AMCP Foundation Honors Best Posters at Nexus 2019

With support from CVS Health, AMCP Foundation was thrilled to expand our Best Poster Competition and extend awards at AMCP Nexus 2019. In addition to the senior investigator award presented at the Research Symposium, we also recognized the best posters by a student pharmacist and a graduate student. Nexus 2019 winners are:

Amy Nguyen, Pharmacy Student at St. John's University, U23: Her research, “Improving pharmacotherapies for hypertension and diabetes among Hispanics,” highlights the well-known, yet hard-to-address topic of social determinants. From her research using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2001-2016) data, she emphasizes the U.S. challenge of sub-optimal health outcomes in the Hispanic American population. Per her adjusted analyses, the strongest predictors of controlling blood pressure and cholesterol levels were health insurance coverage, higher educational attainment, and a consistent location to receive healthcare services. The Hispanic population struggled to attain these predictors compared to Caucasian and African-American populations studied.  These findings warrant innovative payer strategies to improve health outcomes to reach our diverse populations.

Mina Allo, Graduate Student at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, E12: Identifying the best therapy for type two diabetic patients can be challenging, especially as there are numerous orally available therapies on market. Mina Allo used the national IBM® MarketScan® database to replicate regional payer data and identify costs and health outcomes of patients taking sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i). In her study, “Regional and national real-world healthcare resource utilization, clinical and cost outcomes of type 2 diabetes patients treated with SGLT2i,” reduced healthcare resource utilization and variable regional medication costs were concluded. Results were supported by national calibration among regional and national cohorts. This study may stimulate movement of regional payer cohort assessments using national databases.

This year’s competition drew 59 entries, which were judged on scientific merit, strength of conclusions, relevance of research to managed care pharmacy, clarity of materials, and knowledge of subject matter during the presentation. Read all of the Nexus 2019 poster presentations in the JMCP meeting abstract.

(image l-r: Alvah Stahlnecker (CVS Health), Mindy Messina (CVS Health), Amy Nguyen, Mina Allo, Amber Reinert, Laura Happe)