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International Journal of Pharmaceutical... 2020In pharmaceutical compounding, ensuring the safety of staff in the workplace is an issue of prime importance to pharmacy owners and managers and the focus of... (Review)
Review
In pharmaceutical compounding, ensuring the safety of staff in the workplace is an issue of prime importance to pharmacy owners and managers and the focus of international, federal, state, and local agencies charged with enforcing adherence to the prevention of job-related injuries and illnesses. In this third article in a 3-part series on hazard communications, fire- and life-safety codes established by authorities having such jurisdiction over U.S. businesses (including compounding facilities) are discussed, safety inspections are described, required fire-safety equipment is reviewed, and an effective safety plan that includes building evacuation is presented.
Topics: Drug Compounding; Humans; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Pharmaceutical Services; Pharmacies; Pharmacy
PubMed: 33217734
DOI: No ID Found -
Digital transformation of the mobile connected pharmacy: a first step toward community pharmacy 5.0.Informatics For Health & Social Care Oct 2022Community pharmacies have made significant advances in digital technology; however, mobile systems are only emerging in this sector and mostly focusing patient-centric... (Review)
Review
Community pharmacies have made significant advances in digital technology; however, mobile systems are only emerging in this sector and mostly focusing patient-centric connections. This study reveals a case of digital transformation in a mobile connected pharmacy, balancing efficient pharmaceutical services and digital innovation. A mobile connected pharmacy solution (mPharmaCare) is developed for a community of near 100.000. The first stage includes a bibliometric analysis and a structured literature review of the mobile connected pharmacy. In the second stage, action research was conducted to evaluate mPharmaCare adoption. A dual organizational structure was tested to cope with innovation and efficient exploration of pharmacy services. Community Pharmacy 5.0 is an inspiring vision that will take advantage of mobility. However, there are tensions between the core pharmacy business and the new technology layers of community connections. Community pharmacies require both client-centric and community-centric approaches to achieve individualization of patient care and horizontal and end-to-end digital integration of pharmacy data. Digital transformation can remove silos in the community pharmacy. Creating an - internal or outsourced - innovation division may be suitable for medium and large community pharmacies. Moreover, pharmacies must consider shifting to a product-service system offer, deploying synchronization mechanisms with different stakeholders.
Topics: Humans; Community Pharmacy Services; Health Services Research; Pharmacies; Pharmacists; Pharmacy
PubMed: 34855578
DOI: 10.1080/17538157.2021.2005603 -
Currents in Pharmacy Teaching & Learning Aug 2023Flip the Pharmacy (FtP) helps community pharmacies "flip" from dispensing- to patient-centered care models with assistance from practice transformation coaches...
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Flip the Pharmacy (FtP) helps community pharmacies "flip" from dispensing- to patient-centered care models with assistance from practice transformation coaches ("coaches"). Purdue University College of Pharmacy created a novel advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) positioning students to serve as FtP coaches with oversight from four faculty coaches. This communication describes the APPE's design, characterizes preliminary student coaching outcomes, and identifies the APPE's strengths and limitations.
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND SETTING
Twelve pharmacies were coached by APPE students. The APPE was designed to enhance student knowledge and skills in the scaled implementation of advanced patient care services through structured weekly activities: Week 1, student orientation and training; Week 2, preparing for pharmacy visits; and Weeks 3 and 4, conducting pharmacy visits. Students also performed recurring tasks each week, including managing social media accounts.
FINDINGS
Twenty-eight students completed the APPE. Students conducted 81 in-person and 105 virtual visits. Faculty coaches were estimated to need 40 to 50 hours each month for coaching-related activities; involving student coaches reduced faculty coach time by approximately 50%, with faculty spending 20 hours on average per month vs. students spending 50.84 hours. APPE strengths included intentional weekly structuring and oversight and careful student transitions; limitations included minimal pharmacy vendor knowledge and limited rapport-building with pharmacies.
SUMMARY
Early experiences demonstrated several benefits, including optimized faculty coach time and student exposure to practice transformation. Future endeavors to implement similar APPEs should incorporate strategies to enhance pharmacy vendor knowledge and strengthen relationship-building with participating pharmacies.
