Negative Consequences of the Widespread and Inappropriate Easy Access to Purchasing Prescription Medications on the Internet.

Background: The purchase of prescription medications via the Internet is a global phenomenon with significant economic, social, and health-related impacts. The growth of online purchasing of prescription medicines is significant and has been amplified by social isolation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many patients unable to obtain medicines as they normally would. By contrast, there are licensed, certified, legitimate retail pharmacies that provide significant and vital services to patients.

Cannabis for Chronic Pain: Challenges and Considerations.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has found substantial evidence that cannabis (plant) is effective for the treatment of chronic pain in adults, and moderate evidence that oromucosal cannabinoids (extracts, especially nabiximols) improve short-term sleep disturbances in chronic pain. The paradoxical superiority of the cannabis plant over cannabinoid molecules represents a challenge for the medical community and the established processes that define modern pharmacy. The expanding and variable legalization of cannabis in multiple states nationwide represents an additional challenge for patients and the medical community because recreational and medicinal cannabis are irresponsibly overlapped.

Associations between communication climate and the frequency of medical error reporting among pharmacists within an inpatient setting.

Objective: Although error-reporting systems enable hospitals to accurately track safety climate through the identification of adverse events, these systems may be underused within a work climate of poor communication. The objective of this analysis is to identify the extent to which perceived communication climate among hospital pharmacists impacts medical error reporting rates.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used survey responses from more than 5000 pharmacists responding to the 2010 Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC).

The importance of survey research standards.

Every discipline within fields of research has instituted guidelines and templates for research endeavors and subsequent publications of findings, with the ultimate result being an increase in quality and acceptance by researchers within and across disciplines. These significant efforts are by nature ongoing, as well they should. These enhancements and guideline developments have been instituted in basic science disciplines, clinical pharmacy, and pharmacy administration relevant and related to subsequent scholarly publication of research findings.

Variety and quantity of professional electives.

Objectives: To compare the elective courses offered by US colleges and schools of pharmacy to establish a benchmark for individual colleges and schools to use in assessing whether they offer a sufficient amount and variety of electives.

Methods: Internet Web sites of US doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) programs were reviewed to identify the number of elective lecture-based courses and elective advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPE) offered and required. Elective courses were grouped into categories to determine the variety of offerings.

The expanding public health threat of obesity and overweight.

Obesity and overweight is a continuing public health crisis. This health threat respects no boundaries or economic strata, and is a pervasive universal threat with short- and long-term negative sequelae associated. Pharmacists and other health professionals need to structure interventions from individual patient and population-based standpoints.

Patients' view of retail clinics as a source of primary care: boon for nurse practitioners?

Purpose: To estimate consumer utilities associated with major attributes of retail clinics (RCs).

Data Sources: A discrete choice experiment (DCE) with 383 adult residents of the metropolitan statistical areas in Georgia conducted via Random Digit Dial survey of households. The DCE had two levels each of four attributes: price ($59; $75), appointment wait time (same day; 1 day or more), care setting-provider combination (nurse practitioner [NP]-RC; physician-private office), and acute illness (urinary tract infection; influenza), resulting in 16 choice scenarios.

Adherence to treatment guidelines and therapeutic regimens: a US claims-based benchmark of a commercial population.

The objective of this cross-sectional, retrospective study assessing commercially insured patients was to provide a useful benchmark to US health care payers and decision makers to assess quality of care, medication use and adherence, and health care resource utilization/costs associated with common chronic diseases. Measures of quality of care were suboptimal and substantial numbers of patients were not using any pharmacotherapy considered acceptable according to treatment guidelines. The widespread nature of undertreatment, poor medication adherence, and substantial health care costs highlights deficits and points to the need for comprehensive, multifaceted strategies to improve clinical and economic outcomes for chronic diseases.

Quality of care associated with common chronic diseases in a 9-state Medicaid population utilizing claims data: an evaluation of medication and health care use and costs.

The objective of this cross-sectional, retrospective study was to utilize claims data to establish a quality-of-care benchmark in a large multistate Medicaid population overall and by race. Quality of care and medication adherence (persistence and compliance) per national treatment guidelines, and health care costs/utilization were assessed across common chronic conditions in a large, 9-state Medicaid population. Overall, quality of care was suboptimal across conditions.