Vindhya Data Science (“Vindhya” or the “company”), a women-owned leading bioinformatics service provider, announced the publication of three research reports exploring the associations between dental/oral health services and autoimmune disease, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease—conditions affecting millions in the United States and worldwide. The research was conducted under contracts with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Rockville, MD. The information contained in the reports will enable patients, providers, and payers to make informed decisions, potentially improving the quality of healthcare services and outcomes.
The knowledge gaps addressed by these reports include the impact of non-surgical periodontal procedures on outcomes in patients undergoing treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (an autoimmune disease) and the effects of dental/oral health services on glycemic control in patients with diabetes and end-stage renal disease. Each of these diseases is characterized by a systemic inflammatory state. A common finding across these studies is that non-surgical periodontal treatments appear to reduce circulating levels of inflammatory markers in patients.
The information in these reports stems from a rigorous rapid literature review accompanied by input from subject matter experts.
“I am proud of our data scientists who incorporated quality metrics, including risk of bias, into extracting data from both primary studies and systematic reviews, enabling determination of the strength of evidence for the various outcomes of interest. Evidence tables have been mapped to key question responses,” said Anupama Reddy, PhD, co-founder and chief operating officer.
“It is truly rewarding to learn that these findings are influencing policy,” added Nanguneri Nirmala, PhD, co-founder and CEO.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is amending regulations to include reimbursement for certain dental diagnostics and services linked to Medicare-covered dialysis services. CMS has also solicited comments on the potential connection between dental services and covered services used for the treatment of diabetes and autoimmune diseases in patients receiving immunosuppressive therapies.
About Vindhya
Vindhya Data Science is a women-owned small business headquartered in North Carolina, USA. Vindhya specializes in evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, bioinformatics, genomics, artificial intelligence, and data engineering. The company has ongoing partnerships with the federal government, leading academic medical centers, and pharma/biotech organizations. Vindhya works to transform large data sets into informed decisions using state-of-the-art data science technologies.
