Background: Through a multidisciplinary quality improvement initiative, the Pre-Immunosuppression (Pre-IS) Clinic was created at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to ensure appropriate vaccination and infectious disease screening for our patients on immunosuppressive medications. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Pre-IS Clinic at increasing vaccination rates of patients starting immunosuppressive medications.

Background: A prior study of Medicare beneficiaries in 2011 suggested black patients are less likely to be prescribed biologics than white patients. An investigation from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center conducted between Jan 2010-Dec 2021 did not find a difference in the prescription rates of systemic medications between black and white patients. This study sought to investigate if these racial disparities were present when looking at data from 2000-2009 or when comparing types of insurance.

“Loading doses” are sometimes used to more rapidly achieve therapeutic drug levels and, in some cases, thought to improve the success rates of medications. We reviewed the literature for studies to examine the clinical impact of loading dose versus non–loading dose regimens in systemic therapy for psoriasis. We identified 254 studies examining clinical outcomes in systemic therapy for psoriasis, and, from these, we found 4 clinical trials and 1 retrospective observational study with data that could be used to compare the effect of loading dose versus non–loading dose regimens in adalimumab, etanercept, or secukinumab.