Pharmacy Voices

Let us remember that there have always been healthcare providers. Often they were the smartest or most respected, or just learned from their mentors. They had little to go on because there was little knowledge. They were often helping people by just “bending” their minds.

PDMPs are becoming very important in addressing the opioid crisis we have in this country. When PDMPs were created, there was little use of the data that resided in their repositories. This has since changed. First, virtually every state requires prescribers and pharmacists to register with their PDMP. Second, many states now require prescribers to check the PDMP before writing an opioid prescription, under certain conditions.

Americans have a history of coming together in times of great need. KatrinaHealth.org was created shortly after the storm hit to provide a central point of access to evacuees’ prescription histories by authorized healthcare professionals. In less than a month, 150 organizations pulled together to create the site (including businesses in competition with each other). Today, we are still impressed by the collective effort — enabled by health information technology (HIT) — that provided critically important information to support the continuation of car

TCGRx EVP of Sales and Marketing Matt Noffsinger talks about what you should really be thinking about when you hear the term “high-volume dispensing” these days. You’ll be surprised that it’s not necessarily a huge central-fill or mail-order operation. Find out how you can bring the efficiencies that drive traditional high-volume settings right down to any dispensing volume and apply them piece by piece to meet a pharmacy’s needs and growth strategy.

It seems like every day there is another ranting about drug prices — understandably so. They are high and they keep getting higher. Nobody seems to be able to control them.

The act is composed of a number of provisions that are designed to improve and modernize different aspects of the healthcare system. The primary areas address acceleration of medical product discovery, development, and delivery. The act’s goal is to improve the health of Americans across a wide array of initiatives.

Nearly all U.S. adults now have the needed technology — a cell phone — to send and receive texts. Text messaging is simple and familiar. Not only is nearly everyone able to send and receive texts, most people text regularly and are therefore comfortable with the practice.

A December 2016 Chicago Tribune exposé concerning pharmacists’ failure to counsel patients on potentially life-threatening drug interactions and prevent the filling of these prescriptions. Of the 255 pharmacies tested, 52% dispensed medication pairs without mentioning the interaction risks.

Apps are being put into play that connect patient data with physicians to keep an eye on such things as blood pressure, blood glucose, and body temperature. We also read a lot about precision medicine and how it’s changing outcomes. All this is technology based.

Manual will-call management is still the norm across pharmacy, but one pharmacy at Purdue University decided to take action and pilot an automated will-call system. Nicole Noel, Pharm.D., talks about the results. Find out why her staff can’t imagine going back to a manual will-call system.