As pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing becomes more commonplace in clinical practice, appropriate application of laboratory data to all relevant medications becomes necessary to maximize PGx value. However, many clinicians lack PGx knowledge and confidence, so prescribers may appreciate clinical support when applying PGx data to a patient's entire medication list. Pharmacists routinely provide PGx consult support, and asynchronous written consults may improve logistical simplicity, but specific process steps and time expectations are less settled.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Using case law, the aims of this study were to document the methods for trafficking of performance and image-enhancing drugs (PIED) into Australia, and the characteristics of individuals and groups involved.
Methods: Data was collected from judges' sentencing comments. Searches were conducted using the Australasian Legal Information Institute database across all states in Australia, for the period of January 2010 to December 2021.
Community pharmacists serve a large, diverse population of patients, resulting in the potential to utilize community pharmacies as recruitment sites for clinical research. Beyond traditional roles as one of the most accessible health care professionals in the US healthcare system, pharmacists have played a major role in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, administering hundreds of thousands of vaccines and tests. However, less emphasis is placed on the ability to leverage community pharmacies as research-focused partners for clinical studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe overarching goal of public health is to advance the health of individuals, communities, and populations [...
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile contraception prescribing by pharmacists has seen rapid growth in recent years, pharmacist-provided services that can impact maternal health encompass more than just contraception. Each phase of maternal health-preconception, pregnancy, and post-pregnancy-has unique needs, and pharmacists are well equipped to provide services to meet those needs and are more accessible than other healthcare providers. While pharmacist-provided maternal health services may lead to significant savings to the healthcare system, additional research to more fully capture the value of pharmacist-provided maternal health services is needed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic influenced health care with effects on contraception access emerging. The study objectives were to analyze pandemic impacts on birth control (BC) use and access; and evaluate perceptions of pharmacist-prescribed BC. A 50-item survey was distributed by 31 Michigan community pharmacies to women aged 18-45 over a three-month period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo describe the composition of an advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) readiness assessment plan (APPE-RAP) along with initial findings following retrospective application to a cohort of students. The APPE-RAP uses existing summative assessment data within the ExamSoft platform on six skills and 12 ability-based outcomes from the pre-APPE curriculum. Thresholds were created to sort students into three readiness categories for skills and knowledge, determine overall readiness, and identify need for curricular review.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCOVID-19 has resulted in dramatic and widespread social network interventions across the globe, with public health measures such as distancing and isolation key epidemiological responses to minimize transmission. Because these measures affect social interactions between people, the networked structure of daily lives is changed. Such largescale changes to social structures, present simultaneously across many different societies and touching many different people, give renewed significance to the conceptualization of social network interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
September 2022
Datasets of offender attributes, both pre-custody and in-custody, were provided by the Correctional Service of Canada with the goal of exploring whether Security Threat Group (STG) offenders (informally, gang members of various kinds) differ in any systematic way from other offenders. For pre-custody attributes, we show that the entire offender population varies along two almost independent axes, one associated with affinity for violence, and the other with affinity for substance abuse. Within this structure, STG offenders are characteristically less extreme, in either direction, than the general offender population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Pharm Assoc (2003)
March 2022
In October 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance authorizing trained pharmacy technicians in all states to administer immunizations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo evaluate faculty and student perceptions of and performance on virtual skills-based assessments focused on communication compared to in-person assessments. In spring 2020, virtual skills-based assessments were conducted. After all assessments were completed, two 12-item questionnaires, one for students and one for the faculty members who conducted the assessment, were designed to assess perceptions of virtual skills-based assessments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpioid misuse and mismanagement has been a public health crisis for several years. Pharmacogenomics (PGx) has been proposed as another tool to enhance opioid selection and optimization, with recent studies demonstrating successful implementation and outcomes. However, broad engagement with PGx for opioid management is presently limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpioid use disorder (OUD) in women of child-bearing potential is problematic in the United States. This has resulted in increasing risk for adverse maternal outcomes, neonatal abstinence syndrome, fetal and neonatal harm, prolonged hospitalizations, and increased health care costs. Pharmacists in all practice settings have opportunities to provide preconception and pregnancy care to prevent and manage OUD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmgenomics Pers Med
