Study Findings on Pharmacy Practice Are Outlined in Reports by Amanda Kennedy et al.

Pharmacy Choice - Pharmaceutical News - Study Findings on Pharmacy Practice Are Outlined in Reports from University of Vermont - April 24, 2013

Predatory Journals

I just received an invitation to review an article from the British Journal of Medicine and  Medical Research. The abstract of the article suggested it was a not very sophisticated piece of work and I didn't recognize the journal. So I checked Beall's List of Predatory Journals and, sure enough, the journals publisher, ScienceDomain, is listed.

Predatory journals are essentially fly-by-night companies that will publish your article for a fee but offer little in the way of peer-review, editing, fact-checking or scientific legitimacy. I opted not to review the article.

The staid world of academic publishing is changing fast. Buyer (reviewer?, writer?) beware!

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: April 18, 2013

Present:  Abby Crocker, Kairn Kelley, Amanda Kennedy, Rodger Kessler, Ben Littenberg, Charlie MacLean, Connie van Eeghen

1.                  Start Up: Ed Havranek will be on campus on Friday, May 31; he is part of Denver Health (a hospital affiliated with the teaching university but is not the teaching hospital) which was the sole awardee of the AHRQ24.  He may be available for a team meeting.

2.                  Presentation: Kairn’s Manuscript: Inter-Rater Reliability final draft

a.       Kairn and Ben were dispatched to the Cone of Silence (a 1960’s reference to Get Smart!)

b.      Charlie suggested that the abstract start with a brief summary of the overall reason for the study, in addition to the specific objectives listed.  Amanda thought that the results were light in the abstract.  A reference in the conclusion of the abstract was not in the results of the abstract.  Last sentence can be dropped (in abstract).

c.       Introduction: Why the DWT?  What is already known?  Why this particular DWT?  Introduction opening is very technical, but OK for audiologists.  The second paragraph is elementary, for non-experts.  The “reliability” paragraph was more grant-like; who is the audience?  Does this help them?  Consider reversing the order of the last 2 paragraphs of page 4.  Consider dropping last sentence of Introduction.  Bring the “purpose” up to the start of the Intro; why DWT and why Montcrieff. 

d.      Methods: watch for wordiness that overtakes the accessibility of its meaning in describing measures (“Agreement”). Why not analyze with dichotic pairs?  Declare statistical software used.

e.       Results: Questioned use of headings.  Put consent stats in the text.  What are the different ways to think about DWTs and how to evaluate them.  One part of the focus is on IRR; one part is on word differences.  The second takes a little longer to get to and figure out.

f.       Discussion: the existence of other IRR studies comes up – is this the first time mentioned? (No.) The discussion goes into how good some of the words are – is this article about reliability more broadly?

g.      Limitations: the lack of knowledge and newness about the test.  It is not clear that the sample is not representative of a clinical population.  Was the test powered sufficiently to detect differences between words?

h.      Appendix: great!  Provide a sample in the body of the text? 

i.        Ask school staff who provided support if willing to be recognized in print.

j.        Final manuscript to be submitted in a week.  Hooray!

3.                  Summer sessions: consider Wed 11:30 – 1:00 starting June 5.  Will ask Sylvie for help in figuring this out.

4.                  Next Workshop Meeting(s): Thursday, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., at Given Courtyard South Level 4. 

a.       April 25: Rodger: TBD (no Connie, Charlie, Kairn, or Amanda)

b.      May 2: Abby: (no Connie, Ben)

c.       May 9: Charlie: Exploration of analytical plan for Natural History of Acute Opioid Use (and perhaps more).  Everyone should first read the 2009 Boudreau article that Amanda found in her lit review, circulated on April 2.

d.      May 16:

e.       May 23:

f.       May 30:  

g.      June 5: New summer schedule will start

h.      Future agenda to consider:

                                                  i.      Christina Cruz, 3^rd year FM resident with questionnaire for mild serotonin withdrawal syndrome?

                                                ii.      Peter Callas or other faculty on multi-level modeling

                                              iii.      Charlie MacLean: demonstration of Tableau

                                              iv.      Journal article: Gomes, 2013, Opioid Dose and MVA in Canada (Charlie)

Recorder: Kairn Kelley and Connie van Eeghen

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: April 11, 2013

Present:  Abby Crocker, Kairn Kelley, Amanda Kennedy, Rodger Kessler, Connie van Eeghen

1.                  Start Up: Amanda provided a brief overview of her testimony this morning, invited by Commissioner Chen, at the Statehouse on a proposed amendment to the H391 bill, which funds Academic Detailing and Blueprint Pharmacists through a fee placed on insurance companies.  The bill (which supports prescriber education) is being discussed for amendment: one of the reps proposes including “consumer education” into the bill, increasing the fee from $0.50 to $0.75 per claim.  Amanda talked about the experience, both the formal testimony and the informal conversations.  Bottom line: it’s all about relationships.

