Total cost of care of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries participating in an appointment-based model in a national pharmacy chain.

Background: The appointment-based model (ABM) is a pharmacy service to improve medication-related health outcomes. ABM involves medication synchronization and medication review, plus other services such as medication reconciliation, medication therapy management, vaccine administration, and multimedication packaging. ABM can improve medication adherence, but the economic impact is unknown.

Spin-orbit interactions in plasmonic crystals probed by site-selective cathodoluminescence spectroscopy.

The study of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) of light is crucial to explore the light-matter interactions in sub-wavelength structures. By designing a plasmonic lattice with chiral configuration that provides parallel angular momentum and spin components, one can trigger the strength of the SOC phenomena in photonic or plasmonic crystals. Herein, we explore the SOC in a plasmonic crystal, both theoretically and experimentally.

A systematic review of primary care-focused, self-reported medication adherence tools.

Background: Clinician recognition of nonadherence is generally low. Tools that clinicians have used to assess medication adherence are self-reported adherence instruments that ask patients questions about their medication use experience. There is a need for more structured reviews that help clinicians comprehensively distinguish which tool might be most useful and valuable for their clinical setting and patient populations.

Injection-limited and space charge-limited currents in organic semiconductor devices with nanopatterned metal electrodes.

Charge injection at metal-organic interfaces often limits the electric current in organic light-emitting diodes without additional injection layers. Integrated nanopatterned electrodes may provide a way to overcome this current injection limit by local field enhancements leading to locally space charge-limited currents. We compare electrical characteristics of planar and nanopatterned hole-only devices based on the charge transport material NPB with different thicknesses in order to investigate the nanopattern's effect on the current limitation mechanism.

Improving care transitions through medication therapy management: A community partnership to reduce readmissions in multiple health-systems.

Objectives: The primary objective was to measure the impact of a pharmacist-provided medication therapy management program on 30-day postdischarge readmission rates. The secondary study objectives were to characterize the number and types of pharmacist interventions, to determine the impact of the intervention on primary and secondary medication nonadherence, and to measure patient satisfaction with the intervention.

Design: Randomized, clinical trial.

Addressing primary nonadherence: A collaboration between a community pharmacy and a large pediatric clinic.

Objectives: To decrease nonadherence rates through the design and implementation of a collaborative prescription management program involving a community pharmacy and a large pediatric primary care center.

Practice Innovation: Kroger and Cincinnati Children's Pediatric Primary Care Center collaborated to identify and address patients' barriers to filling new prescriptions. After filling new medications for clinic patients, pharmacists telephoned patients to inform them that their prescription was ready and to reinforce the importance of initiating the therapy.

Poverty, Transportation Access, and Medication Nonadherence.

Background And Objectives: Variability in primary medication nonadherence (PMN), or failure to fill a new prescription, influences disparities and widens equity gaps. This study sought to evaluate PMN across 1 metropolitan area and assess relationships with underlying zip code-level measures.

Methods: This was a retrospective observational study using data extracted from 1 regional community pharmacy market-share leader (October 2016-April 2017).

An appointment-based model to systematically assess and administer vaccinations.

Objectives: To incorporate the assessment of vaccination status and administration of vaccines in an appointment-based model (ABM) and measure the impact on vaccinations administered and patient and pharmacist satisfaction with the appointment-based model.

Practice Description: An ABM was implemented to systematically assess vaccination status and administer vaccines. Patients made an appointment to pick up synchronized prescriptions, and pharmacists assessed vaccination histories and administered vaccinations during the appointment.

Appointment-based models: A comparison of three model designs in a large chain community pharmacy setting.

Objectives: To compare the effects of 3 different appointment-based model (ABM) designs on medication adherence and medication use outcomes controlling for patient and pharmacy characteristics.

Methods: This study was a retrospective cohort analysis in a large grocery store chain from January 1, 2012, to October 31, 2015. A total of 500 comparison and 613 intervention patients in 3 different model designs were analyzed.

Bone Morphogenetic Protein 2 Coordinates Early Tooth Mineralization.

Formation of highly organized dental hard tissues is a complex process involving sequential and ordered deposition of an extracellular scaffold, followed by its mineralization. Odontoblast and ameloblast differentiation involves reciprocal and sequential epithelial-mesenchymal interactions. Similar to early tooth development, various Bmps are expressed during this process, although their functions have not been explored in detail.

Community pharmacist collaboration with a patient-centered medical home: Establishment of a patient-centered medical neighborhood and payment model.

Objectives: To determine the feasibility of a partnership between a community pharmacy and a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) by measuring the impact on office- and patient-level clinical outcomes.

Setting: Kroger Pharmacy and a PCMH practice in Cincinnati, OH.

Practice Description: The Kroger Co.

Clinical outcomes of switching from insulin glargine to NPH insulin in indigent patients at a charitable pharmacy: The Charitable Insulin NPH: Care for the Indigent study.

Objectives: To assess the clinical outcomes of indigent patients with type 2 diabetes served by a charitable pharmacy after therapy change from insulin glargine to NPH insulin.

Design: This was a 24-week prospective pilot study.

Setting: Community charitable pharmacy.

Pediatric asthma medication therapy management through community pharmacy and primary care collaboration.

Objectives: To design and implement a collaborative medication therapy management (MTM) program targeting pediatric patients with high-risk asthma in a community pharmacy.

Setting: Underserved inner city of Cincinnati, OH.

