivors of in-hospital cardiac arrest. We determined rates of long-term survival and readmission among survivors of in-hospital cardiac arrest and examined whether these outcomes differe ... Full text Link to item Cite

Enrollment and events of hospice patients with heart failure vs. cancer.

Journal Article J Pain Symptom Manage · March 2013 CONTEXT: Hospice care is traditionally used for patients with advanced cancer, but it is increasingly considered for patients with end-stage heart failure. OBJECTIVES: We compared enrollment patterns and clinical events of hospice patients with end-stage h ... Full text Link to item Cite

Study design elements for rigorous quasi-experimental comparative effectiveness research.

Journal Article J Comp Eff Res · March 2013 Quasi-experiments are likely to be the workhorse study design used to generate evidence about the comparative effectiveness of alternative treatments, because of their feasibility, timeliness, affordability and external validity compared with randomized tr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Reply to M.S. Hofman et al.

Journal Article J Clin Oncol · February 20, 2013 Full text Link to item Cite

Racial differences among patients undergoing laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery: a population-based trend analysis from 2002 to 2008.

Journal Article Obes Surg · February 2013 BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery (LGBS) has become the most widely used bariatric procedure due to its beneficial long-term outcomes for patients with morbid obesity. However, it is unclear whether racial differences in admission for LGBS ha ... Full text Link to item Cite

Follow-up of patients with new cardiovascular implantable electronic devices: are experts' recommendations implemented in routine clinical practice?

Journal Article Circ Arrhythm Electrophysiol · February 2013 BACKGROUND: A 2008 expert consensus statement outlined the minimum frequency of follow-up of patients with cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIEDs). METHODS AND RESULTS: We studied 38 055 Medicare beneficiaries who received a new CIED between ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Survival of patients receiving a primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillator in clinical practice vs clinical trials.

Journal Article JAMA · January 2, 2013 IMPORTANCE: Randomized clinical trials have shown that implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy saves lives. Whether the survival of patients who received an ICD in primary prevention clinical trials differs from that of trial-eligible patients ... Full text Link to item Cite

Data sources for heart failure comparative effectiveness research.

Journal Article Heart Fail Clin · January 2013 Existing data sources for heart failure research offer advantages and disadvantages for CER. Clinical registries collect detailed information about disease presentation, treatment, and outcomes on a large number of patients and provide the "real-world" pop ... Full text Link to item Cite

Comparative cardiovascular safety of dementia medications: a cross-national study.

Journal Article J Am Geriatr Soc · December 2012 OBJECTIVES: To compare the cardiovascular safety of currently marketed dementia medications in new users in the United States and Denmark. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries from 2006 thr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Urinary diversion in patients with spinal cord injury in the United States.

Journal Article Urology · December 2012 OBJECTIVE: To describe the patterns in the use of bladder augmentation and urinary diversion to manage urologic sequelae among patients with spinal cord injury in the United States. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Discharge estimates were derived from the Nationwid ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between aldosterone antagonist therapy and risks of mortality and readmission among patients with heart failure and reduced ejection fraction.

Journal Article JAMA · November 28, 2012 CONTEXT: Aldosterone antagonist therapy for heart failure and reduced ejection fraction has been highly efficacious in randomized trials. However, questions remain regarding the effectiveness and safety of the therapy in clinical practice. OBJECTIVE: To ex ... Full text Link to item Cite

Outcomes associated with warfarin use in older patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation and a cardiovascular implantable electronic device: findings from the ADHERE registry linked to Medicare claims.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · November 2012 BACKGROUND: Warfarin use and associated outcomes in patients with heart failure and atrial fibrillation and a cardiovascular implantable electronic device have not been described previously. HYPOTHESIS: We hypothesized that warfarin is underused and is ass ... Full text Link to item Cite

National survey of hospital strategies to reduce heart failure readmissions: findings from the Get With the Guidelines-Heart Failure registry.

Journal Article Circ Heart Fail · November 2012 BACKGROUND: Reducing 30-day heart failure readmission rates is a national priority. Yet, little is known about how hospitals address the problem and whether hospital-based processes of care are associated with reductions in readmission rates. METHODS AND R ... Full text Link to item Cite

Outcomes of Medicare beneficiaries undergoing catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article Circulation · October 30, 2012 BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation is common among older persons. Catheter ablation is increasingly used in patients for whom medical therapy has failed. METHODS AND RESULTS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all fee-for-service Medicare beneficiar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Completion of guideline-recommended initial evaluation of atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · October 2012 BACKGROUND: Guidelines recommend evaluation of cardiac function, valvular and ischemic heart disease, and thyroid, kidney, and liver function on initial diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (AF). HYPOTHESIS: We hypothesized that initial workup of patients with ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pharmacotherapy in Medicare beneficiaries with atrial fibrillation.

