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Pragmatic interventions improved quality of osteoporosis care
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Improvements in the quality of care of osteoporosis and effective cost savings occurred when pragmatic and inexpensive interventions were directed toward patients with incidental vertebral fractures and their physicians, according to this study.
Researchers enrolled 240 patients aged 60 years and older who had incidentally detected vertebral fractures reported on routine chest radiographs taken in two emergency departments in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Using a Markov decision-analytic model, researchers compared usual care with primary care physician intervention and enhanced interventions.
Overall, the physician and enhanced interventions increased rates of bone mineral density testing and bisphosphonate treatment compared with usual care. Although patients exposed to physician intervention would be less likely to incur another fracture compared to usual care, enhanced intervention led to better outcomes than physician intervention in both cost-savings and life-years gained.
“Vertebral fractures incidentally detected and reported on chest radiographs of older patients are common but rarely lead to the diagnosis or treatment of osteoporosis,” the researchers wrote in the study. “In the only controlled intervention trial that has addressed this problem, we reported that pragmatic osteoporosis interventions directed at physicians or physicians and patients were inexpensive and very effective compared with usual care.”
Disclosure: The authors have no relevant financial disclosures.
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