Impact of Pharmacist Inhaler Prescribing at Discharge for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease on Readmission Rates.

Background: Acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD) is one of the six conditions in the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program for which institutions are penalized for high 30-day readmission rates. This institution's Transitions of Care (TOC) pharmacists have prescribing authority to optimize guideline-directed medical therapy (GDMT), defined as discharging on rescue plus triple therapy inhalers under an approved protocol. While several studies evaluate the impact of pharmacist-led interventions on COPD readmission rates, there is a lack of literature with respect to pharmacists prescribing inhalers under an approved protocol.

Probing the metabolic aberrations underlying mutant huntingtin toxicity in yeast and assessing their degree of preservation in humans and mice.

Metabolomics is a powerful multiparameter tool for evaluating phenotypic traits associated with disease processes. We have used (1)H NMR metabolome profiling to characterize metabolic aberrations in a yeast model of Huntington's disease that are attributable to the mutant huntingtin protein's gain-of-toxic-function effects. A group of 11 metabolites (alanine, acetate, galactose, glutamine, glycerol, histidine, proline, succinate, threonine, trehalose, and valine) exhibited significant concentration changes in yeast expressing the N-terminal fragment of a mutant human huntingtin gene.