Student pharmacist opioid risk consultations: a pre-post educational intervention study.

Objectives: The primary aim was to assess third year student pharmacists' communication skills about opioid risks and safety before and after an educational intervention. This assessment was utilized to identify gaps that skills training programmes need to address for students and pharmacists.

Methods: Seventy-one students in 2018 (pre-intervention/baseline) and 133 students in 2019 (post-intervention) were videotaped during consultation with standardized patients receiving opioid medications for low back pain.

Caffeine dosing in premature neonates: impact of birth weight on a pharmacokinetic simulation study.

Background: The optimal caffeine dosing in extremely premature neonates remains elusive. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of birth weight on caffeine pharmacokinetics and various dosing regimens.

Methods: In this pharmacokinetic simulation study, we generated the body weights (0-49 days of postnatal age [PNA]) of neonates <28 weeks gestational age with different birth weights (550, 750, and 1050 g).

A tale of two analyses: Administrative vs primary review of nutrition support team performance.

Background: Our pharmacy department performed a medication-use evaluation using administrative data to assess prescription of parenteral nutrition (PN). They found that 31.6% (185 of 586) of nutrition support team (NST) patients received ≤5 days of PN, whereas 120 received ≤3 days.

Communication between patients and health care professionals about opioid medications.

Prescription opioids contribute to 40% of opioid overdose deaths in the United States. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) play an important role in mitigating the prescription opioid epidemic by appropriate opioid prescribing and patient education. Yet, little empirical literature addresses pharmacist (and other HCP) communication with patients related to risks of opioid use associated with dependence, misuse, and overdose.

CancelRx implementation: Observed changes to medication discontinuation workflows over time.

Introduction: When patients are seen in an ambulatory outpatient clinic, such as their primary care provider's office, the prescriber often stops or discontinues medications. Although medication discontinuations are documented in the clinic's health record, this information may not be communicated to the pharmacy. Within the last decade, CancelRx has attempted to address this issue by sending a message from the clinic to the pharmacy when a medication has been discontinued or changed.

Pharmacists' naloxone offering and dispensing practices.

Objective: The primary objective of this paper is to understand pharmacists' naloxone offering and dispensing practices and factors affecting those practices. The secondary objective of this paper is to refine an existing survey instrument and use it to understand pharmacists' naloxone offering and dispensing behaviors and factors affecting it.

Design, Settings, And Participants: A statewide mail survey of pharmacists was conducted in Wisconsin using stratified random sampling.

Pain Plan Implementation Effect: Analysis of Postoperative Opioid Use, Hospital Length of Stay, and Clinic Resource Utilization for Patients Undergoing Elective Spine Surgery.

Introduction: The Pain Plan was developed collaboratively and implemented a unique systematic approach to reduce opioid usage in elective spine surgery.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study comparing patients who underwent elective spine surgery before and after Pain Plan implementation. The Pain Plan was implemented on May 1, 2019.

Role of Virus-Specific T Cell Therapy for Cytomegalovirus and BK Infections in Kidney Transplant Recipients.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and BK virus (BKV) are common viral infections after kidney transplant. Their negative effects on patient and graft outcomes have been well described. However, despite improvement in screening and prophylaxis strategies, CMV and BKV continue to negatively affect both short- and long-term graft survival.

Using A Work System Framework to Investigate Pharmacists' Roles in Cystic Fibrosis Management.

Objective: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease that requires complex, lifelong treatment regimens to maintain health and reduce disease progression. The aims of this study were 1) to gain the perspectives of multiple health professions to understand medication and well-being challenges of people living with CF; and 2) to apply the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) model to further identify opportunities for pharmacists to support people with CF.

Methods: Health care professionals were recruited from a Cystic Fibrosis Center in the Midwest, to participate in audio-recorded semistructured interviews.

Engaging Patient Advisory Boards of African American Community Members with Type 2 Diabetes in Implementing and Refining a Peer-Led Medication Adherence Intervention.

African Americans are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be diagnosed with and die from diabetes. A contributing factor to these health disparities is African Americans' poor diabetes medication adherence that is due in part to sociocultural barriers (e.g.

Preparing for the spread of patient-reported outcome (PRO) data collection from primary care to community pharmacy: a mixed-methods study.

Background: Medication non-adherence is a significant public health problem. Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) offer a rich data source to facilitate resolution of medication non-adherence. PatientToc™ is an electronic PRO data collection software originally implemented at primary care practices in California, United States (US).

Impact of CancelRx on discontinuation of controlled substance prescriptions: an interrupted time series analysis.

Background: Prescription opioid misuse is a serious national crisis; in 2018 the top drugs involved in prescription overdose deaths included pain medications (opioids), benzodiazepines, and stimulants. Health information technology (health IT) provides a means to address this crisis through technologies that streamline the prescribing and discontinuation process. CancelRx is a health IT function that communicates when medications, such as controlled substances, are discontinued at the clinic and therefore should not be filled at the pharmacy.

Assessment of a two-school collaborative telepharmacy simulation.