2.                  Presentation: NAPCRG Abstracts – Review of 4

a.       Amanda: Integrating pharmacists, in which the key question was how to highlight the data in support of the innovations around population management through practice-based pharmacists, particularly regarding the degree to which costs were affected and prescriber behavior was changed.

b.      Connie: Opioid prescription management interventions: much editing to tighten and streamline.

c.       Rodger: Pre-conference workshop proposal on RE-AIM, in which the key question was focused on the makeup of the audience (grant-writing scientists and evaluation-focused front line clinicians).  One of the underlying goals is to test the usefulness of the study development function of the website.  Participants may be more interested in interaction with the workshop presenters than with the website.  (We also wondered if is there a theme to the NAPCRG annual conference; a review of the conference website by Connie afterwards provided no clue.)

d.      Charlie: Population reporting of opioid prescribing: clear and concise; minor editing suggestions only.

e.       Abby: submit an abstract from the predictor paper for NAPCRG!

3.                  Next Workshop Meeting(s): Thursday, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., at Given Courtyard South Level 4. 

a.       April 18: Kairn: Inter-Rater Reliability final draft (as a separate note, Ben, Rodger, Abby, & Charlie meet at a different time this day to discuss analytical plan for NHoAOU)

b.      April 25: Rodger: TBD (no Connie, Kairn, or Amanda)

c.       May 2: (no Connie, Charlie)

d.      May 9: Charlie: Exploration of analytical plan for Natural History of Acute Opiate Use (and perhaps more).  Everyone should first read the 2009 Boudreau article that Amanda found in her lit review, circulated on April 2.

e.       May 16:

f.       May 23:

g.      May 30:  

h.      Future agenda to consider:

                                                  i.      Christina Cruz, 3^rd year FM resident with questionnaire for mild serotonin withdrawal syndrome?

                                                ii.      Peter Callas or other faculty on multi-level modeling

                                              iii.      Charlie MacLean: demonstration of Tableau

                                              iv.      Journal article: Gomes, 2013, Opioid Dose and MVA in Canada (Charlie)

Recorder: Connie van Eeghen

Worth taking a minute or two to check out...

This a voyage that makes websites sort of worthwhile...  Scale of the Universe

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: March 28, 2013

Present:  Abby Crocker, Kairn Kelley, Rodger Kessler, Charlie MacLean, Connie van Eeghen

1.                  Start Up: This was a relaxed, pre-presentation for organization and strategy planning.  No secrets were exposed in this session, so feel free to read on!

2.                  Presentation: Abby: Dissertation Defense Draft in HSRF 300

a.       The organization of this presentation follows, but is not limited to, the work done to produce three final articles that are the deliverables of Abby’s doctoral work:

                                                  i.      Introduction (population and epidemiology)

                                                ii.      Objectives

                                              iii.      What Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) is and how to diagnose it.  This includes review of scoring tools, two of which are used most commonly, and the four approaches to assessing diagnostic tools:

1.      Biologic plausibility

2.      Technical feasibility

3.      Diagnostic accuracy

4.      Clinical impact

                                              iv.      Predictive models for NAS, with interesting findings related to mother’s exposure to methadone, infant head circumference, and APGAR (these last two variables are new findings to add to the literature)

                                                v.      Policy related to breastfeeding, barriers and effect on NAS, implications for policy

                                              vi.      Next steps and future directions

b.      The discussion developed into the identification of the underlying story line: how all these pieces help providers, researchers, and policy makers understand how to help babies and their mothers together.  Abby has identified:

                                                  i.      Why NAS is a serious problem that is hard to diagnose, which leads to why we need to be better at predicting its occurrence

                                                ii.      How the typical population of NAS infants and their mothers (high risk, post-birth issues, parenting issues) can be helped as part of a broader public health goal, including specific factors that policy can have impact on

c.       Presentation tips and techniques were reviewed for the benefit of the viewing audience.  Group consensus: Abby is ready for take-off and will have a great dissertation defense.

3.                  Next Workshop Meeting(s): Thursday, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., at Given Courtyard South Level 4. 

a.       April 4: Kairn: F31 Final (Ben & Amanda will be at Abby’s dissertation defense; probably Abby too)

b.      April 11: Amanda, Ben, Charlie, Connie and anyone else with a NAPCRG abstract underway (Abby?) the annual in Ottawa this November: bring your 300 word abstract draft to pass around and review with the group (deadline is six days later: April 17)

c.       April 18: (Ben, Rodger, Abby, & Charlie meet at a different time this day to discuss analytical plan for NHoAOU)

d.      April 25:

e.       May 2:

f.       May 9: Charlie: Exploration of analytical plan for Natural History of Acute Opiate Use (and perhaps more).  Everyone should first read the 2009 Boudreau article that Amanda found in her lit review, circulated on April 2. 

g.      Future agenda to consider:

                                                  i.      Christina Cruz, 3^rd year FM resident with questionnaire for mild serotonin withdrawal syndrome?

                                                ii.      Peter Callas or other faculty on multi-level modeling

                                              iii.      Charlie MacLean: demonstration of Tableau

                                              iv.      Journal article: Gomes, 2013, Opioid Dose and MVA in Canada (Charlie)

Recorder: Connie van Eeghen