Implementing an integrated care management program in community pharmacies: A focus on medication management services.

Objectives: To describe the initiation of a community pharmacy medication management service within a statewide integrated care management program.

Setting: One hundred twenty-three community and community health center pharmacies in 58 counties of North Carolina.

Practice Description: Independent and community health center pharmacies offering medication management as part of an integrated care management program to Medicaid, Medicare, dually eligible Medicare-Medicaid, and NC Health Choice beneficiaries in North Carolina.

Pharmacy characteristics associated with the provision of medication management services within an integrated care management program.

Objectives: To examine pharmacy operational and personnel characteristics that influence engagement in providing a community pharmacy medication management service within a statewide integrated care management program.

Methods: Before the program launch, all of the pharmacies were surveyed to collect demographic, operational, and personnel characteristics such as weekly prescription volume and number of staff, respectively. Those data were then compared with engagement in the program.

Validation of the V(max) metabolic cart in a simulated pediatric model.

Background: The ability to accurately measure resting energy expenditure (REE) using indirect calorimetry, often referred to as the "gold standard" in nutrition needs assessment, is important given the well-established positive correlation between patient outcome and proportion of the nutrition goal met. While many studies have been done to compare various metabolic carts with one another, the literature lacks a large simulator-based validation of any metabolic cart system.

Materials And Methods: In the present study, 8 specifically trained staff members independently conducted 10 simulation trials each using the V(max) Encore metabolic analyzer in conjunction with a metabolic calibration system, which simulates patient metabolic activity, to validate the accuracy of the V(max) Encore across a wide range of simulated metabolic conditions.