Journal Article Heart Rhythm · September 2012 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: There are limited data regarding national patterns of pharmacotherapy for atrial fibrillation (AF) among older patients. Drug exposure data are now captured for Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in prescription drug plans. OBJECTIVE: To describe ... Full text Link to item Cite

Stage migration, selection bias, and survival associated with the adoption of positron emission tomography among medicare beneficiaries with non-small-cell lung cancer, 1998-2003.

Journal Article J Clin Oncol · August 1, 2012 PURPOSE: Previous studies have linked the use of positron emission tomography (PET) with improved outcomes among patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, this association may be confounded by PET-induced stage migration and selection bias ... Full text Link to item Cite

Treatment patterns for neovascular age-related macular degeneration: analysis of 284 380 medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article Am J Ophthalmol · June 2012 Featured Publication PURPOSE: To examine trends in the treatment of newly diagnosed neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. METHODS: Among 284 380 Medicare beneficiaries with a new diagnosis between 2006 and 2008, we used the cum ... Full text Link to item Cite

Utilization of hospice and predicted mortality risk among older patients hospitalized with heart failure: findings from GWTG-HF.

Journal Article J Card Fail · June 2012 BACKGROUND: Guidelines recommend hospice care as a treatment option for end-stage heart failure (HF) patients. Little is known regarding utilization of hospice care in a contemporary cohort of patients hospitalized with HF and how this may vary by estimate ... Full text Link to item Cite

In reply

Other Archives of Ophthalmology · June 1, 2012 Full text Cite

B-type natriuretic peptide level and postdischarge thrombotic events in older patients hospitalized with heart failure: insights from the Acute Decompensated Heart Failure National Registry.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2012 BACKGROUND: Patients hospitalized with heart failure (HF) have elevated B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels and increased risk for thromboembolic events. Associations between BNP level and thromboembolic events in patients with HF without atrial fibril ... Full text Link to item Cite

Design and rationale of a retrospective clinical effectiveness study of aldosterone antagonist therapy in patients with heart failure.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2012 BACKGROUND: Despite demonstrated efficacy in randomized trials, aldosterone antagonist therapy is not used in many eligible patients with heart failure. Questions remain about its clinical effectiveness and safety for patients who are underrepresented in r ... Full text Link to item Cite

Racial differences in hospice use and patterns of care after enrollment in hospice among Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2012 BACKGROUND: We examined racial differences in patterns of care and resource use among Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure after enrollment in hospice. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of a 5% nationally representative sample of Medi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Performance of propensity score methods when comparison groups originate from different data sources.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · May 2012 PURPOSE: To examine the performance of propensity score-based methods for estimating relative risks when exposed and comparison subjects are selected from different data sources. METHODS: We conducted Monte Carlo simulations to assess the performance of pr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Assessment of temporal trends in mortality with implementation of a statewide ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) regionalization program.

Journal Article Ann Emerg Med · April 2012 STUDY OBJECTIVE: Although regionalized care for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) has improved the use of timely reperfusion therapy, its effect on patient outcomes has been difficult to assess. Our objective is to explore temporal trends ... Full text Link to item Cite

Changes in initial treatment for prostate cancer among Medicare beneficiaries, 1999-2007.

Journal Article Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys · April 1, 2012 PURPOSE: In the absence of evidence from large clinical trials, optimal therapy for localized prostate cancer remains unclear; however, treatment patterns continue to change. We examined changes in the management of patients with prostate cancer in the Med ... Full text Link to item Cite

Predicting costs among medicare beneficiaries with heart failure.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · March 1, 2012 Featured Publication Disease management programs that target patients with the highest risk of subsequent costs may help payers and providers control health care costs, but identifying these patients prospectively is challenging. We hypothesized that medical history and clinic ... Full text Link to item Cite

Is biology destiny or can we optimize care for all patients?

Journal Article Ann Intern Med · February 7, 2012 Featured Publication Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between published quality ratings of skilled nursing facilities and outcomes of medicare beneficiaries with heart failure.

Journal Article J Am Med Dir Assoc · February 2012 Featured Publication INTRODUCTION: Nursing Home Compare quality ratings are designed to allow patients, families, and clinicians to compare facilities based on quality, but associations of the current measures with important clinical outcomes are not known. Our study examined ... Full text Link to item Cite

Incidence and prevalence of atrial fibrillation and associated mortality among Medicare beneficiaries, 1993-2007.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · January 2012 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common and costly problem among older persons. The frequency of AF increases with age, but representative national data about incidence and prevalence are limited. We examined the annual incidence, prevalence, and ... Full text Link to item Cite

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Mini-Sentinel program: status and direction.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · January 2012 The Mini-Sentinel is a pilot program that is developing methods, tools, resources, policies, and procedures to facilitate the use of routinely collected electronic healthcare data to perform active surveillance of the safety of marketed medical products, i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Design considerations, architecture, and use of the Mini-Sentinel distributed data system.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · January 2012 Featured Publication PURPOSE: We describe the design, implementation, and use of a large, multiorganizational distributed database developed to support the Mini-Sentinel Pilot Program of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As envisioned by the US FDA, this implementatio ... Full text Link to item Cite

In reply

Other Archives of Ophthalmology · January 1, 2012 Full text Cite

Incident stroke and mortality associated with new-onset atrial fibrillation in patients hospitalized with severe sepsis.

