Objective

To determine differences in patient characteristics, antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimen characteristics, and regimen refill adherence for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-focused pharmacy (HIV-P) versus traditional pharmacy (TP) users.

Design

Retrospective cohort study.

Setting

California Walgreens pharmacies from May 2007 to August 2009.

Participants

HIV-positive patients with greater than 30 days of antiretroviral prescription claims.

Intervention

Deidentified prescription records for patients filling any ART prescription at any California Walgreens pharmacy during the study period were assessed.

Main outcome measures

ART regimen refill adherence (calculated by modified medication possession ratio [mMPR]) and dichotomous measure of optimal adherence of 95% or greater.

Results

4,254 HIV-P and 11,679 TP users were included. Compared with TP users, HIV-P users traveled farther to pharmacies (5.03 vs. 1.26 miles, P < 0.01). A greater proportion of HIV-P users filled prescriptions for chronic diseases (35% vs. 30%) and received fixed-dose combination antiretroviral tablets (92% vs. 83%) (all P < 0.01). Median mMPR was higher for HIV-P users (90% vs. 77%, P < 0.0001). After adjusting for age, gender, insurance, medication use, and distance from pharmacy, use of HIV-P (odds ratio 1.90 [95% CI 1.72-2.08]) and fixed-dose combination antiretroviral tablets (3.34 [2.84-3.96]) were most strongly associated with having 95% or greater ART regimen refill adherence.

Conclusion

For HIV-positive patients struggling with antiretroviral adherence, clinicians may consider minimizing pill burden with combination tablets and referral to an HIV-focused pharmacy.

We have been studying collaboration in the context of children conducting science investigations in British primary classrooms. The classroom is the site of action where learning occurs and it is the teacher who plays the key role in manipulating the learning environment and selecting and structuring tasks to achieve the best learning effect for all children. In this paper we describe our general approach and focus in particular on the data we collect to explore how children's conceptual understanding of evaporation progresses. The paper highlights some of the messages emerging about how collaboration can sometimes enhance learning, and sometimes thwart it.

Patient adherence (the degree to which patients follow their therapeutic regimen as prescribed within a set period of time) and persistence (the time to treatment discontinuation, with a permissible gap) with drug therapy are essential components of HIV/AIDS treatment. Select community pharmacies offer specialized services for HIV/AIDS patients to help combat some of the barriers to adherence and persistence. We assessed adherence and persistence with antiretroviral therapy (ART) for patients using HIV-specialized pharmacies in nine cities from seven states compared to traditional community pharmacy users over a 1-year period. Data were limited to one pharmacy chain. Propensity scoring was used to obtain 1:1 matches for "Specialized" and "Traditional" pharmacy users based on age, gender, number of prescription-inferred chronic conditions (obtained by mapping a patient's prescriptions to the Medi-Span Drug Indications Database), and presence of prescription anxiety and/or depression medication, resulting in 7064 patients in each group. Proportion of days covered (PDC) was used to measure adherence. Specialized pharmacy users had a significantly greater mean (74.1% versus 69.2%, p<0.0001) and median (90.3% versus 86.3%, p<0.0001) PDC. A greater percentage of patients in the Specialized group were able to obtain a PDC of 95% or better (39.3% versus 35.5%). Patients in the Specialized group were significantly more persistent (p=0.0117). Community pharmacies specialized in HIV services may be effective avenues for helping patients achieve greater adherence and persistence with ART. Given the value of specialized community pharmacies, payers should consider implementing policies to encourage the use of such pharmacies for filling ART.

Background

While racial/ethnic survival disparities have been described in pediatric oncology, the impact of income has not been extensively explored. We analyzed how public insurance influences 5-year overall survival (OS) in young patients with sarcomas.

Methods

The University of California San Francisco Cancer Registry was used to identify patients aged 0-39 diagnosed with bone or soft tissue sarcomas between 2000 and 2015. Low-income patients were defined as those with no insurance or Medicaid, a means-tested form of public insurance. Survival curves were computed using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared using log-rank tests and Cox models. Causal mediation was used to assess whether the association between public insurance and mortality is mediated by metastatic disease.

Results

Of 1106 patients, 39% patients were classified as low-income. Low-income patients were more likely to be racial/ethnic minorities and to present with metastatic disease (OR 1.96, 95% CI 1.35-2.86). Low-income patients had significantly worse OS (61% vs 71%). Age at diagnosis and extent of disease at diagnosis were also independent predictors of OS. When stratified by extent of disease, low-income patients consistently had significantly worse OS (localized: 78% vs 84%, regional: 64% vs 73%, metastatic: 23% vs 30%, respectively). Mediation analysis indicated that metastatic disease at diagnosis mediated 15% of the effect of public insurance on OS.

Conclusions

Low-income patients with bone and soft tissue sarcomas had decreased OS regardless of disease stage at presentation. The mechanism by which insurance status impacts survival requires additional investigation, but may be through reduced access to care.