by brant bullard | Aug 13, 2015 | News
PGx Medical is proud to partner with healthcare professionals across the country. And your feedback is important to us.
Rachel Moore PA-C
Diana O’Connor Family Medicine
PGx: Do you find our metabolic validation program to be easy to administer?
Rachel: Yes, it was very easy.
PGx: Do you find the test results to be helpful when dosing or treating your residents?
Rachel: Yes. Test results are very user friendly.
PGx: How has the program changed the culture of your home and med review for residents in your home?
Rachel: It saves time and frustration for us as providers and the patients.
PGx: What percentage of residents on average do you see after testing are in need of a dose change, med change or discontinuing of medication?
Rachel: About 90%
PGx: Would you recommend the PGx Medical Metabolic Validation Program to other homes, clinics or pharmacies across the state?
Rachel: Yes
PGx: Do you have a success story you can share?
Rachel: One patient we had tried so many SSRI/SNRIs and after her PGx test, we were able to find the right med regimen and now she feels great!
Tell us your success stories at info@pgxmed.com
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
405-509-5112
by brant bullard | Jul 30, 2015 | News
There are 7 billion people on Earth. We’re entering an age of remarkable potential for personalized medicine to save and improve lives like never before. ~forbes.com~
Your genome is a complete set of your DNA. It holds all information for creating and maintaining you. As a human, yours has more than 3 billion DNA base pairs.
In short, it’s your human blueprint, your personal instruction manual.
What if we told you that with a single buccal swab of the cheek, we could analyze your individual make-up and know what drugs your body can metabolize, and which ones you can’t? We can, it’s called personalized medicine.
Past: Trial-and-Error
Present: Targeted, Personalized Medicine
Medications and geriatrics:
When you are dealing in the geriatric population, time matters. Days matter. At PGx Medical, our goal is to educate healthcare professionals across the country on the tools and resources available. “One day, and one day soon, I believe this will be the new normal. Metabolic Validation, via pharmacogenomic testing, will be mandatory for everyone with medical necessity before prescribing medications. Doing away with the guess work and knowing exactly what a person has the ability to metabolize, that will be part of standard of care,” said Clay Bullard, President of PGx Medical.
It’s a misconception that this tool will tell you what to do. It is a resource available that maps out an individual’s blueprint. A road map of sorts. It will guide healthcare professionals when dosing patients and help take away the old “trial-and-error” process that we have lived by for so many years. Can you imagine knowing the “first” time that you are on the right medication? And that your body will metabolize it the way the manufacturer of the drug intended for you to?
That’s the beauty of personalized medicine.
This tool wasn’t designed to decrease the amount of medications a patient is on. But to help them get on the appropriate medications. Medications their body can metabolize. According to the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, on average, individuals 65 to 69 years old take nearly 14 prescriptions per year, individuals aged 80 to 84 take an average of 18 prescriptions per year. And 15% to 25% of drug use in seniors is considered unnecessary or otherwise inappropriate and 36% of all reported adverse drug reactions involve an elderly individual. And today there are over 43.1 million adults aged 65 and older in the United States; by 2040, that number will rise to 79.7 million. Those numbers are stagering when you think about drug use and healthcare costs in seniors.
Is it affordable?
Currently in the U.S. CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), reimburses for pharmacogenomic testing. In short, you could know exactly what medications your patients can metabolize and it is covered by Medicare B. Medicaid reimburses in select states, and most private insurance companies cover the test with normal copays and deductibles.
Personalized medicine has been around for decades. So why now?
Personalized medicine, via pharmacogenomic testing, has been around for many years. But up until the last 5 years, it wasn’t affordable. Now that insurance companies are covering the test and CMS is reimbursing for the test, it has now moved to the forefront of the healthcare industry and is seen as a way to help cut healthcare costs. But many healthcare professionals still aren’t aware this tool even exists – or that this is an option in their day-to-day care.
“We work with physicians that won’t see a patient until they have a pharmacogenomic test done first. If that patient has medical necessity, then those physicians make sure they have their patients on the right medications,” said Bullard. “It’s just part of their patient care.”
How do I get tested?
A pharmacogenomic test comes on a doctors order. For individuals who want to be tested, get with your physician and request a test. For physicians or pharmacists who want to include this in their patient care, contact us and we will get you the information necessary to get you started.
The PGx Medical Metabolic Validation Program is available to review on a secure online portal within 48 hours from the time our lab receives the sample.
Helping people live longer…better! That is our goal.
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
www.pgxmed.com
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112
Sources: forbes.com, www.ascp.com
by brant bullard | Jul 9, 2015 | News
So what are you doing to help reduce antipsychotic medications in your home?
Currently, long-term care providers are being asked to reduce antipsychotic medications by 25% by the end of 2015, and that number will increase to 30% by the end of 2016.
“This is an area our program is focusing on”, said PGx Medical President, Clay Bullard. The PGx Metabolic Validation Program is a no-cost tool to help guide healthcare professionals when treating patients. The simple buccal swab helps determine which medications are being metabolized in each individual, and psychotropic medications are one of the panels analyzed by the program.