Journal Article JAMA · November 23, 2011 CONTEXT: New-onset atrial fibrillation (AF) has been reported in 6% to 20% of patients with severe sepsis. Chronic AF is a known risk factor for stroke and death, but the clinical significance of new-onset AF in the setting of severe sepsis is uncertain. O ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pharmacologic prophylaxis for venous thromboembolism and 30-day outcomes among older patients hospitalized with heart failure: an analysis from the ADHERE national registry linked to Medicare claims.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · November 2011 BACKGROUND: Hospitalized medically ill patients are at greater risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE). Although pharmacologic prophylaxis regimens have reduced VTE risk in medically ill patients, associations with early postdischarge adverse clinical outcom ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early-life antecedents of atrial fibrillation: place of birth and atrial fibrillation-related mortality.

Journal Article Ann Epidemiol · October 2011 PURPOSE: Recent evidence suggests early-life factors correlate with atrial fibrillation (AF). We hypothesized that AF-related mortality, similar to stroke mortality, is elevated for individuals born in the southeastern United States. METHODS: We estimated ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations of patient demographic characteristics and regional physician density with early physician follow-up among medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with heart failure.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · October 1, 2011 Early physician follow-up after a heart failure (HF) hospitalization is associated with lower risk of readmission. However, factors associated with early physician follow-up are not well understood. We identified 30,136 patients with HF ≥65 years at 225 ho ... Full text Link to item Cite

Comparative Cardiovascular (CV) Safety of Dementia Drugs among Medicare Beneficiaries

Journal Article PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY · August 1, 2011 Link to item Cite

Practice variation in the surgical management of urinary lithiasis.

Journal Article J Urol · July 2011 PURPOSE: Shock wave lithotripsy and ureteroscopy are highly effective treatments for urinary lithiasis. While stone size and location are primary determinants of therapy, little is known about other factors associated with treatment. We identified patient, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Bladder augmentation versus urinary diversion in patients with spina bifida in the United States.

Journal Article J Urol · July 2011 PURPOSE: Augmentation cystoplasty has replaced urinary diversion as the cornerstone of surgical management of refractory neurogenic bladder in patients with spina bifida. Other than single institution series little is known about practice patterns of bladd ... Full text Link to item Cite

Financial implications of changes in the initial treatment of prostate cancer among Medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article J Clin Oncol · May 20, 2011 6115 Background: The traditional treament approaches for localized prostate cancer have included androgen suppression, watchful waiting, open radical prostatectomy, external beam radiation therapy and interstitial brachytherapy. In the last decade a number ... Link to item Cite

Discharge to a skilled nursing facility and subsequent clinical outcomes among older patients hospitalized for heart failure.

Journal Article Circ Heart Fail · May 2011 BACKGROUND: Heart failure (HF) is the leading cause of hospitalization among older Americans. Subsequent discharge to skilled nursing facilities (SNF) is not well described. METHODS AND RESULTS: We performed an observational analysis of Medicare beneficiar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Do heart failure disease management programs make financial sense under a bundled payment system?

Journal Article Am Heart J · May 2011 BACKGROUND: Policy makers have proposed bundling payments for all heart failure (HF) care within 30 days of an HF hospitalization in an effort to reduce costs. Disease management (DM) programs can reduce costly HF readmissions but have not been economicall ... Full text Link to item Cite

Minding the gap between efforts to reduce readmissions and disparities.

Journal Article JAMA · February 16, 2011 Featured Publication Full text Link to item Cite

Resource use in the last 6 months of life among patients with heart failure in Canada.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · February 14, 2011 BACKGROUND: Heart failure (HF) is a debilitating and chronic condition associated with significant morbidity and mortality. However, much less is known about end-of-life (EOL) costs among patients with HF. METHODS: To examine trends in resource use and cos ... Full text Link to item Cite

Resource use in the last 6 months of life among medicare beneficiaries with heart failure, 2000-2007.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · February 14, 2011 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Heart failure is a common cause of death among Medicare beneficiaries, but little is known about health care resource use at the end of life. METHODS: In a retrospective cohort study of 229,543 Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure who died ... Full text Link to item Cite

Non-evidence-based ICD implantations in the United States.

