Objective: To describe experiences with development and implementation of a compensation plan for pharmacy services delivered by pharmacists in community pharmacies.
Setting: Community pharmacy practice in Alberta, Canada.
Practice Description: Pharmacists in Alberta have one of the most progressive scopes of practice in North America. They have authority to prescribe drugs independently, administer drugs by injection, access electronic health records, and order laboratory tests.
Practice Innovation: A publicly funded compensation plan for pharmacy services was implemented in 2012. Principles that guided development of the compensation plan aimed to 1) ensure payment for pharmacy services, 2) support pharmacists in using their full scope of practice, 3) enable the development of long-term relationships with patients, 4) facilitate expansion of services delivered by pharmacists, and 5) provide access to pharmacy services for all eligible Albertans. Services covered by the compensation plan include care planning, prescribing, and administering drugs by injection.
Evaluation: The guiding principles were used to evaluate experiences with the compensation plan.
Results: Claims for pharmacy services covered by the compensation plan increased from 30,000 per month in July 2012 to 170,000 per month in March 2016. From September 2015 to August 2016, 1226 pharmacies submitted claims for services provided by 3901 pharmacists. The number of pharmacists with authorization to prescribe and administer injections continued to increase following implementation of the plan.
Conclusion: Alberta's experiences with the development and implementation of the compensation plan will be of interest to jurisdictions considering implementation of remunerated pharmacy services. The potential impact of the plan on health and economic outcomes, in addition to the value of the services as perceived by the public, patients, pharmacists, and other health care providers, should also be explored.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.japh.2017.05.004 | DOI Listing |
Med Phys
January 2025
Department of Radiation Oncology, Duke University, North Carolina, USA.
Background: The electronic compensation (ECOMP) technique for breast radiation therapy provides excellent dose conformity and homogeneity. However, the manual fluence painting process presents a challenge for efficient clinical operation.
Purpose: To facilitate the clinical treatment planning automation of breast radiation therapy, we utilized reinforcement learning (RL) to develop an auto-planning tool that iteratively edits the fluence maps under the guidance of clinically relevant objectives.
Genet Sel Evol
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Mariculture Biobreeding and Sustainable Goods, Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, Shandong, China.
Background: Family-based selective breeding programs typically employ both between-family and within-family selection in aquaculture. However, these programs may exhibit a reduced genetic gain in the presence of a genotype by environment interactions (G × E) when employing biosecurity-based breeding schemes (BS), compared to non-biosecurity-based breeding schemes (NBS). Fortunately, genomic selection shows promise in improving genetic gain by taking within-family variance into account.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt Med Case Rep J
January 2025
Department of Ophthalmology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Purpose: To compare the outcomes of two different surgical planning strategies for topography-guided repair of post-LASIK ectasia.
Methods: This is a case report of a patient presenting with post-LASIK ectasia. A retrospective chart review was used to collect details of the ophthalmic exam, as well as ocular imaging such as anterior segment optical coherence tomography and Scheimpflug corneal tomography.
JAMA Health Forum
January 2025
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Importance: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid and Marketplace insurance to nonelderly adults in 2014, but whether these policies improved outcomes later in life is unknown.
Objective: To examine whether exposure to ACA expansions during middle age (50-64 years) was associated with changes in health, utilization, and spending after these adults entered Medicare at 65 years of age.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This serial analysis of the Health and Retirement Study cohort linked to Medicare enrollment and claims data from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2018.
Biol Direct
January 2025
Department of Urology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical University, Bengbu, 233030, China.
Tumor microenvironment (TME) takes an essential part in the bladder cancer progression, which is associated with intercellular cross-talk between stroma cells and cancer. We aimed use bioinformatics tools to analyze tumor microenvironment remodeling in bladder cancer. CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE are bioinformatics tools based on deconvolution for calculating proportions of tumor-infiltrating immune cells and stromal components in TME.
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