Disparities in infectious disease-related health care utilization between Medicaid-enrolled American Indians and non-Hispanic Whites-Lessons from the first 16 months of coronavirus disease 2019 and a decade of flu seasons.

Objective: To understand why American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) populations have had exceptionally high COVID-19 mortality, we compare patterns of healthcare utilization and outcomes for two serious infectious respiratory diseases-Influenza-like-illness (ILI) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-between American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) populations (as identified in Medicaid data) and non-Hispanic Whites over the 2009-2021 period.

Study Setting And Design: We select all people under the age of 65 years identified as non-Hispanic White or AIAN in the New York State Medicaid claims data between 2009 and 2021. We analyze data across 10 ILI cohorts (between September 2009 and August 2020) and 4 COVID-19 cohorts (March-June 2020, July-September 2020, October-December 2020, and January-June 2021).

Architecting Process of Care: A randomized controlled study evaluating the impact of providing nonadherence information and pharmacist assistance to physicians.

Objective: To test the impact of connecting physicians, pharmacists, and patients to address medication nonadherence, and to compare different physician choice architectures.

Data Sources And Study Setting: The study was conducted with 90 physicians and 2602 of their patients on medications treating chronic illness.

Study Design: In this cluster randomized controlled trial, physicians were randomly assigned to an arm where the physician receives notification of patient nonadherence derived from real-time claims data, an arm where they receive this information and a pharmacist may contact patients either by default or by physician choice, and a control group.

Medical Abortion Provided by Nurse-Midwives or Physicians in a High Resource Setting: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis.

Objective: The objective of the present study is to calculate the cost-effectiveness of early medical abortion performed by nurse-midwifes in comparison to physicians in a high resource setting where ultrasound dating is part of the protocol. Non-physician health care professionals have previously been shown to provide medical abortion as effectively and safely as physicians, but the cost-effectiveness of such task shifting remains to be established.

Study Design: A cost effectiveness analysis was conducted based on data from a previously published randomized-controlled equivalence study including 1180 healthy women randomized to the standard procedure, early medical abortion provided by physicians, or the intervention, provision by nurse-midwifes.

Can Physicians Affect Patient Adherence With Medication?

Non-compliance with medication therapy remains an unsolved and expensive problem for healthcare systems around the world, yet we know little about the factors that affect a patient's decision to follow treatment recommendations. In particular, there is little evidence on the extent to which doctors can influence patient adherence behavior. This study uses a unique panel dataset comprising all prescription drug users, physicians, and all prescription drug sales in Denmark over 7 years to analyze the contributions of doctor-specific, patient-specific, and drug-specific factors to the adherence decision.