During Specialty Pharmacy Next 2023, Autumn Zuckerman, PharmD, director of Health Outcomes and Research at Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy, told the audience about different data types that specialty pharmacies can use and how they relate to measuring outcomes of patients on specialty medications; described methods to use data to improve patient care; and highlighted opportunities to use data to help communicate the value of specialty pharmacy.

According to Dr Zuckerman, “limitless data exist.” Within specialty pharmacy, the two main data types are process and clinical.

Process data examples include processing a prior authorization; filling a prescription; and making an intervention. Clinical data examples include labs and imaging, and patient-reported outcomes. Clinical data “describes patient’s health in terms of disease state and/or response to specialty medication.”

Further, data can be structured and unstructured, Dr Roman explained, and of important note, “structured data is more readily usable.”

Structured data includes:

• Organized and formatted data within a predefined model
• Pre-existing fields with response options
• Easily extracted for reporting

Finally, Dr Roman noted, “Specialty pharmacies may have numerous data sources, potentially complicating the ability to use data that is being input.”

Examples of data sources, or more specifically the location where data is being entered or stored, are electronic health records, specialty pharmacy patient management systems, and pharmacy dispensing software.

After covering data usage, Dr Roman discussed patient outcomes in specialty pharmacy.

According to Dr Roman, “Many disease states lack a defined, objective clinical measure, and outcome measures may be site- or provider-specific.”

In specialty pharmacy outcomes, there are many challenges with standardization, according to Dr Roman. These challenges are due to the following:

• 40-60% of patients with a low PDC have been shown to be misidentified as nonadherent when using PDC calculation alone;
• Changing primary medication nonadherence calculation specifications can drastically impact results;
• Clinical outcomes measures;
• Cost analysis methodology.

“In addition to standardization, data availability for benchmarking is key to understanding and improving current performance/outcomes,” said Dr Roman.

In the final portion of Dr Roman’s session, she explained how specialty pharmacies can put their data to use and how to communicate value.

By leveraging data for patient care, specialty pharmacies can:

• Reduced treatment gaps;
• Have better care coordination;
• Improve health care team communication/awareness;
• Have proactive interventions to address worsening disease outcomes;
• Experience better use of pharmacist efforts by identifying at-risk patients; and
• Prevent loss to follow-up.

“There is potential to better utilize data already being collected for patient care, Dr Roman said. “Where data gaps exist, building documentation and workflow procedures to ensure structured data collection is key.”

“Communicating outcomes through presentations, publications, industry articles, and conversations can help showcase value to improve patient and medication access.”