Impact of Pharmacist-Provided Medication Therapy Management on Healthcare Quality and Utilization in Recently Discharged Elderly Patients.

Background: The optimization of medication use during care transitions represents an opportunity to improve overall health-related outcomes. The utilization of clinical pharmacists during care transitions has demonstrated benefit, although the optimal method of integration during the care transition process remains unclear.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of pharmacist-provided telephonic medication therapy management (MTM) on care quality in a care transitions program (CTP) for high-risk older adults.

Effect of a shortened-duration Eptifibatide infusion (75 mg) as adjunctive therapy for percutaneous coronary intervention on in-hospital cardiovascular outcomes and bleeding.

A retrospective cohort analysis was conducted on patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) before and after a practice change which reduced the infusion duration of eptifibatide from 18 hours to the time required for completion of a single vial of 75 mg initiated during PCI. Primary end points were inhospital cardiovascular events, target vessel revascularization, and major or minor bleeding. The secondary end point was drug cost.

Effect of body mass index on bleeding frequency and activated partial thromboplastin time in weight-based dosing of unfractionated heparin: a retrospective cohort study.

Objective: To assess bleeding and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) in relation to body mass index (BMI) in patients prescribed weight-based dosing of intravenous unfractionated heparin (UFH) for cardiac indications without a maximum (dose-capped) initial bolus or capped initial infusion rate.

Patients And Methods: Consecutive patients admitted to an academic medical center from February 1, 2002, through November 31, 2003, who were treated with a UFH nomogram consisting of a 60-U/kg intravenous bolus plus an initial continuous intravenous infusion of 12 U/kg hourly and titrated to a goal APTT range corresponding to thromboplastin-adjusted target heparin levels of 0.3 to 0.

Effectiveness of a computerized system for intravenous heparin administration: using information technology to improve patient care and patient safety.

To overcome errors in prescribing, calculating doses, and monitoring intravenous heparin, a computerized heparin nomogram system (HepCare) was developed to improve heparin safety using interactive cues between the prescriber, nurse, pharmacist, and the laboratory. The frequency of deviations decreased from 0.5 per patient before HepCare with the protocol to 0.

Ethnic and sex differences in the prevalence, treatment, and control of dyslipidemia among hypertensive adults in the GENOA study.

Background: Two ethnically different, community-based samples of hypertensive adults were evaluated to determine the prevalence of dyslipidemia and how often dyslipidemia is drug-treated and controlled by such treatment.

Methods: We studied 1286 non-Hispanic black hypertensive subjects from Jackson and 1070 non-Hispanic white hypertensive subjects from Rochester who participated in the Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy study. Subjects were categorized according to presence of coronary heart disease and risk factors for coronary heart disease.