Topics: Humans; Pharmacies; Education, Pharmacy; Pharmaceutical Services; Curriculum; Pharmacy; Students, Pharmacy
PubMed: 37500304
DOI: 10.1016/j.cptl.2023.07.005 -
Tidsskrift For Den Norske Laegeforening... Sep 2020The summary care record receives a copy of all electronic prescriptions and their dispensing by Norwegian pharmacies. Some electronic prescriptions expire without being...
BACKGROUND
The summary care record receives a copy of all electronic prescriptions and their dispensing by Norwegian pharmacies. Some electronic prescriptions expire without being dispensed, in whole or in part. The purpose of the study was to ascertain how many electronic prescriptions passed their expiry date without being dispensed, and what type of prescriptions these were.
MATERIAL AND METHOD
All electronic prescriptions and dispensations for the period 1 March 2016-1 March 2018 were extracted anonymously from the summary care record. The number of prescriptions that expired without being dispensed was added up and classified according to the drug prescribed. The percentage of uncollected prescriptions was calculated for each drug.
RESULTS
Of 47 771 233 registered electronic prescriptions in the period, 5 934 589 (12 %) expired without having been dispensed. The proportion of non-dispensed electronic prescriptions varied within the individual drug groups from 4 % for Z-hypnotics to 49 % for glucagon.
INTERPRETATION
The study indicates that several reasons exist for the non-dispensing of prescriptions.
Topics: Drug Prescriptions; Electronic Prescribing; Humans; Pharmacies; Prescription Drugs
PubMed: 32998490
DOI: 10.4045/tidsskr.19.0577 -
Journal of the American Pharmacists... 2022To describe the widespread use of compounded bioidentical hormone therapies (cBHT). To define the term clinical utility and present why there is insufficient evidence to...
OBJECTIVE
To describe the widespread use of compounded bioidentical hormone therapies (cBHT). To define the term clinical utility and present why there is insufficient evidence to support the overall clinical utility of cBHT products. To recommend actions that pharmacists and regulators can take to promote safer cBHT use.
SUMMARY
Nationwide, millions of men and women use cBHT products. Use of these products appears to be increasing year-to-year, according to the limited data reported by the 503 A and 503 B pharmacies that formulate and dispense these products. Although use appears to be widespread, the safety, efficacy, and clinical utility of these products remains unproven. This commentary provides examples of what draws consumers to these products, comparative costs, and formulation challenges. Actions to promote the safe use of cBHT and approaches to begin the study of these products are provided.
CONCLUSION
While significant progress was made via the Drug Supply Chain Security Act in 2013 to improve the safety of compounding practice in general, efforts to further improve the safety and transparency of cBHT dispensing and use must continue, at both the local and national level.
Topics: Drug Compounding; Female; Hormones; Humans; Pharmacies; Pharmacists
PubMed: 34511371
DOI: 10.1016/j.japh.2021.08.005 -
Journal of the American Pharmacists... 2021The uptake of point-of-care testing (POCT) within community pharmacies at state and national levels is largely unknown despite the endorsement and advocacy efforts of...
BACKGROUND
The uptake of point-of-care testing (POCT) within community pharmacies at state and national levels is largely unknown despite the endorsement and advocacy efforts of pharmacy organizations, recent legislative advances, and numerous models for successful POCT implementation within individual pharmacy sites.
OBJECTIVES
The study aimed to describe the current landscape of POCT in Wisconsin community pharmacies and identify opportunities for the advancement of testing and the key factors influencing the realization of these opportunities.
METHODS
A survey was administered over the telephone to pharmacy managers of community pharmacies in Wisconsin. The sites were randomly selected from predefined geographic regions to mirror pharmacy distribution across Wisconsin. The survey items evaluated provision of POCT, future direction of POCT, barriers and motivators to offering POCT, and pharmacy demographics. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used to analyze data.
RESULTS
Pharmacy managers from 147 of the 938 registered community pharmacies (15.7%) participated in the survey. Only 17.1% of the pharmacies were offering POCT; however, 48.3% of managers reported that their pharmacy would likely implement or expand POCT within the next 5 years. The most commonly reported barriers to initiating or expanding POCT were the limitations on pharmacist availability to oversee testing and workflow restrictions. Continuing to advance the pharmacy profession was a top reason for offering or expanding testing services.