Journal Article JAMA · January 5, 2011 CONTEXT: Practice guidelines do not recommend use of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) for primary prevention in patients recovering from a myocardial infarction or coronary artery bypass graft surgery and those with severe heart failure symp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Assessment of left ventricular function in older Medicare beneficiaries with newly diagnosed heart failure.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · January 1, 2011 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Assessment of left ventricular function is a recommended performance measure for the care of patients with newly diagnosed heart failure. Little is known about the extent to which left ventricular function is assessed in real-world settings. ME ... Full text Link to item Cite

Incremental value of clinical data beyond claims data in predicting 30-day outcomes after heart failure hospitalization.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · January 1, 2011 BACKGROUND: Administrative claims data are used routinely for risk adjustment and hospital profiling for heart failure outcomes. As clinical data become more readily available, the incremental value of adding clinical data to claims-based models of mortali ... Full text Link to item Cite

Geographic variation and trends in carotid imaging among medicare beneficiaries, 2001 to 2006.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · November 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Diagnostic imaging among Medicare beneficiaries is an important contributor to rising health care costs. We examined temporal trends and geographic variation in the use of carotid ultrasound, carotid magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), and ca ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Generalizability and longitudinal outcomes of a national heart failure clinical registry: Comparison of Acute Decompensated Heart Failure National Registry (ADHERE) and non-ADHERE Medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article Am Heart J · November 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Clinical registries are used increasingly to analyze quality and outcomes, but the generalizability of findings from registries is unclear. METHODS: We linked data from the Acute Decompensated Heart Failure National Registry (ADHERE) to 100% fe ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risks of mortality, myocardial infarction, bleeding, and stroke associated with therapies for age-related macular degeneration.

Journal Article Arch Ophthalmol · October 2010 Featured Publication OBJECTIVE: To examine associations between therapies for age-related macular degeneration and risks of all-cause mortality, incident myocardial infarction, bleeding, and incident stroke. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 146,942 Medicar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Successful linking of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons adult cardiac surgery database to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare data.

Journal Article Ann Thorac Surg · October 2010 BACKGROUND: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare database complements The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) database by providing information about long-term outcomes and cost. This study demonstrates the feasibility of linking ST ... Full text Link to item Cite

In reply

Journal Article JAMA · August 18, 2010 Full text Cite

Geographic variation in carotid revascularization among Medicare beneficiaries, 2003-2006.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · July 26, 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Little is known about patterns in the use of carotid revascularization since a 2004 Medicare national coverage decision supporting carotid artery stenting. We examined geographic variation in and predictors of carotid endarterectomy and carotid ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Use of guideline-recommended therapies for heart failure in the Medicare population.

Journal Article Clin Cardiol · July 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Most information about the use of guideline-recommended therapies for heart failure reflects what occurred at discharge after an inpatient stay. HYPOTHESIS: Using a nationally representative, community-dwelling sample of elderly Medicare benefi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Associations between worsening renal function and 30-day outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with heart failure.

Journal Article Am Heart J · July 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Kidney disease is common among patients with heart failure, but relationships between worsening renal function (WRF) and outcomes after hospitalization for heart failure are poorly understood, especially among patients with preserved systolic f ... Full text Link to item Cite

Long-term outcomes of medicare beneficiaries with worsening renal function during hospitalization for heart failure.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · June 15, 2010 We examined whether worsening renal function (RF) was associated with long-term mortality, readmission, and inpatient costs in Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with heart failure (HF). Baseline renal insufficiency in patients hospitalized for HF is asso ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship between early physician follow-up and 30-day readmission among Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized for heart failure.

Journal Article JAMA · May 5, 2010 Featured Publication CONTEXT: Readmission after hospitalization for heart failure is common. Early outpatient follow-up after hospitalization has been proposed as a means of reducing readmission rates. However, there are limited data describing patterns of follow-up after hear ... Full text Link to item Cite

Changes in the use and costs of diagnostic imaging among Medicare beneficiaries with cancer, 1999-2006.

Journal Article JAMA · April 28, 2010 CONTEXT: Emerging technologies, changing diagnostic and treatment patterns, and changes in Medicare reimbursement are contributing to increasing use of imaging in cancer. Imaging is the fastest growing expense for Medicare but has not been examined among b ... Full text Link to item Cite

Process of care performance measures and long-term outcomes in patients hospitalized with heart failure.

Journal Article Med Care · March 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Recent efforts to improve care for patients hospitalized with heart failure have focused on process-based performance measures. Data supporting the link between current process measures and patient outcomes are sparse. OBJECTIVE: To examine the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationships between emerging measures of heart failure processes of care and clinical outcomes.

Journal Article Am Heart J · March 2010 BACKGROUND: Previous studies have not confirmed associations between some current performance measures for inpatient heart failure processes of care and postdischarge outcomes. It is unknown if alternative measures are associated with outcomes. METHODS: Us ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clopidogrel use and clinical events after drug-eluting stent implantation: findings from the HealthCore Integrated Research Database.

