Publications by authors named "R F Costantino"
Background: Untreated low back pain (LBP) in older adults can lead to disability and development of chronicity. Due to the potential development of medical comorbidities and negative risks associated with pharmacological use, chronic LBP management for older adults requires a responsive approach.
Methods: The objective of this study is to evaluate the probability of (1) opioid prescription receipt and (2) opioid-sedative coprescription, in a sample of military-service-connected patients enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) or TRICARE, ages 30-85 years, receiving care in three systems: VHA, Military Health System (MHS), and nonfederal (civilian) healthcare facilities.
Cardiac tumors, due to the various clinical scenarios and their histological subtypes, are still challenging for clinicians. They are differentiated into primary and secondary. The latest are more common and are usually lung and breast cancers, melanomas, and lymphoma metastasis.
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- The Defense Health Agency includes over 700 facilities and serves more than 9.6 million beneficiaries, relying on pharmacists to improve medication therapy and reduce costs.
- The Tripler Pilot Project established a staffing model suggesting one clinical pharmacist for every 6,500 beneficiaries, but a comprehensive cost-benefit study of clinical pharmacists within the military health care system is lacking.
- The study aims to validate this staffing model, provide a cost-benefit analysis, and document pharmacy interventions by analyzing three years of clinical pharmacist encounters through the Tri-Service Workflow, focusing on the impact of staffing and efficiency on health care provision.
Timely diagnosis of systemic mastocytosis (SM) remains challenging because of care heterogeneity. We implemented a standardized approach for SM screening and diagnosis using a novel health care system-wide international screening registry. A retrospective analysis assessed rates of SM, cutaneous mastocytosis (CM), and molecular diagnoses before and 2 years after care standardization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The purpose of this study was to conduct a general educational needs assessment to identify deficiencies in current Army pharmacy education while projecting future educational requirements based on changes in pharmacy practice and evolving demands of military medicine.
Materials And Methods: Twelve pharmacists participated in a facilitated discussion using the nominal group technique. Data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods to establish consensus.