DISCUSSION
While few pharmacies are offering POCT in Wisconsin, there is motivation for expansion in coming years. Understanding, anticipating and addressing common barriers can faciliate this process.
CONCLUSION
This needs analysis offers a blueprint for researchers, educators, and clinicians to shape POCT efforts by examining the landscape of pharmacy-based testing in their own states and communities.
Topics: Community Pharmacy Services; Humans; Pharmacies; Pharmacists; Pharmacy; Point-of-Care Testing
PubMed: 33431252
DOI: 10.1016/j.japh.2020.12.013 -
Sexually Transmitted Infections Mar 2021To explore the utilisation of pharmacy-based sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS) in order to optimise delivery and identify barriers to access.
OBJECTIVES
To explore the utilisation of pharmacy-based sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS) in order to optimise delivery and identify barriers to access.
METHODS
The health provider Umbrella offers six SRHS from over 120 pharmacies in Birmingham (England). In this retrospective study, data collected between August 2015 and August 2018 were used to analyse uptake, user characteristics and attendance patterns according to day of the week.
RESULTS
A total of 60 498 requests for a pharmacy service were included in the analysis. Emergency contraception (50.4%), condoms (33.1%) and STI self-sampling kits (9.6%) accounted for more than 90% of all requests. A lower uptake of services was observed for the contraceptive injection (0.6%), oral contraception (5.4%) and chlamydia treatment (1.0%). Services were most likely to be requested by those self-identifying as female (85.6%), and those aged 16-24 years (53.8%). Based on available ethnicity data (n=54 668), most requests for a service were made by White/White British individuals (43.4%) and Asian/Asian British people (23.1%). The largest number of services were delivered on Mondays (20.9%) and the lowest on Sundays (5.0%). A high proportion of requests for services on Saturdays (57.0%), Sundays (67.6%) and Mondays (54.4%) were made by females presenting for emergency contraception.
CONCLUSION
The evaluation of healthcare utilisation is important to help refine and optimise the delivery of services. However, information relating to pharmacy-based SRHS is scarce and often limited to a single type of service provision. Overall, a wide range of pharmacy-based services were accessed by a diverse range of people, suggesting that pharmacies are a suitable provider of many SRHS. However, the routinely collected data analysed in the study had several limitations restricting the analysis. Sexual health providers should ensure they collect data which are as comprehensive as is possible in order to help understand the utilisation of services.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; England; Female; Health Services Accessibility; Humans; Male; Patient Acceptance of Health Care; Pharmaceutical Services; Pharmacies; Reproductive Health; Reproductive Health Services; Retrospective Studies; Sexual Health; Young Adult
PubMed: 32817275
DOI: 10.1136/sextrans-2020-054488 -
The American Journal of Managed Care Jun 2023To estimate neighborhood income differences between the locations of 340B-covered entities and their contract pharmacies (CPs) and examine whether these differences vary...
OBJECTIVES
To estimate neighborhood income differences between the locations of 340B-covered entities and their contract pharmacies (CPs) and examine whether these differences vary between hospitals and grantees.
STUDY DESIGN
Cross-sectional study.
METHODS
Using Health Resources and Services Administration 340B Office of Pharmacy Affairs Information System and zip code tabulation area (ZCTA)-level US Census Bureau databases, we created a unique data set that contains covered entities' characteristics, CP use, and ZCTA-level median household income in 2019 for more than 90,000 pairs of covered entities and CPs. We computed income differences between each pair and for a subset of pairs in which the pharmacy is within 100 miles of the covered entity for both hospitals and federal grantees.
RESULTS
On average, median income in the pharmacy's ZCTA is about 35% higher than in the covered entity's ZCTA, with little difference between hospitals (36%) and grantees (33%). Roughly 72% of arrangements cover less than 100 miles; in that subset, income is about 27% higher for pharmacy ZCTAs, with little difference between hospitals (28%) and grantees (25%). In more than 50% of arrangements, the median income in the pharmacy's ZCTA is more than 20% higher than in the covered entity's ZCTA.
CONCLUSIONS
CPs serve at least 2 purposes: They can increase low-income patients' access to medicines directly when a CP is closer to where a covered entity's patients live, and they can increase profits for covered entities (some of which are potentially passed on to patients) and CPs. We find that in 2019, both hospitals and grantees used CPs to generate income but generally they do not appear to contract with pharmacies located in neighborhoods where low-income patients are likeliest to live. Prior research findings have suggested that hospitals and grantees behave differently from each other with respect to CP use, but results of our analysis suggest the opposite.
