Disease-Modifying Medications in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis in the USA: Trends from 2016 to 2021.

Background: Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), since their introduction in 1990, have revolutionized the management of rheumatoid arthritis. Newer DMARDs have recently been approved, influencing treatment patterns and clinical guidelines.

Objective: To update the current prescribing patterns of DMARDs in the pharmacotherapy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) to include the pandemic era.

Interinstitutional simulation of patients with COVID-19 during a remote acute-care advanced pharmacy practice experience.

Introduction: Faculty and staff from Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh Schools of Pharmacy created a simulation activity focused on the care of critically ill patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Students on remote, short-term-care advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPE) rotations from both universities worked in comingled teams and completed two educational electronic health record reviews, complex simulation sessions, and debriefs. Individually, students completed two educational electronic health record reviews and verbal patient presentations before and after the simulation sessions.

Use of an immersive, simulated learning game to teach pharmacy students clinical concepts of toxicology.

Background And Purpose: Management of a poisoned patient is a critical part of any health care professional's education. A new, innovative teaching platform was developed allowing students to try to "break out" of various kits, locks, and scrambled codes to build collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills - similar to the recently popular "escape rooms." Our purpose was to illustrate how this learning game can be utilized in pharmacy education to teach and apply clinical knowledge and evaluate its effectiveness on student-perceived confidence and competency in management of toxicologic emergencies.

Pharmacy Personnel's Involvement in Transitions of Care of Intensive Care Unit Patients: A Systematic Review.

Objective: Do pharmacy personnel- (ie, pharmacist or pharmacy technician) driven interventions at transitions of care into or out of the intensive care unit (ICU) improve medication safety measures compared to interventions made by other health-care team members or no intervention?

Data Sources: A literature search of MEDLINE and Embase limited to English language and humans was performed (from 1969 until January 2019). Bibliographies of included investigations were reviewed for additional citations.

Methods: Investigations were selected if they described a pharmacy-driven intervention at any point of transfer into or out of an ICU setting.

A community pharmacy-led intervention for opioid medication misuse: A small-scale randomized clinical trial.

Background: Stemming the opioid epidemic requires testing novel interventions. Toward this goal, feasibility and acceptability of a Brief Motivational Intervention-Medication Therapy Management (BMI-MTM) intervention was examined along with its impact on medication misuse and concomitant health conditions.

Methods: We conducted a two-group randomized trial in 2 community pharmacies.

Effects of Cross-Training on Medical Teams' Teamwork and Collaboration: Use of Simulation.

Previous research in the US Navy demonstrated that cross-training enhances teamwork and interpersonal collaboration. Limited data exists on cross-training effectiveness in medical education. This research aimed to assess whether cross-training would have similar effects on medical teams.

Evaluation of pharmacist satisfaction with simulation-based learning in Singapore.

Background And Purpose: High fidelity human patient simulation (HPS) has been incorporated in various United States doctor of pharmacy programs with favorable learning experiences, knowledge retention, and problem-solving skills reported. In Singapore, HPS is a novel learning technique as it has not been utilized in the Bachelor of Science (Pharmacy) curriculum or for continuing professional education (CPE). It is necessary to evaluate acceptance of HPS compared to asynchronous online learning (AOL).

Assessing Adverse Drug Reactions from Psychotropic Medications Reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Older Adults.

Objective: Identify trends in adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Adverse Event Reporting System in three subpopulations of older adults (ages 55-64, 65-74, 75+) receiving psychotropic medications.

Virtual Electronic Health Record Technology with Simulation-Based Learning in an Acute Care Pharmacotherapy Course.

Electronic health record (EHR) technology use in the educational setting to advance pharmacy practice skills with patient simulation has not been described previously in the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a virtual EHR on learning efficiency, perceptions of clinical skills, communication, and satisfaction. This was a prospective study conducted in a cardiovascular therapeutics course in the Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum.

Pharmacologic Management of Delirium in the ICU: A Review of the Literature.

Purpose: Conflicting data exists on the pharmacologic management of intensive care unit (ICU) delirium. This review appraises the current evidence of pharmacologic management of ICU delirium.

Materials And Methods: A systematic literature search of MEDLINE and Embase was conducted to answer the population, intervention, comparison, and outcome (PICO) question of: "Does the use of a pharmacologic agent compared to standard of care or placebo improve ICU delirium in a critically ill patient population?"

Results: After application of the PICO question and the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 13 articles were included.

A community pharmacy intervention for opioid medication misuse: A pilot randomized clinical trial.

Objectives: Community pharmacy continues to play a crucial role in the national response to the opioid epidemic. The purpose of this article is to describe the protocol for a pilot study that is examining the feasibility and acceptability of the Motivational Intervention-Medication Therapy Management (MI-MTM) model. This study also examines the preliminary clinical effect of MI-MTM for improving opioid medication misuse and patient activation in self-management of health conditions that increase risk for misuse.

Intensive care unit drug costs in the context of total hospital drug expenditures with suggestions for targeted cost containment efforts.

Purpose: To assess costs of intensive care unit (ICU) related pharmacotherapy relative to hospital drug expenditures, and to identify potential targets for cost-effectiveness investigations. We offer the unique advantage of comparing ICU drug costs with previously published data a decade earlier to describe changes over time.

