Can Guideline Adherence Be Improved by Letter Outreach?
- Mongthuong T. Tran, PHARMD12 and
- Sarah J. Billups, PHARMD12
- 1Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver, Colorado
- 2School of Pharmacy, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado
- Address correspondence to Mongthuong T. Tran, 1375 East 20th Ave., Denver, CO 80205. Email: mongthuong.tran{at}kp.org
The Heart Protection Study established that statins are beneficial for most patients with diabetes regardless of baseline LDL cholesterol (1–2). Kaiser Permanente Colorado, a group-model, nonprofit health-maintenance organization in the Denver/Boulder metropolitan area, developed a letter-based population management strategy to improve statin utilization in patients with diabetes.
Kaiser Permanente Colorado maintains a disease state registry of patient-specific data for members with validated diagnoses, which serves as an ideal tool for patient tracking, quality improvement, and population management. Although letters have previously been employed for population education purposes (3–5), no published literature describes their effectiveness at …