Topics: Humans; Pharmacies; Cross-Sectional Studies; Income; Residence Characteristics; Pharmaceutical Services
PubMed: 37341983
DOI: 10.37765/ajmc.2023.89377 -
Journal of the American Pharmacists... 2024Community pharmacies are a critical part of the health care provision system. Yet less is understood about the spatial accessibility to pharmacies and how people travel...
BACKGROUND
Community pharmacies are a critical part of the health care provision system. Yet less is understood about the spatial accessibility to pharmacies and how people travel to reach these services.
OBJECTIVES
This study compared spatial accessibility and actual travel to different types of pharmacies among selected neighborhoods in the Detroit region.
METHODS
Three types of neighborhoods were selected and compared, including two lower income Black urban neighborhoods of high-density and four upper income White suburbs (two of low density and two of high density). Spatial accessibility was computed by pharmacy type and compared among neighborhoods using ANOVA. Pharmacy trips reported in a travel survey were geocoded and linked with community pharmacies in a list generated from ReferenceUSA business data. Destination choices were mapped and the relationship between spatial accessibility and actual distance traveled was examined using ordinary least squares regressions.
RESULTS
On average, urban residents in Detroit had higher access to local independent pharmacies (0.74 miles to the nearest one) but relatively lower access to national chains (1.35 miles to the nearest one), which most residents relied on. Urban residents also tended to shop around more for services even among national chains. In fact, they bypassed nearby local independent pharmacies and traveled long distances to use farther pharmacies, primarily national chains. The average trip distance to pharmacy was 2.1 miles for urban residents, but only 1.1 miles and 1.5 miles for residents in high-density suburbs and low-density suburbs, respectively.
CONCLUSION
Supposedly good spatial access considering all pharmacies together may mask excessive burden in reaching the pharmacy services needed in low-income minority urban communities, as shown in the case of Detroit. Thus, when mapping pharmacy deserts, it is important to distinguish spatial accessibility among different pharmacy types.
Topics: Humans; Michigan; Health Services Accessibility; Travel; Community Pharmacy Services; Pharmacies; Residence Characteristics; Urban Population; Poverty; Black or African American; White People
PubMed: 38401841
DOI: 10.1016/j.japh.2024.102052 -
Journal of the American Pharmacists... 2021Community pharmacists also play a vital public health role in increasing access to health care services and information during times of public health crisis. To examine...
OBJECTIVES
Community pharmacists also play a vital public health role in increasing access to health care services and information during times of public health crisis. To examine access to community pharmacies in Wisconsin and the relationship between pharmacy locations and primary care health professional shortage areas (HPSAs).
METHODS
A list of licensed pharmacies in Wisconsin was screened to identify community pharmacies. Rural-urban commuting area codes were used to classify the rurality of pharmacy locations. Descriptive measures and pharmacy location maps were used to assess access to community pharmacies in the state as well as the relationship between pharmacy locations and primary care HPSAs. Spatial analysis was conducted to estimate the percentage of the population that lives within 10-, 20-, and 30-minute drive times of each community pharmacy.
RESULTS
Of the 837 community pharmacies in Wisconsin, 73 (68.5%) were located in metropolitan areas, 95 (11.4%) in micropolitan areas, 112 (13.4%) in small towns, and 57 (6.8%) in rural areas. A total of 265 (31.7%) community pharmacies were located in a primary care HPSA. The drive-time analysis found that 99.7% of the population lives within 30 minutes of a pharmacy, 98.7% within 20 minutes of a pharmacy, and 89.3% within 10 minutes of a pharmacy.
CONCLUSIONS
Nearly the entire Wisconsin population has convenient access to community pharmacies. Community pharmacies are ideally located in underserved areas with shortages of other health professionals, which may provide an opportunity for pharmacists to take on additional clinical roles to support health care providers and facilities in these areas.
Topics: Community Pharmacy Services; Humans; Pharmacies; Pharmacists; Rural Population; Wisconsin
PubMed: 33707122
DOI: 10.1016/j.japh.2021.02.004