The American journal of medicine
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Review
Transforming Health Care from Volume to Value: Targeting Essential Therapies for Improved Health.
The healthcare landscape is evolving rapidly due to escalating costs from the traditional fee-for-service model. Value-based care has emerged as a viable solution, and initiatives focus on areas prone to overuse, waste, or high costs, such as advanced imaging and avoidable acute care resource utilization. Improving medication use is an important component of this work, and it requires organizational commitment, interdisciplinary collaboration, and targeted strategies for specific therapeutic areas. This review article discusses the value-based care approach to optimizing medications and blood product prescribing, spotlighting opportunities to reduce the overuse of opioid, antimicrobial, and proton pump inhibitor medications, alongside the underuse of guideline-based medical therapies in managing chronic diseases like coronary artery disease, heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Antithrombotic Strategies According to Age: Insights From the AUGUSTUS Trial.
We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of antithrombotic strategies by age in patients with atrial fibrillation and acute coronary syndrome and/or percutaneous coronary intervention in AUGUSTUS. ⋯ Apixaban was associated with greater absolute reduction in bleeding than VKA in older age groups, reflecting their higher hemorrhagic risk. Aspirin increased bleeding in all age groups vs. placebo. Our findings support the use of apixaban plus a purinergic receptor P2Y12(P2Y12) inhibitor without aspirin in patients with atrial fibrillation and recent acute coronary syndrome/percutaneous coronary intervention, regardless of age.
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Observational Study
Predicting the outcomes of inpatient cardiac evaluation for syncope using validated risk scores.
Validated syncope risk scores were aimed to predict a cardiac etiology and are mainly used in the decision of hospital admission. Whether these scores could also predict the outcomes of inpatient cardiac evaluation is unknown and was the subject of our study. ⋯ Current syncope risk scores provide limited prediction ability for the outcomes of inpatient cardiac syncope work-up. One should specifically consider age > 75 years and either cardiac murmur or irregular heart rate on examination very significant in implying a cardiac etiology for syncope. Although these factors may be obvious, current risk scores can be interpreted in such a fashion that ignores the importance of findings extracted from a good history and physical examination.