Digital Therapeutics: Health Care Wired for the Future.

Digital therapeutics (DTx)-treatment or therapy that uses digital health technologies to spur changes in patient behavior-increasingly are making their way into the health care environment. This evolution is especially apparent as health care moves to valuebased care, silos between settings are breaking down, and data collection/analysis and teamwork play key roles. These technologies, whether they are apps, software programs, or sensors, are helping patients adhere to treatments and lifestyle changes, set and meet viable care goals, and avoid costly emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

Population Health: An Old Idea Gets New Attention.

A focus on patient populations-as opposed to care settings-encompasses a broad array of health care models: accountable care organizations, managed care, bundled payments, and other value-based care medical models. Pharmacists have a key role to play in streamlining medication management within these settings, ensuring a smooth transition as patients move through the care continuum, and preventing avoidable hospitalizations and readmissions.

Pharmacists Focus on Adapting for the Future.

A wide range of changes are in the future for health care: value-based reimbursement, delivery of integrated services, the continued breakdown of silos, and interoperability maximizing communication/information exchange. The American Society of Consultant Pharmacists recently held a conference focusing on key innovations in post-acute/long-term/senior care and how pharmacists can function successfully in this new paradigm in ways that promote quality medication management, address polypharmacy, improve patients' quality of life, reduce costs, and eliminate avoidable readmissions.

Technology Moves Senior Care Pharmacy into the Future.

Technology continues to evolve, and pharmacists need to be part of this evolution where goals are reducing readmissions and related costs, improving outcomes, and enabling elders to stay in their homes longer. Increasingly, it's not enough to know about computerized prescription order-entry and electronic medical records. It's important to understand technologies that connect organizations and individuals, as well as those that patients and families are using to enhance safety and quality of life.

Pharmacy and EHR Information Exchange: A National Summit.

Pharmacists and other practitioners increasingly must focus on data collection, analysis, and communication to maximize quality and reduce adverse events that lead to readmissions. As a result, they are seeking systems and software that provide them with real-time access to the information they need and enable them to communicate with other stakeholders. To date, there have been barriers, including lack of system/software interoperability and electronic health records that make it difficult for practitioners to access and/or input data.

New Program Brings That Warm And Fuzzy Feeling.

Fostering two baby kittens draws out residents to reminisce about their pasts, engaging with others.

Online Courses Open Learning Opportunities.

Training programs on the internet have become a convenient and popular resource for providers and their staff members.

The Accelerated Pace Of The Short-Stay Patient.

Everything moves faster in the rehab arena, from the time it takes to get to know patients, to the time it takes to get them ready to go home.

Controlled Substances Add New Layer to E-Prescribing.

The Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances (EPCS) program was established by the Drug Enforcement Administration to allow health facilities to use electronic transmission and other modern technology for prescribing controlled substances and replacing old technology such as fax. Its goal is to eliminate fraud, abuse, and diversion of controlled medications while streamlining the processes of making them more easily available to patients in need. While rules regarding EPCS have the potential to improve care and give practitioners more data for quality improvement, they also may create new challenges for practitioners, facilities, and vendors alike.

The Business of Bundling: Joining Forces on Joint Replacement.

A mandated bundled-payment program for joint replacement is in place in several regions across the country, and practitioners such as pharmacists are still sorting out their roles in this federal initiative. To get involved, pharmacists need to establish connections with area hospitals and physician groups to promote and document their ability to manage medications, reduce and eliminate medication-related problems and rehospitalizations, and work with patients to maximize adherence and improve communication for those undergoing hip and knee replacement.

How to Hit a Home Run with Bundled Payments.

As health care payment reform continues to evolve, reimbursement increasingly is being linked to outcomes as well as to expenditures. Toward this end, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has established models for "bundled" payments to long-term care providers, using predetermined payments based on historical spending rates, in a new pay-for-performance landscape. The goal is to reward providers for quality and cost-effective care as well as penalize them for adverse patient outcomes and hospital readmissions based on the target spending rates.

Niche Markets: Filling Gaps with Expertise, Ingenuity.

Niche markets present opportunities for pharmacists to expand their presence and increase the demand for their services. These practitioners have clinical skills that they can use to improve medication management, reduce medication-related problems and hospitalizations, and enhance the quality of life for patients in specialty areas such as menopause management and women's health, hospice and palliative care, and pediatric long-term care.

Taking a Seat at the Quality Assurance Table.

Quality assurance and performance improvement are here, and pharmacists need to have a place at the table. This requires understanding the principles of quality improvement, how to track and analyze data effectively, conduct root-cause analyses, and work with the interdisciplinary team to make systems and process changes that improve quality and prevent recurrence of problems and incidences.

Filling a niche market: administering drugs by injection or infusion.

There is greater incentive than ever to keep individuals requiring injectable or infusion therapy in the nursing facility-and not transfer them to a hospital-to receive those services. There is a demand for pharmacists with the skills, knowledge, and training to provide these services. To make that possible, pharmacies and pharmacists with the proper equipment, supplies, knowledge, training, and expertise are needed to work closely with physicians and nurses to provide sterile, properly compounded products and ensure that drugs are administered appropriately and in the right doses.

Pharmacists' Stellar experience can create Five-Star Success.

The evolving health care system has put an increasing emphasis on balancing quality, outcomes, and costs. As part of this evolution, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is using a Five-Star Quality Rating System to evaluate the quality of care provided by Medicare Advantage and Part D prescription drug plans. At the same time, drug plans are using a Five-Star system to rate pharmacies, which contribute to the CMS ratings of nursing facilities.

No more excuses: why pharmacists need to take their e-savvy up a Notch.

While e-prescribing is not a new concept in health care, long-term care has been slow to adopt this technology, even as facilities, practitioners, and others have embraced electronic health records (EHRs). Despite the benefits of e-prescribing, including fewer adverse events and medication-related problems, issues such as lack of interoperability created barriers to widespread and effective use of this technology. However, new regulations and the growing use of EHRs in long-term care have created a new urgency for the use of e-prescribing.