The American journal of managed care
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Medicare Advantage-pharmacy partnership improves influenza and pneumococcal vaccination rates.
To evaluate the impact of a collaborative effort of a Medicare Advantage and prescription drug (MAPD) plan and community pharmacies to improve vaccination rates for pneumonia and influenza. ⋯ A health plan-enabled, pharmacist-led intervention was effective in increasing the number of older adults receiving pneumococcal vaccination and individuals receiving influenza vaccination.
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Multicenter Study
Covishield India: demystifying myths through an early multicenter study.
Nationwide COVID-19 vaccination was initiated in India on January 16, 2021, in a phased manner with vaccines including Covishield. This vaccine was indigenously prepared by Serum Institute of India in line with the Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 vaccine developed at the University of Oxford. This is the first multicenter study to assess the safety of the indigenously prepared Covishield vaccine in India. ⋯ The absence of serious adverse effects in our study will help allay fears around vaccine acceptance and give a boost to the vaccination campaign worldwide.
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To assess what patient, family supporter, and call characteristics predicted whether patients completed automated and coach-provided calls in a telehealth diabetes intervention. ⋯ Patients of all ages completed telehealth calls at a high rate. Automated IVR calls were completed more often when urgent issues were identified to patients' providers, but less often if patients had high HbA1c or depression. Visit preparation call content should be tailored to patient education level. Family help with medications may identify patients needing additional support to engage with telehealth.
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Reaching the goals set by the Health Care Payment and Learning Action Network requires an unyielding and unrelenting focus on encouraging providers to adopt advanced alternative payment models (APMs). Many of these models will continue to be voluntary because they either are in early stages or have not yet proven their effectiveness. ⋯ Either way, getting today's high performers into those programs and keeping them engaged to continue to innovate and set new benchmarks is as important as attracting and improving the performance of poorer performers. That will require a shift in Medicare's policy on pricing and evaluating APMs.
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Residents with diabetes in long-term care (LTC) settings often have recognized risk factors for developing hypoglycemia, including advanced age, dementia, and polypharmacy; however, data regarding hypoglycemia in LTC and associated hospitalizations are lacking. Our aim was to describe health care resource use and costs for patients with diabetes and hypoglycemia upon hospital admission. ⋯ These findings highlight the importance of providing optimal diabetes management for patients in LTC settings to prevent hypoglycemia and potential hospitalizations and costs.