Practice Description: A large national grocery store chain pharmacy and an academic hospital developed a partnership aimed at improving asthma care for shared patients.

Malformations of the tooth root in humans.

The most common root malformations in humans arise from either developmental disorders of the root alone or disorders of radicular development as part of a general tooth dysplasia. The aim of this review is to relate the characteristics of these root malformations to potentially disrupted processes involved in radicular morphogenesis. Radicular morphogenesis proceeds under the control of Hertwig's epithelial root sheath (HERS) which determines the number, length, and shape of the root, induces the formation of radicular dentin, and participates in the development of root cementum.

TransitionRx: Impact of community pharmacy postdischarge medication therapy management on hospital readmission rate.

Objectives: To determine if a community pharmacy-based transition of care (TOC) program that included the full scope of medication therapy management (MTM) services (TransitionRx) decreased hospital readmissions, resolved medication-related problems, and increased patient satisfaction.

Design: Prospective, quasi-experimental study.

Setting: Nine Kroger Pharmacies located in Western Cincinnati.

Health Beliefs Describing Patients Enrolling in Community Pharmacy Disease Management Programs.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to survey new enrollees in a community pharmacy, employer-based diabetes and hypertension coaching program to describe the characteristics, health beliefs, and cues to action of newly enrolled participants.

Methods: A 70-question, 5-point Likert-type survey was developed using constructs from the Health Belief Model (HBM), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). New enrollees in the coaching programs completed the survey.

Pathogens and host immunity in the ancient human oral cavity.

Calcified dental plaque (dental calculus) preserves for millennia and entraps biomolecules from all domains of life and viruses. We report the first, to our knowledge, high-resolution taxonomic and protein functional characterization of the ancient oral microbiome and demonstrate that the oral cavity has long served as a reservoir for bacteria implicated in both local and systemic disease. We characterize (i) the ancient oral microbiome in a diseased state, (ii) 40 opportunistic pathogens, (iii) ancient human-associated putative antibiotic resistance genes, (iv) a genome reconstruction of the periodontal pathogen Tannerella forsythia, (v) 239 bacterial and 43 human proteins, allowing confirmation of a long-term association between host immune factors, 'red complex' pathogens and periodontal disease, and (vi) DNA sequences matching dietary sources.

Dental phenotype in Jalili syndrome due to a c.1312 dupC homozygous mutation in the CNNM4 gene.

Jalili syndrome denotes a recessively inherited combination of an eye disease (cone-rod dystrophy) and a dental disorder (amelogenesis imperfecta), which is caused by mutations in the CNNM4 gene. Whereas the ophthalmic consequences of these mutations have been studied comprehensively, the dental phenotype has obtained less attention. A defective transport of magnesium ions by the photoreceptors of the retina is assumed to account for the progressive visual impairment.

Impact of the pay-for-performance-for-patients program for diabetes management.

Objectives: To determine whether patients with diabetes who used a financial rewards program in a grocery chain pharmacy had increased rates of self-reported healthy behaviors, to measure the impact of the program on glycosylated hemoglobin (A1C), and to measure the impact of the program on grocery store sales.

Methods: This prospective study took place at one location of a grocery chain pharmacy in Cincinnati, OH. Adult patients with diabetes on at least one diabetes medication were eligible to participate.

U.S. emergency departments visits resulting from poor medication adherence: 2005-07.

Objectives: To describe characteristics and trends for emergency department visits related to medication nonadherence and to identify associations between patient characteristics and emergency department visits related to medication nonadherence.

Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study.

Setting: National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) from 2005 to 2007.

Root malformation associated with a cervical mineralized diaphragm--a distinct form of tooth abnormality?

Objective: Deviations in length and shape of tooth roots result from hard tissue resorption or occur as a developmental disorder. The purpose of this report is to present a type of root malformation which seems to have gone unreported so far.

Study Design: Two patients showing severely dysplastic roots of all permanent first molars were evaluated using radiography, histology as well as scanning and transmission electron microscopy.

Resorption pattern and radiographic diagnosis of invasive cervical resorption. A correlative microCT, scanning electron and light microscopic evaluation of a case series.

The aim of this study was to evaluate, whether and how the histologic structure of invasive cervical resorption (external granulomas) affect their clinical radiographic diagnosis. For this purpose, nine more or less intact extracted teeth, of which intraoral radiographs were available, were processed for examination in the scanning electron (SEM) and light microscope. From some of the specimens non-decalcified ground sections were prepared and some were decalcified for preparation of histologic sections.

Electron microscopy.

Correlative light (LM) and transmission electron microscopic (TEM) analysis is useful, if ultrastructural details of cells need to be related to functional aspects which can only be examined at the LM level. The first protocol presented here introduces a relatively simple way of obtaining TEM images which, on the one hand, reveal ultrastructural details of individual cells and, on the other hand, are large enough to allow a correlation with light micrographs. The second protocol describes a technique for estimating mineral densities of hard tissues using backscattered electron images obtained with a scanning electron microscope.

E-cadherin regulates the behavior and fate of epithelial stem cells and their progeny in the mouse incisor.

Stem cells are essential for the regeneration and homeostasis of many organs, such as tooth, hair, skin, and intestine. Although human tooth regeneration is limited, a number of animals have evolved continuously growing teeth that provide models of stem cell-based organ renewal. A well-studied model is the mouse incisor, which contains dental epithelial stem cells in structures known as cervical loops.