pharmacy

The Academy wants to hear from managed care pharmacy organizations that provide student pharmacists with experiential education. New accreditation standards for colleges and schools of pharmacy include requirements to provide Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) and Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE). To assist experiential education directors at schools and colleges place student pharmacists, the AMCP Schools of Pharmacy Relations Committee is compiling a directory of managed care pharmacy APPE and IPPE sites.

The final year of the professional program is comprised of APPEs. These are the traditional rotations that AMCP members may recall from pharmacy school. IPPEs came about when the schools and colleges of pharmacy accreditation standards were last revised. IPPEs begin early in the curriculum and prepare student pharmacists for the APPEs. The new accreditation standard requires 300 hours of IPPEs with the majority of the hours in patient care settings (primarily hospitals and community pharmacies). However, there is an option for a small amount of elective IPPE hours that would include managed care pharmacy.

Advertising on the health care debate, more than $100 million of it spent so far, is offering little understanding on the issue as the dueling sides and media look to dispel myths about whats true and whats not.

The New York Times Prescriptions blog “Nearly $100 million has been spent this year on commercials intended to influence the health care debate, including $30 million in August alone, according to Evan Tracey, founder of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a research firm in Arlington, Va. In just the last 60 days, 49 different groups have aired nearly 100,000 TV commercials about federal health care policy, Mr. Tracey wrote recently in the trade publication Advertising Age.

“But, he added, the patchwork of messages from organizations with competing agendas has made it more difficult for those groups to influence viewers. And it has left the public more confused than informed.” In August opponents of reform outspent supporters, but that dynamic has not switched, The Times reports (Seelye, 9/23).

Politifact continues to examine claims in ads and statements by politicians about health care and finds many of them “false” or “halftrue.” The factchecking Web site rates a claim by Health Care For America Now that one out of five insurance claims is denied as “False.”

McClatchy Newspapers/The Kansas City Star tries to address some of the misinformation in advertising with a Q&A on reform efforts. “Three House committees and the Senate Health committee have finished writing their versions of legislation. Yet to come is a bill from the Senate Finance Committee. But even when theres legislation to examine, respected analysts disagree on its meaning” McClatchy offers answers to questions that have relative consensus on topics like coops, a public option and keeping the coverage you have now (Lightman, 9/23).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Retail walkin medical clinics offer quality care, according to a new study. U.S. News & World Report reports “Writing in the Sept. 1 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, study author Dr. Ateev Mehrotra said that retail clinics which are typically staffed by nurse practitioners and found in drug stores and other retail chain stores such as Target and WalMart provide a good standard of care for sore throat, ear infections and urinary tract infections. Mehrotra is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a policy analyst at Rand Health.”

This type of clinic has become widespread. “One such operation is CVSs MinuteClinic, the focus of Mehrotras research. MinuteClinic staffers treat minor illnesses and injuries, and provide vaccinations and various health and wellness services. Customers can walk in without an appointment, and the clinics are open seven days a week. Most visits take no more than 15 minutes, and costs vary from $30 to $110, according to the MinuteClinic Web site. According to Mehrotra, onethird of Americans live within a 10minute drive of a retail clinic, and more than 6,000 of these clinics are expected to open across the United States within five years. Surveys of patients who received care at retails clinics have been positive, he added” (West, 8/31).

Time reports that “with local and regional hospitals such as the Cleveland Clinic increasingly working in partnership with such retail operations, more and more of these instore outlets are likely to open. Which means more and more of us will be putting health care on the weekly shopping lists, along with the milk and bread” (Kluger, 9/1).

This information was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at kaiserhealthnews.org.

© Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

The NPA has produced a guide to setting up a community pharmacy vascular risk assessment service and a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for vascular risk assessment.

The NPA SOP “Vascular Risk Assessment” covers the measurement and assessment of cardiovascular risk factors in adults without previously diagnosed diabetes, existing cardiovascular disease (CVD), or lipid disorders. The “NPA guide to setting up a Community Pharmacy Vascular Risk Assessment Service” provides information on all aspects of a vascular risk assessment service, these include

Staff
Premises
Equipment
Evaluation and audit
Record Keeping
Confidentiality
Clinical governance
Health and safety
Waste
Communication
Marketing

The guide also includes a template letter to GPs and other local providers to let them know about the community pharmacy service.

Sarah Davies, NPA Information Pharmacist said “Vascular diseases are the main cause of death, ill health and disability in the UK. One in every four men and one in every six women in the UK die from CVD and very year about 300,000 people have a heart attack. It is therefore right that community pharmacy is involved in improving patients health to prevent vascular disease. These two NPA resources will help our members develop and put into practice a community pharmacy vascular risk assessment service.”

The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) applauds the efforts of LegitScript and KnujOn to bring attention to the threat posed to patient safety by sponsored search engine results for rogue Internet pharmacies appearing on the nations top Internet search engines. In a coauthored report entitled “Analysis of Yahoo! Prescription Drug Sponsored Search Results,” released on August 18, 2009, the companies examine the Web sites selling prescription medications that advertise through Yahoo!s online advertising program.

Earlier this year, APhA expressed similar concerns for patient safety in letters to Microsoft MSN, Google and Yahoo! for returning sponsored search results for Internet drug sellers that appeared to be operating in violation of law and/or accepted standards of pharmacy practice in the United States.

“Allowing the posting of sponsored search results of Internet drug sellers that dispense prescription medications without a valid prescription supports practices that are contrary to U.S. law, are deceptive to American consumers who are relying on your site to provide them access to legitimate Web sites, and most importantly may be unsafe to U.S. consumers who are relying on these medications to manage their health care needs,” said APhA Executive Vice President and CEO Thomas Menighan.

