Stakeholder views on requiring diagnosis or clinical indication on e-prescriptions.

Background: Medication safety organizations have been recommending the inclusion of diagnosis or clinical indication on prescription orders for decades. However, this information is typically not provided by prescribers and shared with pharmacists, despite the availability of data fields in the most commonly used standard for electronic prescriptions.

Objective: To elucidate the views of selected industry stakeholders relative to perceived barriers to including diagnosis or indication on all electronic prescriptions.

Is it getting hot in here? The effects of VR headset microclimate temperature on perceived thermal discomfort, VR sickness, and skin temperature.

Thermal discomfort is a driver of negative user experiences with modern VR headsets since they are similar to head-worn gaming computers. Here, we examined the effect of microclimate temperature (MCT; i.e.

A Critical Look at Student Evaluations of Teaching.

Student evaluations of teaching are used at many schools and colleges of pharmacy as the primary, often exclusive, means of assessing the quality of instruction and instructor performance. As such, they can be pivotal in annual performance evaluations and rank and tenure decisions. However, serious concerns have been raised about these ubiquitous surveys and how, or even if, they should be used to measure the quality of instruction or the performance of the instructor.

Indication or diagnosis should be required on prescriptions.

Although prospective drug utilization review and patient counseling have long been recognized as professional and ethical responsibilities of pharmacists, the implementation of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 made them legal responsibilities. Ensuring the safety and effectiveness of prescription pharmaceutical care requires that all members of the prescriber-patient-pharmacist triad are equally informed about the therapeutic plan for which the pharmacist is professionally, ethically, and legally responsible for properly implementing. Providing pharmacists with the clinical indication or diagnosis is an important and long overdue first step.

Prescriber and pharmacist attitudes toward inclusion of diagnosis or clinical indication on prescription orders.

Background: Pharmacy and medication safety organizations have long recommended that diagnosis or clinical indication be required on medication orders to improve the safety and effectiveness of care.

Objective: To assess attitudes of Arizona prescribers and pharmacists toward the inclusion of the clinical indication or the diagnosis on prescription orders and perceived barriers to its implementation in Arizona.

Methods: Data were obtained by questionnaires from pharmacists and primary care prescribers after a continuing pharmacy education presentation on the value of including a clinical indication or a diagnosis on prescription orders.

Work Group Report: COVID-19: Unmasking Telemedicine.

Telemedicine adoption has rapidly accelerated since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Telemedicine provides increased access to medical care and helps to mitigate risk by conserving personal protective equipment and providing for social/physical distancing to continue to treat patients with a variety of allergic and immunologic conditions. During this time, many allergy and immunology clinicians have needed to adopt telemedicine expeditiously in their practices while studying the complex and variable issues surrounding its regulation and reimbursement.

To Reform Pharmacy Reimbursement Begin with the Basics.

No funding supported the writing of this commentary. The author has nothing to disclose.

Assessing the Quality of Pharmacy Care: It's Not About Adherence.

No funding supported the writing of this article. The author has nothing to disclose.

Encouraging Students to Challenge Assumptions.

Sound logical reasoning requires a critical examination of all available evidence and the willingness and ability to challenge key assumptions implicit in the conclusions we reach and the informed decisions we make. Student pharmacists should be encouraged to recognize and challenge assumptions that practicing pharmacists frequently make, which threaten patient safety.

10 ways to improve medication safety in community pharmacies.

Data Sources: Not applicable.

Summary: Since at least the time of Hippocrates, health care providers have recognized their responsibility to protect patients from potential harm resulting from the care they provide. In pharmacy, such harm typically results from a violation of any of the "5 rights" of safe medication use.

Examining associations between action game play and motor control.

The effects of playing action video games have been investigated across a wide range of attentional and cognitive abilities. However, few studies have examined the association between motor control and action gaming experience. We report data from two discrete pointing tasks, manipulating the index of difficulty (ID) by movement distance and target size, respectively.

The role of individual differences on perceptions of wearable fitness device trust, usability, and motivational impact.