Journal Article Am Heart J · March 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Relationships between long-term use and level of dual antiplatelet therapy and outcomes after drug-eluting stent implantation are not well established. METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study of 9,256 patients receiving drug-eluting stent ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship between cardiac rehabilitation and long-term risks of death and myocardial infarction among elderly Medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article Circulation · January 5, 2010 BACKGROUND: For patients with coronary heart disease, exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation improves survival rate and has beneficial effects on risk factors for coronary artery disease. The relationship between the number of sessions attended and long-ter ... Full text Link to item Cite

Resource use and costs of branch and central retinal vein occlusion in the elderly.

Journal Article Curr Med Res Opin · January 2010 Featured Publication OBJECTIVE: To examine the incidence, prevalence, resource use, and costs associated with branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO) and central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) in elderly patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: In a retrospective cohort study of a n ... Full text Link to item Cite

Costs of inpatient care among Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure, 2001 to 2004.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · January 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Inpatient care is the primary driver of costs for patients with heart failure. It is unclear whether recent advances in heart failure care have reduced the costs to Medicare for the care of inpatients with heart failure. METHODS AND RESULTS: In ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical effectiveness of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators among medicare beneficiaries with heart failure.

Journal Article Circ Heart Fail · January 2010 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: The clinical effectiveness of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) in older patients with heart failure has not been established, and older patients have been underrepresented in previous studies. METHODS AND RESULTS: We identified pa ... Full text Link to item Cite

External validity of the cardiovascular health study: a comparison with the Medicare population.

Journal Article Med Care · August 2009 BACKGROUND: The Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), a population-based prospective cohort study, has been used to identify major risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease and stroke in the elderly. OBJECTIVE: To assess the external validity of the ... Full text Link to item Cite

Representativeness of a national heart failure quality-of-care registry: comparison of OPTIMIZE-HF and non-OPTIMIZE-HF Medicare patients.

Journal Article Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes · July 2009 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Participation in clinical registries is nonrandom, so participants may differ in important ways from nonparticipants. The extent to which findings from clinical registries can be generalized to broader populations is unclear. METHODS AND RESULT ... Full text Link to item Cite

Eligibility criteria for β-blockade might have to be taken into account - Reply

Journal Article Archives of Internal Medicine · June 8, 2009 Cite

Linking inpatient clinical registry data to Medicare claims data using indirect identifiers.

Journal Article Am Heart J · June 2009 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Inpatient clinical registries generally have limited ability to provide a longitudinal perspective on care beyond the acute episode. We present a method to link hospitalization records from registries with Medicare inpatient claims data, withou ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical effectiveness of coronary stents in elderly persons: results from 262,700 Medicare patients in the American College of Cardiology-National Cardiovascular Data Registry.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · May 5, 2009 OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to compare outcomes in older individuals receiving drug-eluting stents (DES) and bare-metal stents (BMS). BACKGROUND: Comparative effectiveness of DES relative to BMS remains unclear. METHODS: Outcomes were evaluated i ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Importance of Clinical Predictors of 30-Day Mortality Among Medicare Beneficiaries

Journal Article JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY · March 10, 2009 Link to item Cite

Clinical effectiveness of beta-blockers in heart failure: findings from the OPTIMIZE-HF (Organized Program to Initiate Lifesaving Treatment in Hospitalized Patients with Heart Failure) Registry.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · January 13, 2009 OBJECTIVES: We sought to examine associations between initiation of beta-blocker therapy and outcomes among elderly patients hospitalized for heart failure. BACKGROUND: Beta-blockers are guideline-recommended therapy for heart failure, but their clinical e ... Full text Link to item Cite

Early and long-term outcomes of heart failure in elderly persons, 2001-2005.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · December 8, 2008 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: The treatment of chronic heart failure has improved during the past 2 decades, but little is known about whether the improvements are reflected in trends in early and long-term mortality and hospital readmission. METHODS: In a retrospective coh ... Full text Link to item Cite

Comparative effectiveness of beta-blockers in elderly patients with heart failure.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · December 8, 2008 BACKGROUND: Whether beta-blockers (BBs) other than carvedilol, metoprolol succinate, and bisoprolol fumarate (evidence-based beta-blockers [EBBBs]) improve survival in patients with heart failure (HF) is unknown. We compared the effectiveness of EBBBs vs n ... Full text Link to item Cite

Resource use and costs associated with diabetic macular edema in elderly persons.

Journal Article Arch Ophthalmol · December 2008 OBJECTIVE: To examine trends in resource use and the effect of incident diabetic macular edema (DME) on 1- and 3-year total direct medical costs in elderly patients. METHODS: We used a nationally representative 5% sample of Medicare beneficiaries from 2000 ... Full text Link to item Cite

Long-term outcomes and costs of ventricular assist devices among Medicare beneficiaries.

Journal Article JAMA · November 26, 2008 Featured Publication CONTEXT: In 2003, Medicare expanded coverage of ventricular assist devices as destination, or permanent, therapy for end-stage heart failure. Little is known about the long-term outcomes and costs associated with these devices. OBJECTIVE: To examine the ac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Patient and implanting physician factors associated with mortality and complications after implantable cardioverter-defibrillator implantation, 2002-2005.