Materials And Methods: Financial transactions for all ICU patients during fiscal years (FY) 2009-2012 were retrieved from the hospital's data repository.

Use of Text Searching for Trigger Words in Medical Records to Identify Adverse Drug Reactions within an Intensive Care Unit Discharge Summary.

Purpose: To evaluate the performance of using trigger words (e.g. clues to an adverse drug reaction) in unstructured, narrative text to detect adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and compare the use of these trigger words to a targeted chart review for ADR detection within the intensive care unit (ICU) discharge summary note.

Prescription opioid use: Patient characteristics and misuse in community pharmacy.

Objectives: Opioid pain medication misuse is a major concern for US public health. The purpose of this article is to: 1) describe the demographic and physical, behavioral, and mental health characteristics of patients who fill opioid medications in community pharmacy settings; and 2) describe the extent of opioid medication misuse behaviors among these patients.

Design: We recruited and screened a convenience sample of patients with the use of a tablet computer-based assessment protocol that examined behavioral, mental, and physical health.

A Review of the Perceptions of Healthcare Providers and Family Members Toward Family Involvement in Active Adult Patient Care in the ICU.

Objective: The objective of this article is to provide a summary of the perceptions of healthcare providers and family members toward their role in active patient care in the ICU and compare the views of healthcare providers with those of relatives of critically ill patients.

Data Sources: The search was conducted using PubMed as the primary search engine and EMBASE as a secondary search engine.

Study Selection: Studies were included if they were conducted in the ICU, had an adult patient population, and contained a discussion of active patient care, including perspective or actions of family members or healthcare providers about the active participation.

Published cases of adverse drug reactions: has the quality of reporting improved over time?

Purpose: A previous study of cases published approximately 10-30 years ago reveals that substantial improvement in the quality of adverse drug reaction (ADR) case reports is needed. Since that evaluation, recommendations are available concerning the content and formatting of case reports.

Objective: To compare the quality of recently published ADR case reports to a previously published study of the quality of ADR case reports from 10-30 years ago.

Prospective Assessment of Inpatient Boxed Warning Prescriber Adherence.

Objective: To evaluate medication boxed warning nonadherence in the inpatient setting.

Methods: This was a prospective cohort quality improvement project approved by our institution's Total Quality Council. General medicine and ICU patients 18 years and older were included if they were cared for by a prescriber-led multidisciplinary team that included a pharmacist.

Pharmacokinetic evaluation of prasugrel for the treatment of myocardial infarction.

Introduction: Prasugrel is a novel P2Y12 inhibitor approved for treatment of patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Areas Covered: This article focuses on the pharmacokinetics of prasugrel and recently published pharmacodynamic and clinical studies. The authors searched PubMed and Ovid databases for English language pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and clinical studies which described the use of prasugrel in human subjects and patients, published through October 2013.

A real-world, multicenter assessment of drugs requiring weight-based calculations in overweight, adult critically ill patients.

Prescribing appropriate doses of drugs requiring weight-based dosing is challenging in overweight patients due to a lack of data. With 68% of the US population considered overweight and these patients being at an increased risk for hospitalization, clinicians need guidance on dosing weight-based drugs. The purpose of this study was to identify "real-world" dose ranges of high-risk medications administered via continuous infusion requiring weight-based dosing and determine the reasons for dosing changes (ineffectiveness or adverse drug reactions).

Advancing interprofessional education through the use of high fidelity human patient simulators.

Background: Modern medical care increasingly requires coordinated teamwork and communication between healthcare professionals of different disciplines. Unfortunately, healthcare professional students are rarely afforded the opportunity to learn effective methods of interprofessional (IP) communication and teamwork strategies during their education. The question of how to best incorporate IP interactions in the curricula of the schools of health professions remains unanswered.

Improving adverse drug event detection in critically ill patients through screening intensive care unit transfer summaries.

Purpose: This study aimed to determine the frequency and type of adverse drug events (ADEs) identified in intensive care unit (ICU) transfer summaries and in the hospital discharge summaries to demonstrate the effectiveness of ICU transfer summary surveillance in the identification of ADEs.

Methods: A retrospective electronic medical record review was conducted for medical ICU patients admitted between January 2009 and April 2009 to a large, academic medical center. The Harvard Practice Scale and the modified Leonard Assessment Scale were used to evaluate the presence of an ADE from the ICU transfer and hospital discharge summaries.

Drug-drug interactions contributing to QT prolongation in cardiac intensive care units.

Purpose: To determine the most common drug-drug interaction (DDI) pairs contributing to QTc prolongation in cardiac intensive care units (ICUs).

Materials And Methods: This retrospective evaluation included patients who were admitted to the cardiac ICUs between January 2009 and July 2009 aged ≥ 18 years with electrocardiographic evidence of a QTc ≥ 500 ms. Patients receiving at least two concomitant drugs known to prolong the QT interval were considered to experience a pharmacodynamic DDI.

Drug-drug interactions in the medical intensive care unit: an assessment of frequency, severity and the medications involved.

Objectives: Mortality and morbidity are increased in patients experiencing drug-drug interactions (DDIs). Critically ill patients are at an increased risk of adverse events from DDIs due to the large number of medications that they take and their changes in organ function. Currently, there is a lack of literature describing DDIs in the intensive care unit (ICU).