Impact of financial medication assistance on medication adherence: a systematic review.

Anna Hung, PharmD, PhD, MS is a pharmacist and health services researcher interested in payer and patient decision making related to pharmacy benefits. Previously, she collaborated with the Defense Health Agency to evaluate the budgetary impact of their antidiabetic drug formulary changes. She has also worked with a variety of managed care organizations to assess their drug utilization and clinical management programs. Her methodological research interests include health care cost evaluations, quasi-experimental study designs, and stated preference research.

Dr. Hung received her Doctor of Pharmacy, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Maryland. Her PhD is in pharmaceutical health services research, with concentrations in pharmacoeconomics, comparative effectiveness research, and patient-centered outcomes research. Prior to joining the Department of Population Health Sciences, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and served as Co-Chief Fellow.

I am a research scientist and Licensed Clinical Psychologist with a background in health services research, clinical psychology, and experimental psychology. My research interests include 1) the evaluation of current integrated behavioral health settings in health care systems to optimize future implementation efforts, 2) the development of novel integrated behavioral health strategies tailored to specific populations and healthcare system needs, 3) broad processes of behavior change and self-regulation, and 4) psychometric measurement of patient reported outcomes and research methods/statistics.

These interests have taken the form of specific research endeavors involving: a) large nonrandomized investigations of electronic health records data, b) development and evaluation of telehealth interventions to improve self-management of mental and physical health behaviors, and c) evaluation of patient-reported outcomes through telehealth modalities and in primary care, specialty care, and higher level of care settings.

To date, the content domains of most of my research have involved substance use (specifically alcohol, opioids, and tobacco), health behaviors (specifically medication adherence), mental health (specifically anxiety, depression, PTSD, and eating disorders), and health services utilization.

Shelby D. Reed, PhD, is Professor in the Departments of Population Health Sciences and Medicine at Duke University’s School of Medicine.  She is the director of the Center for Informing Health Decisions and Therapeutic Area leader for Population Health Sciences at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI).  She also is core faculty at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy. Dr. Reed has over 20 years of experience leading multidisciplinary health outcomes research studies. Dr. Reed has extensive expertise in designing and conducting trial-based and model-based cost-effectiveness analyses of diagnostics, drugs and patient-centered interventions. In 2016, she co-founded the Preference Evaluation Research (PrefER) Group at the DCRI, and she currently serves as its director. She and the group are frequently sought to conduct stated-preference studies to inform regulatory decisions, health policy, care delivery, value assessment and clinical decision making with applied projects spanning a wide range of therapeutic areas. She served as President for ISPOR in 2017-2018, and she currently is Past-Chair of the Society’s Health Science Policy Council.

Areas of expertise: Health Economics, Health Measurement, Stated Preference Research, Health Policy, and Health Services Research

Dr. Bosworth is a health services researcher and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT)  at the Durham VA Medical Center. He is also Vice Chair of Education and Professor of Population Health Sciences. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor in Health Policy and Administration at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests comprise three overarching areas of research: 1) clinical research that provides knowledge for improving patients’ treatment adherence and self-management in chronic care; 2) translation research to improve access to quality of care; and 3) eliminate health care disparities. 

Dr. Bosworth is the recipient of an American Heart Association established investigator award, the 2013 VA Undersecretary Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research (The annual award is the highest honor for VA health services researchers), and a VA Senior Career Scientist Award. In terms of self-management, Dr. Bosworth has expertise developing interventions to improve health behaviors related to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and depression, and has been developing and implementing tailored patient interventions to reduce the burden of other chronic diseases. These trials focus on motivating individuals to initiate health behaviors and sustaining them long term and use members of the healthcare team, particularly pharmacists and nurses. He has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 trials resulting in over 400 peer reviewed publications and four books. This work has been or is being implemented in multiple arenas including Medicaid of North Carolina, private payers, The United Kingdom National Health System Direct, Kaiser Health care system, and the Veterans Affairs.

Areas of Expertise: Health Behavior, Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Health Measurement, and Health Policy