Publications by authors named "Joshua Blackwell"

Purpose: To assess the impact of a clinical pharmacy specialist (CPS) embedded within a rheumatology clinic at a large academic medical center on the prescription capture rate at the health-system specialty pharmacy.

Methods: Initially low prescription capture rates for the health-system specialty pharmacy led to the integration of a CPS in the main campus rheumatology clinic. Benchmarking was completed by assessing the prior prescription capture rate using electronic medical record analytics and Loopback Analytics (a database of prescription capture for the health-system specialty pharmacy).

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Background: Identification of high cardiovascular risk patients on suboptimal lipid-lowering therapy (LLT) may be possible through electronic medical record (EMR) reporting, presenting an opportunity for pharmacist involvement in optimizing drug regimens.

Objectives: To (a) identify high cardiovascular risk patients with opportunities for LLT optimization through EMR reporting and (b) evaluate effectiveness of pharmacist review and treatment algorithm on recommending treatment modifications compared with algorithm application alone.

Methods: We generated an EMR report to identify adult patients aged 21-75 years with clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level ≥ 70 mg/dL during a 6-month period and collected pertinent data elements.

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Objective: We implemented a nontargeted, opt-out HCV testing and linkage to care (LTC) program in an academic tertiary care emergency department (ED). Despite research showing the critical role of ED-based HCV testing programs, predictors of LTC have not been defined for patients identified through the nontargeted ED testing strategy. In order to optimize health outcomes for patients with HCV, we sought to identify predictors of LTC failure.

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Background: Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the United States. Charlotte, NC, had the 4th fastest growing Hispanic community in the nation between 1990 to 2000. Gaining understanding of the patterns of health care use for this changing population is a key step toward designing improved primary care access and community health.

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Introduction: A key element for reducing health care costs and improving community health is increased access to primary care and preventative health services. Geographic information systems (GIS) have the potential to assess patterns of health care utilization and community-level attributes to identify geographic regions most in need of primary care access.

Methods: GIS, analytical hierarchy process, and multiattribute assessment and evaluation techniques were used to examine attributes describing primary care need and identify areas that would benefit from increased access to primary care services.

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