Health System

A survey of new Rx, new OTC, new indications, and new generics

Exclusive DT survey: Pharmacies are selling more OTC headache medications.

Despite challenges from a contracting economy, pharmacists are optimistic about 2009.

An Ohio hospital automates its pharmacy with an integrated medication management database.

FDA approves Gamunex for treatment of neurologic disease.

A young pharmacist gets a lesson in caring that lasts a lifetime.

Pharmacists speak out about PhRMA marketing revisions and the San Franciso tobacco sales ban.

A study says that pharmacy workers may be affected by dangerous levels of drug dust. The study's funder may have a remedy for that.

Northern Michigan Regional Hospital is the first hospital in the country to win certification in waste management.

The Pharmacy Museum Foundation of Texas is donating 4,000 pieces of pharmacy memorabilia to Feik School of Pharmacy at University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

The searchable database will include information on all drug products available in the United States.

For a $10 enrollment fee, customers can fill 90-day prescriptions on any of 400 generic drugs for $9.99.

A civic group has collaborated with Georgia Power and Home Depot to provide price discounts on emergency generators to pharmacies in the community of Buckhead, Georgia.

PharmMD will provide medication therapy management services to 265,000 HealthSpring members. Company pharmacists will use technology to watch for drug interactions and monitor drug regimens.

Deaths from C. difficile increase yearly

Pharmacists hope to speed approvals of off-label medication uses

Disposal of unused medications and other controlled substances is an expensive logistical challenge. Pouring controlled substances into sewer systems is harmful. Incineration costs are prohibitive.

Pharmacists shouldn't be so quick to disregard articles published in alternative medicine journals because the medicine is new or more "mystic" than traditional medicine, according to a study presented by Zara Risoldi-Cochrane, PharmD, resident at the Center for Drug Information and Evidence-based Practice, School of Pharmacy & Health Professions, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska.

The niches that aliskiren and nebivolol, two newly approved therapies for hypertension, will occupy in the therapeutic armamentarium for hypertension remain unknown until more outcomes data are obtained with these agents, said Stuart T. Haines, PharmD, BCPS, FASHP, professor, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Baltimore, in his discussion of new and emerging therapies for hypertension.

As the FDA issues more medication safety alerts, hospitals are stepping up the ways they quickly get that information out to pharmacists, doctors, and patients.

With the shifting political landscape in Congress and state legislatures across the nation, and an increased focus on health care, 2009 could be a busy year for pharmacy initiatives, according to Geralyn M. Trujillo, MPP, the director of state government affairs for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).

How best to help and test diabetes patients and which degrees should be required of pharmacy students were among the hot topics discussed at the Clinical Specialists and Scientists Networking?Primary Care and Pharmacotherapy Session.

Dietary supplements can cloud a healthcare professional's ability to determine an adverse reaction using the existing Naranjo Questionnaire. That was the point Celtina Reinert, PharmD, pharmacist at Sastun Center of Integrative Health Care, Overland Park, Kansas, tried to enforce at a Tuesday session.

Edward G. Tessier, PharmD, reported on a study he conducted with colleagues in Massachusetts to create a nurse-friendly medication reconciliation process, with the goal of standardized data-gathering and improved patient safety. Dr. Tessier, clinical pharmacist, Baystate Franklin Medical Center, Greenfield, Massachusetts, said that pharmacists can help nurses with this task by focusing on the basics.

Emergency department (ED) pharmacists can help hospitals reconcile medications, according to a new study presented on Tuesday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did its best Tuesday to extend an olive branch to pharmacists who struggle to maneuver around its web site to find information from the Division of Drug Information (DDI).

Care of the patient with osteoporosis can begin in the inpatient setting, where pharmacists have an important role in treatment and prevention of fractures. There are things that the outpatient pharmacist can do as well, according to Mary Beth O'Connell, PharmD, BCPS, FASHP, FCCP, associate professor, Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit.

There is still confusion over the amount of information manufacturers should include on medication barcodes, and some are not in compliance with FDA rules on barcodes, according to a new preliminary study.

Pharmacists can educate patients and providers to help reduce the number and severity of osteoporotic fractures, says Mary Beth O'Connell, PharmD, BCPS, FASHP, FCCP, associate professor, Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wayne State University, Detroit.

When dealing with Clostridium difficile infections in the healthcare setting, "if we don't do the right thing, patients die," said Rob Owens, PharmD, co-director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Maine Medical Center and assistant clinical professor at the University of Vermont, College of Medicine, at a talk on the diagnosis and treatment of C difficile.