Clinical and economic outcomes of medication therapy management services: the Minnesota experience.

Objectives: To (1) provide medication therapy management (MTM) services to patients, (2) measure the clinical effects associated with the provision of MTM services, (3) measure the percent of patients achieving Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) goals for hypertension and hyperlipidemia in the MTM services intervention group in relationship to a comparison group who did not receive MTM services, and (4) compare patients' total health expenditures for the year before and after receiving MTM services.

Design: Prospective study.

Setting: Six ambulatory clinics in Minnesota from August 1, 2001, to July 31, 2002.

Drug therapy problems found in ambulatory patient populations in Minnesota and South Australia.

Objective: To compare drug therapy problems identified by pharmacists in two patient samples, the Minnesota Sample and the South Australian Sample.

Methods: Two patient samples were selected for this comparison. Both sets of patients received pharmaceutical care services from pharmaceutical care practitioners between March 1999 and February 2000.

Consistent standards in medication use: the need to care for patients from research to practice.

Objective: To propose adoption of practice standards for pharmacists based on the principles of pharmaceutical care that are parallel to internationally accepted ethical precepts governing clinical research.

Data Sources: Relevant literature selected by the authors.

Summary: Pharmaceutical care practice standards can create a continuum of high quality care for patients from research through practice and are presented as a rational solution to managing the benefits and risks of medication use.

The impact of pharmaceutical care practice on the practitioner and the patient in the ambulatory practice setting: twenty-five years of experience.

This manuscript reviews 25 years of experience that include developing the practice of pharmaceutical care and initiating new practices. The impact this practice has on practitioners in the ambulatory setting is described as well as data that reflect its clinical and economic impact. There is a great need to prepare new practitioners to provide pharmaceutical care.

Predictors of intracranial pathologic findings in patients who seek emergency care because of headache.

Background: Clinical criteria to select patients with headache in whom structural diagnostic studies (computed tomography) have a high yield disclosing intracranial pathologic findings, independent of abnormal findings on neurologic examination, have not been defined.

Objective: To determine which clinical characteristics predict the presence of intracranial pathologic findings, independently of neurologic examination, in patients with headache.

Design: Case-control, consecutive sample.