Journal Article Circ Arrhythm Electrophysiol · October 2008 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Little is known about factors that influence survival and complications after implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation in routine clinical practice. We examined patient and implanting physician factors associated with outcomes ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prostate-specific antigen screening among young men in the United States.

Journal Article Cancer · September 15, 2008 BACKGROUND: Disagreement exists on the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests for cancer-risk stratification in young men in the United States. Little is known about the use of PSA testing in these men. To understand policy implications of risk strat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association between the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and patient wait times and travel distance for chemotherapy.

Journal Article JAMA · July 9, 2008 Featured Publication CONTEXT: The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) altered reimbursements for outpatient chemotherapy drugs and drug administration services. Anecdotal reports suggest that these adjustments may have negatively affect ... Full text Link to item Cite

Identification of patients with diabetic macular edema from claims data: a validation study.

Journal Article Arch Ophthalmol · July 2008 OBJECTIVE: To assess the validity of an algorithm for identifying patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) diagnosis codes in administrative billing data fro ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sensitivity of International Classification of Diseases codes for hyponatremia among commercially insured outpatients in the United States.

Journal Article BMC Nephrol · June 18, 2008 BACKGROUND: Administrative claims are a rich source of information for epidemiological and health services research; however, the ability to accurately capture specific diseases or complications using claims data has been debated. In this study, the author ... Full text Link to item Cite

Medical costs of abnormal serum sodium levels.

Journal Article J Am Soc Nephrol · April 2008 An abnormal serum sodium level is the most common electrolyte disorder in the United States and can have a significant impact on morbidity and mortality. The direct medical costs of abnormal serum sodium levels are not well understood. The impact of hypona ... Full text Link to item Cite

Impact of heart failure on patients undergoing major noncardiac surgery.

Journal Article Anesthesiology · April 2008 BACKGROUND: Changes in the demographics and epidemiology of patients with cardiovascular comorbidities who undergo major noncardiac surgery require an updated assessment of which patients are at greater risk of mortality or readmission. The authors evaluat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Underuse of left ventricular function assessment in patients with newly diagnosed heart failure

Conference JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY · March 11, 2008 Link to item Cite

Incidence and prevalence of heart failure in elderly persons, 1994-2003.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · February 25, 2008 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Recent analyses have presented conflicting evidence regarding the incidence and prevalence of heart failure in the United States. We sought to estimate the annual incidence and prevalence of heart failure and associated survival in elderly pers ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pancreatic beta-cell function as a predictor of cardiovascular outcomes and costs: findings from the Cardiovascular Health Study.

Journal Article Curr Med Res Opin · January 2008 Featured Publication OBJECTIVE: To explore relationships between beta-cell function and incident cardiovascular events, death, and medical costs among elderly individuals. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: In a prospective, population-based cohort of 4555 elderly individuals, we ex ... Full text Link to item Cite

Patient and Implanting Physician Factors Associated With Mortality and Complications Following Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator Implantation, 2002-2005: Al-Khatib - Patient and Physician Factors and ICD Outcomes.

Journal Article Circulation. Arrhythmia and electrophysiology · 2008 BACKGROUND: Little is known about factors that influence survival and complications following ICD implantation in routine clinical practice. We examined patient and implanting physician factors associated with outcomes of implantable cardioverter-defibrill ... Cite

Prostate cancer in the Baby Boomer generation: results from CaPSURE.

Journal Article Urology · December 2007 OBJECTIVES: Baby Boomers (those born in 1946 to 1964) are thought to place a high value on quality of life, and have a higher propensity to consume healthcare services than previous generations. We sought to characterize prostate cancer (CaP) presentation ... Full text Link to item Cite

Characteristics of nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage in the United States in 2003.

Journal Article Neurosurgery · December 2007 OBJECTIVE: Substantial progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). However, studies of SAH in the United States do not include information more recent than 2001, precluding analysis of shifts in treatment methods ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Medicare Modernization Act and reimbursement for outpatient chemotherapy: do patients perceive changes in access to care?

Journal Article Cancer · November 15, 2007 BACKGROUND: The primary objectives were to measure and compare time to initiation of chemotherapy for patients undergoing treatment either before or after the enactment of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sex differences in the use of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators for primary and secondary prevention of sudden cardiac death.

Journal Article JAMA · October 3, 2007 Featured Publication CONTEXT: Previous studies of sex differences in the use of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) predate recent expansions in Medicare coverage and did not provide patient follow-up over multiple years. OBJECTIVE: To examine sex differences in ICD ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sex and racial differences in the use of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators among patients hospitalized with heart failure.

Journal Article JAMA · October 3, 2007 Featured Publication CONTEXT: Practice guidelines recommend implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy for patients with heart failure and left ventricular ejection fraction of 30% or less. The influence of sex and race on ICD use among eligible patients is unknown. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Costs of the metabolic syndrome in elderly individuals: findings from the Cardiovascular Health Study.