APhA encourages Yahoo! and other search engines to revise their current policies and standards for prescription drug Web site sponsored search results to, at a minimum, limit postings to Internet sites that are legitimate and comply with U.S. law.

Source

Imagine one teenager who has acne giving some Accutane, a prescription medication, to a friend. The friend is pregnant and does not know it yet. Accutane is linked to birth defects. This kind of scenario among adolescents is much more common than people realize in the USA.

A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that 1 in 5 American adolescents lends or borrows prescription drugs, the consequences of which are potentially dangerous, and even fatal.

The authors in this study explained that prior research had already found that 40% of US adults do this with prescription drugs.

Lead study author Richard Goldsworthy, Ph.D., director for research and development, Academic Edge, Inc. said “However, prior to our study, no one had asked adolescents how often they shared prescription medications, which meds they shared and what some of the outcomes were.”

Goldsworthy and team interviewed 592 English and Spanish speaking black and white adolescents aged 12 to 17 from urban and suburban environments nationwide. The researchers asked the teenagers whether they ever borrowed or loaned a prescription medication, and if they had, what kind. They also asked them whether they gave or received any instructions or warnings with the drugs, and about outcomes Were there any side effects or allergic reactions? Did the person taking the medication see a doctor anyway?

The dangers associated with prescription drug sharing are not just limited to potentially hazardous unforeseen side effects. If the teenager thinks the problem is addressed, he/she is less likely to receive the best care because professional medical attention is either avoided or postponed. Sharing prescription antibiotics exacerbates the growing antibiotic drug resistance problem.

32.4% of adolescents who had shared a prescription medication but eventually did see a doctor often did not explain that they had borrowed medication, raising the risk of unforeseen drug interactions. This omission of key data could make it harder for a doctor to make a proper diagnosis if some of the signs or symptoms experienced by the patient may be caused by the shared medication.

Study coauthor Chris Mayhorn, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, North Carolina State University, said “Other researchers have studied people selling prescription drugs, but we looked at people with good intentions, trying, for instance, to help a friend who lacked money or transportation for a doctors visit.”

These findings are vitally important “for physicians, prevention coalitions, school counselors, parents and the youth themselves,” said Melissa Haddow, executive director of the Community Partnership of the Ozarks. Haddow added that the new data on the sharing of antibiotics, birth control pills and allergy medications “adds to our knowledge about a growing problem….and highlights the diversity of medications being abused this way, which had not been recognized.”

Goldsworthy RC, Mayhorn CB.
“Prescription medication sharing among adolescents prevalence, risks, and outcomes.”
J Adolesc Health online, 2009.

New research released by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) reveals how older people are taking a cocktail of medicine without fully understanding what they are or the side effects they are causing.

The RPSGB survey shows that nearly half (43%) of over 65s are currently taking over five medicines at any one time. However, one in five admits to not always taking the medicine as prescribed. Sixty per cent also believe that they either definitely or possibly have had a side effect from medicine yet one if five said they did not get it checked out.

In response to these findings, the RPSGB is launching a campaign to urge older people to review the medicine they are taking by visiting their local pharmacist for a Medicine Use Review (MUR).

MURs are undertaken by local pharmacies to help patients manage their medicine more effectively and can be done on an annual basis. It involves a consultation with a pharmacist and can be offered to anyone on one or more medicines and/ or long term conditions.

Royal Pharmaceutical Society spokesman and pharmacist, Paul Johnson says; “Its not unusual for older people to get confused with the medicine they are taking, particularly when they are on numerous types of medication. As a result, they may also not realise the reactions they may be causing when they are not used properly.

“Pharmacists are easily accessible and are ideally placed to provide advice to a patient on their medicine which can really improve someones health or even their quality of life. “

Other findings of the research revealed that almost one in 10 (9%) admit to not fully understanding what their medications do or how they treat their condition, and one in seven (14%) say they sometimes forget to take a pill at the recommended time.

The American Society of HealthSystem Pharmacists (ASHP) has named Fela VisoGurovich, Ph.D., an honorary member of the Society for her pioneering work in the development of hospital pharmacy in Mexico. Dr. VisoGurovich received the honor during ASHPs Summer Meeting in Rosemont, Ill.

Dr. VisoGurovich is a professor at the University of the State of Hidalgo in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico. In 1998, she, along with a group of students, began the first pharmaceutical services in a pediatric hospital in Mexico. She was the driving force in the creation of the Mexican Association of Hospital Pharmacists (MAHP) and served as it first president; currently, she directs international affairs for MAHP. At the University of the State of Hidalgo, she teaches pharmacotherapy, ethics, and pharmaceutical legislation. Her research interests are in pharmacoepidemiology, postmarketing surveillance, and drug utilization.

“Dr. VisoGurovichs work at the University of the State of Hidalgo and with the MAHP has transformed the practice of pharmacy in Mexico,” said ASHP President Kevin J. Colgan, M.A., FASHP. “We are pleased to recognize her groundbreaking efforts with this award.”

For six years, Dr. VisoGurovich served as director of Mexicos national pharmacopeia, which is an activity of the federal government. She is also one of the founders of the North American Compact for the Advancement of Hospital Pharmacy, a collaboration of MAHP, ASHP, and the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists. In 2007, the North American Compact and the Ministry of Health of the State of Hidalgo conducted an invitational conference in Pachuca for public health and university officials throughout Mexico on the future of hospital pharmacy in the country. That conference, which drew lessons from the development of hospital pharmacy in Canada and the United States, led to federal government support for hospital implementation of pharmacy services under the direction of a qualified pharmacist.