by PGx Medical | Oct 5, 2017 | Uncategorized
With an increase in drug and opioid overdose deaths, could pharmacogenetics help reduce this epidemic?
According to the CDC, since 2000, the rate of deaths from drug overdoses has increased 137%, including 200% increase in the rate of overdose deaths involving opioids. More persons died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2014 than during any previous year on record.
In an online article by vox.com, in 2016 alone, drug overdoses likely killed more Americans in one year than the entire Vietnam War. It is estimated that more than 140 people are estimated to die from drug overdoses every day in the U.S. About two-thirds of these drug overdoses deaths are linked to opioids
The opioid epidemic could kill hundreds of thousands in the next decade.
But how do we stop it?
In 2015, the amount of opioids prescribed was enough for every American to be medicated around the clock for 3 weeks.
So how can pharmacogenetics help in decreasing drug overdose?
When a doctor prescribes a standard dosage of a medication, they are frequently confronted with each patient responding differently. Many patients are taking multiple medications simultaneously and they counteract with each other.
Your genetics can play a part in your risk for overdose.
Oral opioids, such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and codeine, are metabolized by an enzyme which makes the user have a “high” feeling. Some genes are highly variable, leading to a completely inactive enzyme. Individuals who inherit these alleles are referred to as “poor metabolizers” and are less likely to become dependent.
Individuals who are poor metabolizers of these drugs are more prone to toxicity and overdose at standard doses. But individuals who are fast metabolizers, or “ultra rapid” metabolizers are more predisposed to addiction.
Pharmacogenetic testing eventually can lead to an overall decrease in adverse drug reactions, a decrease in health care costs because of the number of failed drug trials; the time it takes to get a drug approved; the length of time patients are on medication and the number of medications patients must take to find an effective therapy.
Pharmacogenetics has the potential to change the way medicine is practiced, by eliminating the “one size fits all prescribing” with a more personalized approach that takes into account both clinical factors and the patient’s genetics. Healthcare professionals can use pharmacogenetic testing along with traditional clinical practices to predict which drugs are more or less likely to work, achieve therapeutic repose based on appropriate dosage, and know the drugs to be avoided on basis of associated adverse events.
For more information or to schedule a free educational webinar on pharmacogenetic testing for medication management, contact: PGx Medical, info@pgxmed.com, 405-509-5112. Or go to www.pgxmed.com.
by PGx Medical | Sep 20, 2017 | Uncategorized
The requirements for LTC Facilities are the health and safety standards LTC facilities must meet in order to participate in medicare or medicaid programs.
What is your Patient Centered Care Plan for your LTC community?
For months now when you walk into a Long Term Care (LTC) facility, you may hear people talking about the CMS Final Ruling. Asking themselves, how they are going to make these changes with more residents then ever before, and less staff then ever before.
A high percentage of residents are admitted to a long term care facility on Friday. This allows them time to get adjusted, move-in over the weekend, and have family and friends available for the first few days. The baseline Care Plan requires facilities to develop a baseline care plan for each resident, within 48 hours of their admission, which includes the instructions needed to provide effective and person-centered care that meets professional standards of quality care. That is tough when you are short staffed to begin with and now it is on a weekend when staff is even more limited.
Below are a few key points in the Final Ruling.
- Person Centered Care: This revolves around information, being involved and allowing the patient to have more choice in their care.
- Facility Assessment, Competency Based Approach: Not a one-size fits all approach. Focus on each resident achieving their highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being.
- Align with Current HHS Initiatives: Reducing unnecessary hospital readmissions, reducing the incidences of healthcare acquired infections, improving behavioral healthcare, and safeguarding nursing home residents from the use of unnecessary psychotropic (antipsychotic) medications.
Pharmacogenetics can help decrease, contain and/or give the facility documentation of patient centered care through personalized medicine. It can help with your baseline care plan and give you personalized data for each resident to help develop a personalized medication regime unique to each resident. Documentation on how each resident is on the right medication, at the right dosage for each individual based on their genetic make-up. And it helps in reducing unnecessary medications with scientific based evidence to back it up.
This program is quick, approximately one minute per resident, and there is no out of pocket expense for residents with medicare B and in some states, medicaid.
Pharmacogenetics aligns current and future medications with each persons unique genetic profile. Our proprietary process impacts quality, adds value and enhances the customer experience by addressing top clinical concerns such as falls, dementia, sleep, pain, med management and overall staff efficiencies.
If it isn’t currently part of your patient centered care plan, it should be. What other resource is that easy, quick to implement, and no out of pocket expense to the resident or facility. PGx Medical can be your consultant and educator in the process helping you and your clinical team implement the program.
