Risk and Benefit Informed MTM Pharmacist Intervention in Heart Failure

Heart failure is a highly prevalent, complex disease associated with significant morbidity and cost. For example, Geisinger manages over 900 heart failure admissions per year, with each admission costing an estimated $10,000-$12,000. As payment models continue to shift from fee-for-service to value-based, significant investments are occurring in care team resources to help manage populations of patients with heart failure. These care team resources have demonstrated effectiveness. For example, internal Geisinger metrics indicate that interventions led by clinical pharmacists aimed at poorly controlled type II diabetics have resulted in a sustained median 1% (absolute) drop in hemoglobin hemoglobin a1C (glycated hemoglobin). In this new environment, intelligent deployment of limited resources is critical to drive quality and contain costs. In heart failure, current risk prediction have demonstrated poor prognostic abilities and present a barrier to "precision delivery" of care team resources. Currently approaches are limited due to not fully utilizing rich, highly granular objective data such as imaging, laboratory values, and vital signs, and therefore are not optimized to accurately predict outcomes. The investigators have generated a machine learning model to predict both 1-year survival and heart failure hospitalization within 6 months of echocardiography. This model utilized 169 input variables including clinical data, imaging measures, and 18 care gap variables. Our results showed not only that the machine learning model had far superior accuracy to predict the morbidity endpoints compared to current approaches utilizing billing code data, but also that care gap variables were important for predicting 1-year survival. Moreover, the investigators showed that closing four of the care gap variables (flu vaccination, evidence-based beta blocker treatment, ACE (angiotensin-converting-enzyme) inhibitor/ARB (angiotensin receptor blockers) treatment, and control of diabetic a1C (i.e., values "in goal)) resulted in a predicted improvement in 1-year survival of \~1200 (out of \~11,000) patients. This study therefore aims to apply this machine learning approach to direct care team resources in a clinical setting to evaluate its impact on patient survival and healthcare utilization.