Here’s an interesting little tid-bit in the January issue of The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. According to the article “adding pharmacists to primary care teams significantly and substantially increased the proportion of type 2 diabetic patients using guideline-concordant antiplatelet therapy“. Good stuff to be sure. Unfortunately the study only looked at the proportion of patients using antiplatelet … Read more
Ann Intern Med. 3 July 2012;157(1):1-10
A study looking at pharmacist-assited med rec, counseling and telephone follow-up after dischage for adults hospitalized with acute coronary syndromes or acute decompensated heart failure. According to the article pharmacist intervention didn’t do much in the way of reducing “clinically important medication errors“, but may have led to fewer potential ADEs.
Pharmacists don’t exactly come to mind when you think of notable characters on TV. That’s why I felt compelled to post the short transcript below. It comes from Mort Goldman, owner of Goldman’s Pharmacy on the Family Guy cartoon series as he stands in front of a school class discussing his job as a pharmacist. It’s … Read more
As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.
Because I am a member of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (AHSP) I have access to the ASHP Pharmacy Informatics and Technology section listserv. Listservs are a great source of information, and as the name implies, this one is particularly good for getting information on all things related to pharmacy automation, technology and informatics.
A recent post on the informatics listserv caught my attention. The thread was started by a pharmacist asking what skills are necessary for a career in pharmacy informatics. Several pharmacists have chimed in with some great advice, while others have given what I consider to be less than helpful advice. Needless to say the responses have been all over the board as there is no universally accepted definition of what an informatics pharmacists does. Some pharmacists have recommended gaining skill in specific areas, i.e. reporting, HL7 ,etc, while others have taken a broad approach by offering advice on gaining experience in operations, project management, leadership and workflow concept and design.
As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.
HealthLeadersMedia.com: “Literature shows that when pharmacists are involved in care, the result is improved patient care, fewer adverse events, and reduced costs,” said Andrawis, speaking about Safe Practice 18. “But, in order for that full benefit to be realized, it’s really important that those pharmacists be given appropriate authority, and consequently that they continue to … Read more
Advanceweb.com via SafetyNurse on Twitter:Â “Pharmacists and nurses are essential professionals entrusted with medication safety. However, the medication delivery and other resources provided by pharmacy are not always well received by nursing, and vice versa. Nurses complain medications are not delivered on time. Gurses and Carayon (2007) noted that delays in getting medications from pharmacy as … Read more
An article in the most recent issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reports the results of adding a pharmacist to a health care team to offer up expertise on appropriate use of medication in heart failure and hypertension. The results showed a 35% reduction in adverse drug events, a 48% reduction in preventable adverse drug … Read more