“By determining if an individual even has the ability to metabolize a medication will help you make a decision based on science rather than “trial & error” to see if that person is even capable of receiving therapy from the medication. You save so much time and money by eliminating the guessing game,” said Bullard.
In 2014, Bullard educated Oklahoma State Surveyors and was invited to speak at Provider Training meetings throughout the year.
“Why wouldn’t you use this program if it cost your home nothing and the resident nothing? But the best part is, while the mandate for reducing antipsychotics keeps going up, our tools and resources are becoming more wide-spead. We’re not here to tell you how to do your job, or what medications you should give your residents. We’re here as a resource to help educate and implement a tool that is available for your use to help your residents live longer…better!”
Bullard travels around the country educating healthcare professionals on “Metabolic Validation Testing – Rethinking Your Approach to Pharmaceutical Usage in LTC”
For more information on the PGx Medical Metabolic Validation Program. Or to schedule Clay to speak, contact:
PGx Medical
405-509-5112
info@pgxmed.com
www.pgxmed.com
by brant bullard | Jun 19, 2015 | News
LeadingAge Oklahoma is excited to announce our strategic partnership with PGx Medical. The PGx Metabolic Validation Program allows for a personalized/unique patient report validating the patient is getting the right drug, in the right dose, for the right diagnosis, based upon how each individual patient metabolizes certain medications. This helps eliminate unnecessary medications, reduce possible side effects, help maintain mobility, reduce falls, and avoid drug on drug interaction that can have significant and often negative effects.
PGx Medical helps facilities and communities gain an understanding of the role metabolic validation testing can and should have within the care provided to older Oklahomans. They also educate the facility owners, physicians, administrators, and staff as to the value the test results can have on the bottom line and helping their residents be more active and age in place.
We chose to partner with PGx for three very specific reasons. First, we have seen in many of our members’ facilities that this tool can have a tremendously positive effect with residents they serve. Secondly, PGx has been advocating with the Oklahoma Department of Health with ongoing training for the State Surveyors and speaking at the State Education Symposiums throughout the 2014 calendar year to help with CMS Psychotropic Med Reduction and Unnecessary Med Reductions Initiatives. Thirdly, this technology should inspire us all to look at what we are doing and realizing that new tools are available to provide better care and accessible with NO COST to our members.
We encourage you to reach out to PGx Medical to have them educate your team of caregivers on the value this tool can provide and work with your physicians and encourage them to work with you to provide the best care possible with the best tools available.
The PGx website is www.pgxmed.com and they can be reached via phone at 405.509.5112.
by brant bullard | Jun 9, 2015 | News
Personalized medicine can address a significant unmet need by improving efficacy and safety, reducing healthcare costs, and promoting patient adherence.
Did you know…
- $289 billion – cost of adverse events in the United States annually
- 33% – 50% – rate of medication nonadherence, which impacts drug efficacy
- >76% – percent of Americans aged 60 and over who use two or more prescription drugs – 37% use five or more
- 20% – percent of drugs that account for 90% of all reported adverse events
- 43 – drugs withdrawn from the market between 1990 to 2012 due to severe adverse events
- 100,000 – emergency hospitalzations annually among >65 year old adults due to adverse events
- 7x – greater risk for older Americans vs. younger Americans to have adverse events requiring hospitalization
For more information, or to implement the Metabolic Validation Program, via pharmacogenomic testing into your home, clinic or pharmacy, contact:
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112
by brant bullard | Jun 7, 2015 | News
Every patient has a unique metabolic phenotype, which results in varied responses to standarized drug dosages.
Despite the use of patient characteristics such as age, ethnicity and weight to optimize drug selection and dosing, adverse responses to prescription drugs persist and are associated with approximately 5% of hospital admissions and an estimated 100,000 deaths annually in the United States. The field of pharmacogenetics, also referred to as pharmacogenomics and often abbreviated as PGx, looks at how specific genetic variants impact medication response, and offers health care providers a more personalized way to select and prescribe appropriate drugs at safer doses.
Metabolic phenotype can influence systemic drug exposure and the likelihood of therapeutic responsee or toxity.
PM – Poor Metbolizer: Poor metabolizers have two non-functional alleles and therefore have little to no enzyme activity.
IM – Intermediate Metaboizer: Intermediate metabolizers have one non-functional allele and one normally functioning allele, and therefore have decreased enzyme activity.
EM – Extensive Metabolizer: Extensive metabolizers have 2 normally functioning alleles and therefore have normal enzyme activity.
UM – Ultra-rapid Metabolizer: Ultra-rapid metabolizers have one or more alleles which result in increased enzyme activity compared to extensive metabolizers.
A “one-size-fits-all” approach to drug selection and dosing does not account for the impact of patient genetics on drug metabolism, efficacy, and toxicity.
For more information on the PGx Medical Metabolic Validation Program, via pharmacogenomic testing, contact:
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
info@pgxmed.com
405-509-5112
Source: Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative
