Abstract
BACKGROUND: Pharmacists successfully manage patients with anemia and chronic kidney disease (CKD), but the cost effectiveness of these programs is unknown.
OBJECTIVE: To compare the cost effectiveness of pharmacist-managed erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) clinics with that of usual care in patients with non-dialysis-dependent (NDD)-CKD.
METHODS: A Markov model was used to estimate the incremental cost effectiveness of pharmacist-managed ESA clinics compared with usual care in outpatient veterans receiving ESAs for NDD-CKD in 2009. The analysis was conducted from a US Veterans Health Administration perspective with a 5-year time horizon, and the year of valuation for cost results was 2012. The effect of parameter uncertainty was explored in one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses.
RESULTS: In the deterministic base case analysis, costs and effectiveness per patient over 5 years were US$13,412 and 2.096 quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) in the pharmacist-managed ESA clinics and US$16,173 and 2.093 QALYs in usual care; ESA clinics dominated usual care. In one-way sensitivity analyses, ESA clinics no longer dominated if their patients' probability of being in the target hemoglobin range fell to 52 % (base case 71 %) or if the mean cost/patient/month of epoetin or darbepoetin in ESA clinics increased to approximately US$382 (base case US$226) or US$477 (base case US$268), respectively. When all parameters were varied simultaneously in a probabilistic sensitivity analysis, ESA clinics were favored ≥80 % of the time at willingness-to-pay thresholds of US$0-$100,000 per QALY gained.
CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacist-managed ESA clinics were less costly and more effective than usual care in patients receiving ESAs for anemia and NDD-CKD. Results were robust to variation and support the use of pharmacist-managed ESA clinics.