With new medication dispense data – including prescription fill data from specialty pharmacies – Truveta Data offers even more complete, timely, and clean data to study patient care and outcomes.
BELLEVUE, Wash. – August 8, 2023 – Today Truveta announced the addition of new in-depth medication dispense data to help researchers study safety and effectiveness, medication adherence, and adverse events. Medication dispense data helps researchers understand patients’ actual use of medications.
With more than 55% of Americans regularly taking medications, and non-medication adherence affecting nearly 40-50% of those with chronic conditions, the impact is dire. More than 125,000 Americans die each year from medication non-adherence, exceeding the number of deaths from influenza, pneumonia, or car accidents. In fact, medication non-adherence ranks as the 7th leading cause of death in the United States and costs the US health care system nearly $300 billion a year.
Truveta Data includes depth medication dispense data for the nearly 100 million patients represented by Truveta’s health system members, including medication dispense date, quantity, number of days supplied, whether the medication was filled or refilled, and more. Truveta Data also includes prescription fill data from specialty pharmacies, which are critical for studying patients with complex medical conditions like cancer, autoimmune conditions, and rare diseases. Specialty pharmacies are equipped to provide complex and often expensive, medications that require special handling, storage, distribution, and patient education. Finally, medication dispense data also captures prescriptions from providers outside of Truveta member health systems, including clinical trials, providing a more comprehensive look at the patient’s therapies.
By bringing these data together with full electronic health records, comprehensive medical claims data, and social drivers of health (SDOH) in Truveta Data, researchers have access to the most complete picture of the de-identified patient journey.
“Studying patient care and outcomes in the United States is challenging because there are so many gaps in the system. Electronic health records capture most data, but can be augmented with other data, including when patients get care across multiple providers or receive medications through specialty pharmacies,” said Michael Simonov, MD, chief medical officer and vice president of product at Truveta. “With the addition of these new data, we can provide an even more complete patient picture to help researchers more deeply understand care and outcomes. The more complete the picture, the more impactful the research can be.”
Use of medication dispense data to provide a more complete patient picture
Medication adherence is a critical component when studying patient care and outcomes but is challenging to do with incomplete data. Many datasets only show that the drug was prescribed. With new medication dispense data in Truveta, the researcher can also know that the medication was picked up from the pharmacy, providing the researcher an understanding of a patient’s access and adherence to this medication. These data empower researchers to take a closer look and understand why patients may or may not be receiving their therapy.
Using the per-patient social drivers of health attributes, researchers can include potential socioeconomic factors, such as ability to pay and access to transportation, to see if those factors play a role in a patient’s access to medication. Understanding adherence allows researchers to more accurately understand which patients are receiving treatment and better understand the relationship of the medication of interest and patient outcomes.
“Medication dispense data helps researchers understand if a patient took a medication,” said Dr. Simonov. “Medication adherence is critical when studying patient care and outcomes, yet there are many scenarios that could affect a patient’s ability to access a medication, such as medication cost, availability, and tolerance. Medication dispense data helps to fill those voids, providing researchers with important information required to understand the contributing factors more fully in a patient journey.”
Together, the rich clinical depth of the electronic health record and now medication dispense and specialty pharmacy data — linked with comprehensive claims, social drivers of health, and mortality data in Truveta Data — provide the most complete, timely, and clean view of the de-identified patient journey, enabling researchers to study patient care and outcomes on any disease, drug, or device.
To learn more and schedule a demo, visit truveta.com or contact us at info@truveta.com.
About Truveta
Truveta is a growing health system collective that provides more than 17% of all daily clinical care in the US. Truveta is trusted by more than 40 leading healthcare and life science customers to improve patient care, train AI, and inform public policy. Across these leading organizations, Truveta connects data, people, and ideas to pursue a shared mission of saving lives with data.
Truveta membership includes Providence, Advocate Health, Trinity Health, Tenet Healthcare, Northwell Health, AdventHealth, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Baylor Scott & White Health, Bon Secours Mercy Health, Centura Health, CommonSpirit Health, Hawaii Pacific Health, HealthPartners, Henry Ford Health System, HonorHealth, Inova, Lehigh Valley Health Network, MedStar Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, MetroHealth, Novant Health, Ochsner Health, Premier Health, Saint Luke’s Health System, Sanford Health, Sentara Healthcare, Texas Health Resources, TriHealth, UnityPoint Health, Virtua Health, and WellSpan Health.