A survey of antibiotic administration practices involving patients with sepsis in UK critical care units.

Background Alternative administration methods are emerging as a key area of research to improve clinical efficacy of antibiotics and address concerns regarding multi-drug resistance. Extended intermittent infusions or continuous infusions of antibiotics exhibiting time-dependent kill characteristics may be favourable in critically ill septic patients, but more evidence is needed to determine best practice. Objective To find out whether any common practice exists for intravenous antibiotic administration in critical care units across UK NHS Trusts, and identify factors influencing the adoption of extended or continuous infusions.

Stakeholder perceptions of a new model of care for medication supply at hospital discharge.

Objectives: Problems relating to patients' medication are common during hospital discharge, often resulting in unnecessary harm to patients and even hospital readmission. To overcome these issues and improve patient discharge, an evidence-based approach was used to develop an innovative model of care for the supply of medication at hospital discharge. The model increases pharmacy involvement, uses community pharmacies in the supply process and encourages patient follow-up after discharge.

Cross-sectional survey of patients' need for information and support with medicines after discharge from hospital.

Background: Most patients experience changes to prescribed medicines during a hospital stay. Ensuring they understand such changes is important for preventing adverse events post-discharge and optimising patient understanding. However, little work has explored the information that patients receive about medicines or their perceived needs for information and support after discharge.

UK hospital patient discharge: the patient perspective.

Objectives: Hospital discharge is a complex process that can result in errors and delays for patients, particularly around the supply of medicines and communication of information. To improve patient discharge, patient perspectives of the discharge service must be explored to determine where patients feel problems arise. This study aimed to explore inpatient perceptions and experiences of the current discharge process.

Hospital patient discharge process: an evaluation.

Objectives: Medication discrepancies for patients after discharge from hospital are well documented. They have been shown to cause unnecessary harm to patients and can result in hospital readmission. To improve patient discharge, the current process of discharging patients from hospital (the discharge process) needs evaluating to determine where and why medication issues occur.

Inpatient prescribing systems used in NHS Acute Trusts across England: a managerial perspective.

Objective: The individualised patient prescription chart, either paper or electronic, is an integral part of communication between healthcare professionals. The aim of this study is to ascertain the extent to which different prescribing systems are used for inpatient care in acute hospitals in England and explore chief pharmacists' opinions and experiences with respect to electronic prescribing and medicines administration (EPMA) systems.

Method: Audio-recorded, semistructured telephone interviews with chief pharmacists or their nominated representatives of general acute hospital trusts across England.

Emergency supply of prescription-only medicines to patients by community pharmacists: a mixed methods evaluation incorporating patient, pharmacist and GP perspectives.

Objective: To evaluate and inform emergency supply of prescription-only medicines by community pharmacists (CPs), including how the service could form an integral component of established healthcare provision to maximise adherence.

Design: Mixed methods. 4 phases: prospective audit of emergency supply requests for prescribed medicines (October-November 2012 and April 2013); interviews with CPs (February-April 2013); follow-up interviews with patients (April-May 2013); interactive feedback sessions with general practice teams (October-November 2013).

Involving community pharmacists in pharmacy practice research: experiences of peer interviewing.

Background: Translation of interest in research into active engagement of community pharmacists as research partners/co-researchers remains a challenge. Involving pharmacists in specific research techniques such as peer interviewing, however, may enhance validity of the results.

Objective: To enhance community pharmacists' involvement in pharmacy practice research through peer interview training.

Measuring the impact of long-term medicines use from the patient perspective.

Polypharmacy is increasing, seemingly inexorably, and inevitably the associated difficulties for individual patients of coping with multiple medicines rise with it. Using medicines is one aspect of the burden associated with living with a chronic condition. It is becoming increasingly important to measure this burden particularly that relating to multiple long-term medicines.

Issues potentially affecting quality of life arising from long-term medicines use: a qualitative study.

Background: Polypharmacy is increasing and managing large number of medicines may create a burden for patients. Many patients have negative views of medicines and their use can adversely affect quality of life. No studies have specifically explored the impact of general long-term medicines use on quality of life.

Transformation in the pharmaceutical industry--a systematic analysis of operational evidence.

Unlabelled: Through systematic collection and trending of pharmaceutical data, operational evidence to verify existence of 14 factors affecting the ongoing pharmaceutical transformation has been compiled. These 14 factors are termed transformation triggers. The theoretical evidence in support of these triggers is carried forward from a systematic review of the literature that was conducted previously.

Characterization of the evolution of the pharmaceutical regulatory environment.

Unlabelled: This paper is part of a research study that is intended to identify pharmaceutical quality risks induced by the ongoing transformation in the industry. This study establishes the current regulatory context by characterizing the development of the pharmaceutical regulatory environment. The regulatory environment is one of the most important external factors that affects a company's organization, processes, and technological strategy.

Transformation in the pharmaceutical industry: transformation-induced quality risks--a survey.

Unlabelled: This paper is the fourth in a series that explores ongoing transformation in the pharmaceutical industry and its impact on pharmaceutical quality from the perspective of risk identification. The aim of this paper is to validate proposed quality risks through elicitation of expert opinion and define the resultant quality risk model. Expert opinion was obtained using a questionnaire-based survey with participants with recognized expertise in pharmaceutical regulation, product lifecycle, or technology.

Patients' use of information about medicine side effects in relation to experiences of suspected adverse drug reactions: a cross-sectional survey in medical in-patients.

Background: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are common, and information about medicines is increasingly widely available to the public. However, relatively little work has explored how people use medicines information to help them assess symptoms that may be suspected ADRs.

Objective: Our objective was to determine how patients use patient information leaflets (PILs) or other medicines information sources and whether information use differs depending on experiences of suspected ADRs.

Inpatients' expectations and experiences of hospital pharmacy services: qualitative study.

Introduction: Hospital pharmacists' have traditionally focused on the manufacture and supply of medicines. However, the increasing complexity and range of medicines and a greater awareness of medication errors has facilitated a change towards a patient-centred role. Given this movement, it is surprising that a search of the published literature shows very little research that evaluated patients' views of hospital-based pharmacy services.

Transformation in the pharmaceutical industry--a systematic review of the literature.

Unlabelled: The evolutionary development of pharmaceutical transformation was studied through systematic review of the literature. Fourteen triggers were identified that will affect the pharmaceutical business, regulatory science, and enabling technologies in future years. The relative importance ranking of the transformation triggers was computed based on their prevalence within the articles studied.

Informing patients about medicines--a hospital in-patient survey in England.

Objective: To determine the frequency with which hospital in-patients receive information about medicines and whether this varies dependent on patient characteristics or hospitals.

Methods: Cross-sectional survey of medical in-patients in six hospitals in North West England.

Results: 1218 questionnaires were completed sufficiently for analysis by medical in-patients.