Journal Article Diabetes Care · October 2007 Featured Publication OBJECTIVE: The cardiovascular consequences of the metabolic syndrome and its component risk factors have been documented in elderly individuals. Little is known about how the metabolic syndrome and its individual components translate into long-term medical ... Full text Link to item Cite

Using inverse probability-weighted estimators in comparative effectiveness analyses with observational databases.

Journal Article Med Care · October 2007 Featured Publication Inverse probability-weighted estimation is a powerful tool for use with observational data. In this article, we describe how this propensity score-based method can be used to compare the effectiveness of 2 or more treatments. First, we discuss the inherent ... Full text Link to item Cite

Changing gender prevalence of stone disease.

Journal Article J Urol · March 2007 PURPOSE: Recent studies suggest that the incidence of renal stone formation has been increasing and the male predominance of nephrolithiasis is decreasing, which may be due to changes in diet and lifestyle. We examined changes in the prevalence by gender o ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship between body mass index and prostate cancer screening in the United States.

Journal Article J Urol · February 2007 PURPOSE: Obesity is associated with more advanced disease and worse outcomes in men with prostate cancer. To our knowledge the relationship between obesity and prostate cancer screening behavior in men 40 or older is unknown. Thus, we examined associations ... Full text Link to item Cite

Trends in operator and hospital procedure volume and outcomes for percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, 1996 to 2001.

Journal Article Am J Cardiol · February 1, 2007 Although the volume/outcome relation for percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is well established, it is unclear how the relation has changed over time. To examine trends in hospital and operator volume and outcomes for PTCA, we conducted ... Full text Link to item Cite

Overregulation of health care: Musings on disruptive innovation theory

Journal Article Law and Contemporary Problems · September 1, 2006 Cite

Prostate specific antigen testing in men older than 75 years in the United States.

Journal Article J Urol · August 2006 PURPOSE: Although there is general agreement that men older than 75 years are unlikely to benefit from prostate specific antigen testing, patient reported testing rates in these patients exceed 30%. We examined physician reported PSA testing in elderly men ... Full text Link to item Cite

Geographic variation in the prescription of schedule II opioid analgesics among outpatients in the United States.

Journal Article Health Serv Res · June 2006 Featured Publication OBJECTIVE: To measure geographic variation in opioid use in a large, commercially insured, outpatient population in the United States. DATA SOURCES: Outpatient prescription drug claims database of a national pharmaceutical benefit manager for 7,873,337 sub ... Full text Link to item Cite

Frequency of high-risk use of QT-prolonging medications.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · June 2006 PURPOSE: Prolongation of the QT interval has been associated with increased risk of torsades de pointes and death. Concurrent use of more than one QT-prolonging drug or a QT-prolonging drug with a drug that alters its pharmacokinetic profile is an importan ... Full text Link to item Cite

Geographic variations in the use of medical and surgical therapies for benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Journal Article J Urol · March 2006 PURPOSE: Patients with BPH have several treatment options. Little is known about geographic variations in surgical rates for BPH and the market relationships to medical therapy, health resources and sociodemographic factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We condu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Evidence-based therapies and mortality in patients hospitalized in December with acute myocardial infarction.

Journal Article Ann Intern Med · October 4, 2005 BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggest that patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (MI) in December have poor outcomes, and some studies have hypothesized that the cause may be the infrequent use of evidence-based therapies during the Decembe ... Full text Link to item Cite

National estimates of the use of hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation in children with cancer in the United States.

Journal Article Bone Marrow Transplant · September 2005 National utilization data for hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) for childhood cancers in the United States have not been reported. We identified cancer encounters for children aged 18 years and younger from 1997 to 2001 in US nonfederal, acute ... Full text Link to item Cite

Variations in coronary procedure utilization depending on body mass index.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · June 27, 2005 BACKGROUND: Increased body mass index (BMI) (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters) is a risk factor for coronary heart disease and is associated with lower preventive services utilization. The relationship between BMI ... Full text Link to item Cite

Atypical antipsychotic drugs and diabetes mellitus in a large outpatient population: a retrospective cohort study.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · June 2005 PURPOSE: Previous research has suggested an association between use of atypical antipsychotics and onset of diabetes mellitus. We sought to compare the incidence of new onset diabetes among patients receiving atypical antipsychotics, traditional antipsycho ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prevalence of atypical antipsychotic drug use among commercially insured youths in the United States.

Journal Article Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med · April 2005 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Use of atypical antipsychotic medications in pediatric populations is increasing. Although previous studies have presented data by age or sex, none has documented sex-specific prevalence by age group. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the 1-year prevalenc ... Full text Link to item Cite

1099: Changing Gender Prevalence of Nephrolithiasis

Conference Journal of Urology · April 2005 Full text Cite

Prescription of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and muscle relaxants for back pain in the United States.

