Unmanaged Pharmacogenomic and Drug Interaction Risk Associations with Hospital Length of Stay among Medicare Advantage Members with COVID-19: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract

Unmanaged pharmacogenomic and drug interaction risk can lengthen hospitalization and may have influenced the severe health outcomes seen in some COVID-19 patients. To determine if unmanaged pharmacogenomic and drug interaction risks were associated with longer lengths of stay (LOS) among patients hospitalized with COVID-19, we retrospectively reviewed medical and pharmacy claims from 6025 Medicare Advantage members hospitalized with COVID-19. Patients with a moderate or high pharmacogenetic interaction probability (PIP), which indicates the likelihood that testing would identify one or more clinically actionable gene–drug or gene–drug–drug interactions, were hospitalized for 9% (CI: 4–15%; p < 0.001) and 16% longer (CI: 8–24%; p < 0.001), respectively, compared to those with low PIP. Risk adjustment factor (RAF) score, a commonly used measure of disease burden, was not associated with LOS. High PIP was significantly associated with 12–22% longer LOS compared to low PIP in patients with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A greater drug–drug interaction risk was associated with 10% longer LOS among patients with two or three chronic conditions. Thus, unmanaged pharmacogenomic risk was associated with longer LOS in these patients and managing this risk has the potential to reduce LOS in severely ill patients, especially those with chronic conditions.

Assessment of a Manual Method versus an Automated, Probability-Based Algorithm to Identify Patients at High Risk for Pharmacogenomic Adverse Drug Outcomes in a University-Based Health Insurance Program

“…A recent publication using the same PIP groupings showed an increase in length of stay for hospitalized Medicare COVID 19 patients in higher PIP risk groups. Interestingly, Medicare risk adjustment factor (RAF), a measure of health status, did not correlate [25].…”