LDI Research Seminar with Niteesh K. Choudhry, MD, PhD

Niteesh K. Choudhry’s  research focuses on patterns of use and adherence to medications for common chronic conditions, such as coronary artery disease, hyperlipidemia and diabetes. He is leading several randomized interventions that evaluate strategies to improve medication adherence. The largest of these, the Post-MI Free Rx and Event and Economic Evaluation (FREEE) trial, builds on economic models he and his colleagues have developed that demonstrate the clinical and economic benefits of reducing patient cost-sharing for medications of proven efficacy. The trial is enrolling patients who have recently been discharged from hospital after myocardial infarction and is randomizing them to receive full drug coverage or current levels of drug insurance for secondary prevention medications. To supplement this trial, he is conducting policy evaluations of cost-sharing reductions recently introduced by several large insurers and employers. Dr. Choudhry’s other active projects included a randomized evaluation of a web-based tool to improve medication taking behavior for patients with diabetes and several observational studies of the use of statins, anticoagulants and antiplatelet agents in actual practice that aim to clarify the clinical and economic impact of increasing the appropriate use of and adherence to these drugs. Dr. Choudhry attended McGill University and then received his M.D. and did his residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto. He served as Chief Medical Resident for the Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals and was also Director of the Medical Clerkship Program at the Toronto General Hospital. He did his Ph.D. in Health Policy at Harvard University, with a concentration in statistics and the evaluative sciences, and was a Fellow in Pharmaceutical Policy Research at Harvard Medical School. He practices inpatient general internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is actively involved in resident education.