Journal Article Spine (Phila Pa 1976) · December 1, 2004 STUDY DESIGN: Secondary analysis of the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). OBJECTIVE.: To examine national prescription patterns of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and muscle relaxants among individuals with back pain in the United ... Full text Link to item Cite

Regionalization of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty and implications for patient travel distance.

Journal Article JAMA · October 13, 2004 CONTEXT: Minimum procedure volume thresholds have been proposed to improve outcomes among patients undergoing percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). How regionalization policies would affect patient travel distances is not known. OBJECTIVE: ... Full text Link to item Cite

Insurance status and race represent independent predictors of undergoing laparoscopic surgery for appendicitis: secondary data analysis of 145,546 patients.

Journal Article J Am Coll Surg · October 2004 BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that racial and socioeconomic differences lead to inequality in access to health care. It is unknown whether insurance status and race affect the choice of surgical treatment for patients presenting with appendicitis. STUDY D ... Full text Link to item Cite

Inappropriate prescribing for elderly Americans in a large outpatient population.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · August 9, 2004 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: We sought to determine the extent of potentially inappropriate outpatient prescribing for elderly patients, as defined by the Beers revised list of drugs to be avoided in elderly populations. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study u ... Full text Link to item Cite

State-mandated continuing medical education and the use of proven therapies in patients with an acute myocardial infarction.

Journal Article J Am Coll Cardiol · July 7, 2004 OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine whether state-mandated continuing medical education (CME) requirements affect the use of evidence-based therapies and outcomes in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). BACKGROUND: The Instit ... Full text Link to item Cite

Socioeconomic status and outcome following acute myocardial infarction in elderly patients.

Journal Article Arch Intern Med · May 24, 2004 BACKGROUND: Although the Medicare entitlement provides universal hospital care coverage for elderly Americans, disparities in care processes after acute myocardial infarction still exist. Whether these disparities account for increased mortality among elde ... Full text Link to item Cite

The insurance effect on prescription drug expenditures among the elderly: findings from the 1997 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

Journal Article Med Care · May 2004 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Despite continuing debate over a prescription drug benefit for the Medicare program, there has been relatively little research estimating the potential cost of providing such a benefit. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to estimate the ... Full text Link to item Cite

The effect of dementia on outcomes and process of care for Medicare beneficiaries admitted with acute myocardial infarction.

Journal Article J Am Geriatr Soc · February 2004 OBJECTIVES: To determine differences in mortality after admission for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and in use of noninvasive and invasive treatments for AMI between patients with and without dementia. DESIGN: Retrospective chart review. SETTING: Coope ... Full text Link to item Cite

Does the ownership of the admitting hospital make a difference? Outcomes and process of care of Medicare beneficiaries admitted with acute myocardial infarction.

Journal Article Med Care · October 2003 BACKGROUND: Concerns have been expressed about quality of for-profit hospitals and their use of expensive technologies. OBJECTIVE: To determine differences in mortality after admission for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and in the use of low- and high-t ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prescription of QT-prolonging drugs in a cohort of about 5 million outpatients.

Journal Article Am J Med · February 1, 2003 Featured Publication Many drugs prolong the QT interval and increase the risk of torsade de pointes. Concurrent use of two or more of these drugs can further increase the risk, but the prevalence of concurrent prescription of QT-prolonging drugs is not known. Using the adminis ... Full text Link to item Cite

Toward estimating the impact of changes in immigrants' insurance eligibility on hospital expenditures for uncompensated care.

Journal Article BMC Health Serv Res · January 10, 2003 BACKGROUND: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 gave states the option to withdraw Medicaid coverage of nonemergency care from most legal immigrants. Our goal was to assess the effect of PRWORA on hospital u ... Full text Link to item Cite

The value of patient-reported health status in predicting short-term outcomes after coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

Journal Article Med Care · November 2002 Featured Publication BACKGROUND: Risk stratification for comparison of outcomes after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) typically includes only clinical measures of risk. Patient-reported health status may be an important independent predictor of short-term health outcome ... Full text Link to item Cite

Welfare reform and Latinas' use of perinatal health care [3] (multiple letters)

Journal Article American Journal of Public Health · May 7, 2002 Cite

Economic evaluation of filgrastim, sargramostim, and sequential sargramostim and filgrastim after myelosuppressive chemotherapy.

Journal Article Bone Marrow Transplant · January 2002 Filgrastim alone and sequential sargramostim and filgrastim have been shown to be more effective than sargramostim alone in the mobilization of CD34(+) cells after myelosuppressive chemotherapy (MC). We sought to compare costs and resource use associated w ... Full text Link to item Cite

Predictors of patient-reported physical and mental health 6 months after percutaneous coronary revascularization.

Journal Article Am Heart J · September 1999 BACKGROUND: There is interest in measuring and comparing outcomes of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) other than death, but there are no accepted methods for adjusting these outcomes for preprocedure differences in populations. We soug ... Full text Link to item Cite