For more information, contact: PGx Medical, info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112. PGx Medical is the trusted and experienced resource for the implementation of pharmacogenetics in the field of aging services.
by PGx Medical | Sep 11, 2017 | Uncategorized
Have you ever been told to take a medication for a few weeks and see if it works?
Personalized care based on your genetic profile
Finding the right medication can often be a guessing game. Or can take weeks, months, even years to figure out what works, even as you suffer through side effects, pain and adverse events from medications that don’t work.
Pharmacogenetics can stop the guessing game leading to personalized care and treatment options.
The goal of pharmacogenetics is to stop the “guessing game” and find the right dose of the right drug for the right person.
For more information on implementing pharmacogenetic testing into your long term care community, pharmacy or clinic, contact us at 405-509-5112 or email info@pgxmed.com. We’ll be happy to schedule an educational webinar for your clinical team to help get you started.
by PGx Medical | Jul 14, 2017 | Uncategorized
On Friday’s we will post new and relevant information regarding Pharmacogenetics. We hope you will find this useful and pass along to colleagues. If you should have any questions or would like to request education or schedule a webinar regarding pharmacogenetics, please feel free to reach out to us at PGx Medical, info@pgxmed.com or 405-509-5112.
How is pharmacogenetics affecting the efficacy of medical treatment?
Pharmacogenomics can help doctors pick the right treatment option and dose for each patient. photo source: nigms.nih.gov
Your genes determine your hair and eye color, they also play a key role in how medications work in your body.
Currently, providers base the majority of their drug prescriptions on factors, such as a patient’s age, weight, sex, and liver and kidney function. Researchers have identified genetic variations that influence how people respond. When using a pharmacogenetic test result, providers can use this information to select the best medication and identify people who need an unusually high or low dose.
Pharmacogenetics looks at variations in genes for proteins that influence drug responses. These proteins include a number of liver enzymes that convert medications into their active or inactive forms. Even small differences in the genetic sequences of these enzymes can have a big impact on a drug’s safety or effectiveness.
Read entire article at: nigms.nih.gov
by PGx Medical | Jul 13, 2017 | Uncategorized
Anticoagulants are one of the most frequently prescribed medications in elderly patients.
Polypharmacy is a growing concern in the elderly population
Some common cardiovascular disorders in older adults have a relationship to thrombosis, including ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrillation, valvular disease, and atherosclerotic vascular disease.
Thrombophilia (sometimes hyper coagulability or a prothrombotic state) is an abnormality of blood coagulation that increases the risk of thrombosis (blood clots in blood vessels). Such abnormalities can be identified in 50% of people who have an episode of thrombosis (such as deep vein thrombosis in the leg) that was not provoked by other causes.
Older adults represent a patient population at high thromboembolic risk, but also at high hemorrhagic risk. Physicians have a tendency to underuse anticoagulants in the elderly, most likely because of underestimation of thromboembolic risk and overestimation of bleeding risk.
Despite the stroke risk being much higher in the elderly population, the presence of associated comorbidities and accompanying polypharmacy leads to physicians’ being less eager to initiate anticoagulation therapy in the elderly, despite the greater absolute stroke risk reduction by doing so.
Another consideration in deciding on anticoagulation therapy is the elderly patients’ propensity to fall. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every 11 seconds an older adult is treated in the emergency room for a fall; every 19 minutes, an older adult dies from a fall.
One of the most compelling examples of potential benefits from pharmacogenetic testing is warfarin. Warfarin is a widely prescribed oral anticoagulant; for decades it has been used as standard drug to prevent and treat thrombotic events in patients with deep vein thrombosis, various hypercoagulable states, atrial fibrillation, surgical cardiac valve replacement, etc.
One of the major problems with its use in clinical practice is large inter-individual variation – patients differ in sensitivity to warfarin, hence the dose requirements vary widely (up to 20-fold). The consequences of over- or under-anticoagulation can be serious. In patients less sensitive than typical, the standard doses may be too low to achieve anticoagulation and therapeutic failure may occur, while in highly sensitive individuals the same doses may lead to serious adverse effects, such as hemorrhage.
PGx Medical is the trusted and experienced resource for the implementation of pharmacogenetics into the field of aging services. We work with LTC communities, clinics and pharmacies across the country educating and implementing pharmacogenetics into their day-to-day patient care.
For more information on education opportunities or implementing pharmacogenetics, contact:
PGx Medical
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112
source: uptodate.com, ncbi.com, intechopen.com