May 2021
Pharmacogenomics (PGx) is expanding across health-care practice settings, including the community pharmacy. In the United States, models of implementation of PGx in the community pharmacy have described independent services and those layered on to medication therapy management. The drug-gene pair of clopidogrel- has been a focus of implementation of PGx in community pharmacy and serves as an example of the evolution of the application of drug-gene interaction information to help optimize drug therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe opioid epidemic has had a devastating impact on our country, with wide-ranging effects on healthcare, corrections, employment, and social systems. Programs have been put in place for monitoring prescriptions, initiating and expanding medications for opioid use disorder, and harm reduction (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Pharm Assoc (2003)
August 2021
Objectives: Certain prescription medications should be avoided during pregnancy to reduce the risk of fetal harm. Identification of these medications to minimize exposure may be achieved through the integration of preconception care recommendations into medication therapy management (MTM) services. The primary objective of this study was to identify missed opportunities for pharmacists to provide preconception care support related to medications associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes for reproductive-aged women who received MTM consultations at a regional supermarket pharmacy chain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmgenomics Pers Med
December 2020
Background: The clinical implementation of pharmacogenomics (PGx) has often involved teams that include pharmacists. PGx laboratories often provide baseline information within the laboratory report that is based on Food and Drug Administration and Clinical Pharmacogenomics Implementation Consortium guidance, but information is often provided independent of concurrent disease states or medication use, among other clinical factors. Major challenges to widescale implementation of PGx include lack of physician experience or confidence in interpreting the data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Manag Care Spec Pharm
December 2020
Opioid use and misuse are continued issues facing clinicians across all aspects of health care. As clinicians struggle to effectively manage opioid prescribing, pharmacogenomics (PGx) further offers the prescriber an improved ability to understand the potential for an individual patient's genetics to influence opioid efficacy and safety. When PGx data are available at the point of initial prescribing, clinicians can apply that data to drug therapy selection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Pharm Teach Learn
January 2021
Background And Purpose: With a prevalence of about one million d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HOH) patients that utilize American Sign Language (ASL) and the strong potential for communication barriers to adversely influence patient care outcomes, strategies must be developed to support health care professionals and students in learning to better care for d/Deaf and HOH patients. The primary objective of this project was to implement and assess a co-curricular course focused on helping student pharmacists become more confident and comfortable in communicating with d/Deaf and HOH patients.
Educational Activity And Setting: The co-curricular course (ASL for the Pharmacy Professional) consisted of four 90-min classes, each covering different words/phrases and Deaf cultural competence.
To determine the validity and reliability of the Pharmacist Interprofessional Competencies Tool (PICT). Faculty members at Ferris State University, College of Pharmacy developed the PICT, which has five interprofessional criterion (collaboration, ownership, respect, engagement, and application) and four competency levels (unacceptable, novice, competent, and proficient) to assess the interprofessional competencies of pharmacy students. Fourteen pharmacy faculty members were trained in how to use the PICT and then used it to assess students' behaviors in four to six video-recorded interprofessional education (IPE) learning activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Illicit drug markets and associated supply changes (including changes in availability and purity) have been studied for many years but with limited attention to how drug trafficking networks adapt to such changes and the consequences thereof: the aim of this study.
Methods: A longitudinal social network analysis was applied to a high-level drug trafficking network which supplied methamphetamine and other drugs over 15 years in Melbourne, Australia (1993-2007). Data were extracted from judges' sentencing comments, a biography, and mainstream media.
Res Social Adm Pharm
April 2021
Background: In order to optimize community pharmacist roles and patient outcomes, a better understanding of patient perceptions of pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing may be helpful for successful integration into community pharmacy practice.
Objective: The objective of this study was to identify patient perceptions related to PGx testing in the community pharmacy setting.
Methods: Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with adults ≥18 years of age to gather their perceptions of PGx testing.
Introduction: Standards 2016 require schools/colleges of pharmacy (s/cop) to assess students' readiness to enter advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs). However, literature describing how schools are meeting this standard is limited. The purpose of this study was to conduct an environmental scan to describe how s/cop assess student readiness to enter APPEs.
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