Research Areas
The Pevnick Lab studies medication management and health information technology, with areas of focus including medication reconciliation, pharmacist-led interventions and the optimization of electronic health record data for clinical care and research.
Medication Management
Dr. Pevnick’s experience in medication management began with the study of electronic prescribing. Based on one study's finding of unexpectedly low usage rates, federal meaningful use requirements were initially set low to make them broadly attainable.
Later work addressed medication reconciliation at hospital admission, most notably through a trial comparing the effectiveness of obtaining medication histories from pharmacy technicians, pharmacists and usual care processes (typically nurses and physicians). This pragmatic trial demonstrated that, among older patients at risk for adverse drug events, both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians reduced admission medication history errors and resultant medication order errors by over 80%. A related study showed that electronic pharmacy claims data had good potential to improve medication reconciliation. Ultimately, this work provided the foundation for California law SB 1254, which was advanced by co-author and Cedars-Sinai Chief Pharmacy Officer Rita Shane, PharmD. The law now requires California hospital pharmacy staff to perform admission medication reconciliation for patients at increased risk for medication errors.
More recently, Dr. Pevnick led the PHARMacist Discharge Care (PHARM-DC) Trial, a multisite pragmatic trial that randomized over 6,000 patients to estimate the effect of pharmacist-led peri- and post-discharge medication management interventions. Results from this trial are still being analyzed.
Health Information Technology
Dr. Pevnick’s experience in health information technology research has spanned inter-physician communication, patient-generated data, health information exchange, and clinical decision support. One current area of interest involves improving the interpretation of vital signs, laboratory results, and other clinical tests based on encounter-specific electronic health record data. A forthcoming trial will test whether physicians using AI-assisted text-based virtual care with optional video visits can be more efficient than physicians using video visits alone.