Lack of physical activity is a severe health concern in the United States with fewer than half of all Americans meeting the recommended weekly physical activity guidelines. Although wearable fitness devices can be effective in motivating people to be active, consumers are abandoning this technology soon after purchase. We examined the impact of several user (i.

Assessing Quality of Care in Pharmacy: Remembering Donabedian.

Unlabelled: While some incremental and fragmented progress has been made in recent years, assessing the quality of care provided by pharmacists and pharmacy organizations remains an elusive goal. Revisiting the simple, elegant model of quality assessment originally proposed by physician and scholar Avedis Donabedian can assist pharmacy quality managers to develop a more comprehensive approach to measuring, monitoring, and managing the quality of care.

Disclosures: No funding supported the writing of this article.

Quality and Variability of Patient Directions in Electronic Prescriptions in the Ambulatory Care Setting.

Background: The prescriber's directions to the patient (Sig) are one of the most quality-sensitive components of a prescription order. Owing to their free-text format, the Sig data that are transmitted in electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions) have the potential to produce interpretation challenges at receiving pharmacies that may threaten patient safety and also negatively affect medication labeling and patient counseling. Ensuring that all data transmitted in the e-prescription are complete and unambiguous is essential for minimizing disruptions in workflow at prescribers' offices and receiving pharmacies and optimizing the safety and effectiveness of patient care.

Evaluation of a guided continuous quality improvement program in community pharmacies.

Background: The importance of creating and sustaining a strong culture of patient safety has been recognized as a critical component of safe medication use. This study aims to assess changes in attitudes toward patient safety culture and frequency of quality-related event (QRE) reporting after guided implementation of a continuous quality improvement (CQI) program in a panel of community pharmacies in the United States (U.S.

Searching for Affective and Cognitive Restoration: Examining the Restorative Effects of Casual Video Game Play.

Objective: We investigated the effects of a passive break, relaxation activity, and casual video game on affect, stress, engagement, and cognitive performance.

Background: Reducing stress and improving cognitive performance is critical across many domains. Previous studies investigated taking a break, relaxation techniques, or playing a game; however, these methods have not been compared within a single experiment.

Apocalypse Now?

Despite the wishful thinking of those who have long prophesied an imminent surge in demand for clinical pharmacists, the tipping point for healthy supply-demand balance in pharmacy has almost certainly been surpassed. Imprudent overbuilding of pharmacy programs has combined with trends toward increasing automation and consolidation in pharmacy practice to create an existential threat in pharmacy education. Surviving the looming industry shakeout will require schools and colleges of pharmacy to do what our colleagues in practice and the private sector have always done: compete.

Improving Clinical Decision Support in Pharmacy: Toward the Perfect DUR Alert.

Unlabelled: The cornerstone of every health care profession is decision making. Historically, the decisions made by pharmacists have focused on ensuring the accuracy and physical integrity of the pharmaceutical product delivered to the patient in strict compliance with the prescriber's order. As the role of the pharmacist evolved over the past half century, the focus of decision making progressively shifted from a product-centric orientation to optimizing the interaction that occurs between the pharmaceutical product and the patient.

Driving under the influence of distraction: Examining dissociations between risk perception and engagement in distracted driving.

Driving while distracted is a critical and unwavering problem in the United States leading to numerous injuries and fatalities each year. While increasing legislation and developing technological interventions strive to ensure we only focus on driving, individuals still drive distracted. We surveyed college-aged adults to examine the factors that influence both their risk perception of driving while distracted and how often they engage in distracting activities and situations while driving.

Analysis of Prescribers' Notes in Electronic Prescriptions in Ambulatory Practice.

Importance: The optional free-text Notes field in ambulatory electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions) allows prescribers to communicate additional prescription-related information to dispensing pharmacists. However, populating this field with irrelevant or inappropriate information can create confusion, workflow disruptions, and potential patient harm.

Objectives: To analyze the content of free-text prescriber notes in new ambulatory e-prescriptions and to develop recommendations to improve e-prescribing practices.