Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Post-acute/Long-term Care Settings: Seizing Opportunities to Individualize Treatment and Device Selection.

Introduction: The burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in post-acute/long-term care (PA/LTC) settings is high, and many patients do not receive guideline-recommended care.

Methods: An interprofessional expert panel of PA/LTC professionals convened to discuss the unmet medical needs in patients with COPD in PA/LTC settings, and to make recommendations for the assessment of COPD patients to individualize the selection of maintenance treatment.

Results: Unmet needs observed in patients with COPD are described in addition to new tools for assessing individual patient abilities and appropriate device selection for maintenance treatment.

Putting it into practice: strategizing a successful anemia management protocol in the long-term care setting.

Objective: To familiarize the consultant pharmacist with the new American Medical Directors Association (AMDA) guideline for the management of anemia in the long-term care setting and with the responsibilities of each member of the interdisciplinary care team in anemia management.

Data Sources: Guidelines and recent articles focusing on anemia in geriatric patients or in the long-term care population.

Study Selection: Key articles and guidelines were selected to provide background supporting the need for improved recognition and management of anemia in the long-term care setting and the role of the consultant pharmacist in meeting this need.

The consultant pharmacist and the physician in the nursing home: roles, relationships, and a recipe for success.

Both physicians and consultant pharmacists have a longstanding role in nursing home care. The physician role was emphasized in 1974, when medical directors were required in all skilled nursing facilities. It was intensified in 1987, when the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA '87) regulations required all nursing facilities to have a medical director and reinforced that each resident should have an attending physician who visits the resident at specified intervals.

The consultant pharmacist and the physician in the nursing home: roles, relationships, and a recipe for success.

Nursing homes must provide sophisticated medical and personal care to a broad spectrum of residents and patients. Medications are an increasingly important part of that care. The risks and benefits of medications are widely published, but not necessarily recognized in the care of individual patients.