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Zullig LL, Jazowski SA, Wang TY, Hellkamp A, Wojdyla D, Thomas L, Egbuonu-Davis L, Beal A, Bosworth HB. Novel application of approaches to predicting medication adherence using medical claims data. Health services research. 2019 Dec 1; 54(6):1255-1262.
Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects. OBJECTIVE: To compare predictive analytic approaches to characterize medication nonadherence and determine under which circumstances each method may be best applied. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING: Medicare Parts A, B, and D claims from 2007 to 2013. STUDY DESIGN: We evaluated three statistical techniques to predict statin adherence (proportion of days covered [PDC = 80 percent]) in the year following discharge: standard logistic regression with backward selection of covariates, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), and random forest. We used the C-index to assess model discrimination and decile plots comparing predicted values to observed event rates to evaluate model performance. DATA EXTRACTION: We identified 11 969 beneficiaries with an acute myocardial infarction (MI)-related admission from 2007 to 2012, who filled a statin prescription at, or shortly after, discharge. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In all models, prior statin use was the most important predictor of future adherence (OR = 3.65, 95% CI: 3.34-3.98; OR = 3.55). Although the LASSO regression model selected nearly 90 percent of all candidate predictors, all three analytic approaches had moderate discrimination (C-index ranging from 0.664 to 0.673). CONCLUSIONS: Although none of the models emerged as clearly superior, predictive analytics could proactively determine which patients are at risk of nonadherence, thus allowing for timely engagement in adherence-improving interventions.