Background And Purpose: The objectives of this study were to implement and assess a telepharmacy simulation for third-year students at two universities.

Educational Activity And Setting: Using telepharmacy, students completed a prescription verification activity and a patient counseling activity. Students completed surveys at baseline and after both activities.

PRIMUS - Prompt Initiation of Maintenance Therapy in the US: A Real-World Analysis of Clinical and Economic Outcomes Among Patients Initiating Triple Therapy Following a COPD Exacerbation.

Purpose: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may experience moderate (requiring outpatient care) or severe (requiring hospitalization) disease exacerbations. Guidelines recommend escalation from dual to triple therapy (inhaled corticosteroid + long-acting beta agonist + long-acting muscarinic antagonist) after two moderate or one severe exacerbation in a year. This study examined whether prompt initiation of triple therapy lowers risk of future exacerbations and reduces healthcare costs, compared to delayed/very delayed triple therapy after an exacerbation.

Adolescents' Perceptions About Cancer and Preferences for Cancer Education.

Background: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death within the United States. Adolescence remains a critical stage of development in which new cognitive skills and lifestyle factors related to cancer are acquired. It is critical to understand adolescents' knowledge of cancer and preferences for receiving clear and easy-to-comprehend information about cancer and cancer prevention.

Exploring Youth Perceptions About Cancer Prevention and Preferences for Education: a Qualitative Study.

This study aimed to characterize adolescents' perspectives on cancer and cancer prevention and to explore their preferences for cancer education. A total of 188 middle and high school students participated in 25 focus groups. Focus groups were led by study team members and included five to ten participants each.

Pharmacists opioid risk and safety counseling practices: A latent class analysis approach.

Background: The opioid crisis is a global public health issue, especially present in the United States. Limited research addresses pharmacists' opioid medication counseling practices particularly their risk and safety counseling practices.

Objectives: The objective of this paper is to categorize pharmacists based on their opioid risk and safety counseling practices to inform future interventions and research to improve practice.

Preparing Graduate Students for Community Engagement in Health Services Research.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the importance of didactic and experiential training in community engagement for students conducting Health Services Research (HSR) in pharmacy. The incorporation of community-based learning (CBL) courses can be beneficial for graduate students because they provide an opportunity to gain important skills in stakeholder engagement and developing sustainable research partnerships. Early exposure and mentorship of graduate students through CBL courses could minimize the risk of students entering communities in their future careers with harmful tactics such as stereotypes and implicit biases.

Impact of a novel project management course sequence on innovative thinking in pharmacy students.

Background: As healthcare continues to become more complex, pharmacist innovators have worked to advance the profession and expand the role of the pharmacist on the healthcare team. Accreditation standards for schools of pharmacy recognize the importance of developing future pharmacist innovators capable of making positive change in the profession, but there are limited resources available on how to best instill innovative thinking in student pharmacists.

Educational Activity: A two-semester elective course sequence was created for third-year doctor of pharmacy students requiring completion of a longitudinal quality improvement project at a partnering health system.

Expert Consensus to Finalize a Universal Evaluator Rubric to Assess Pharmacy Students' Patient Communication Skills.

To use an expert consensus-building process to develop a rubric used by multiple evaluator types to assess Doctor of Pharmacy students' patient communication skills. Faculty and staff members from six schools and colleges of pharmacy collaborated on a multi-step expert consensus-building process to create the final version of a communication rubric. First, faculty and patient content experts evaluated each item in the rubric for its relevance, criticality, and global comprehensiveness using a five-point Likert scale (0=not at all, 4=to a high extent).

Utilizing a cognitive engineering approach to conduct a hierarchical task analysis to understand complex older adult decision-making during over-the-counter medication selection.

Background: Adults aged 65+ (older adults) disproportionately consume 30% of over-the-counter (OTC) medications and are largely responsible for making OTC treatment decisions because providers lack awareness of their consumption. These treatment decisions are complex: older adults must navigate age-related body/cognitive changes, developed comorbidities, and complex medication regimens when selecting the right OTC. Yet little is known about how older adults make such decisions.

Changes to summative skills-based assessments within the Big Ten Academic Alliance Performance-Based Assessment Collaborative (BTAA-PBAC) due to COVID-19.

Background: In Spring 2020 many academic institutions transitioned to remote learning in response to the developing COVID-19 pandemic. These changes affected skills-based training, as schools of pharmacy were forced to transition traditionally in-person assessments to a remote setting. The purpose of this article is to describe the experience of pharmacy skills lab coordinators when transitioning summative skills-based assessments (SSBA).

Development of the Adolescent Opioid Safety and Learning (AOSL) scale using exploratory factor analysis.

Background: While adolescents in the United States are one of the most affected groups by the opioid crisis, their perceptions on opioid misuse and preferences for education are rarely studied. Although it is critical to educate adolescents on proper opioid use and storage, many educational tools need easy measurement scales to systematically document learning of targeted programs. It is essential to understand adolescents' knowledge about opioid risks and perceptions about the opioid crisis to design effective preventive interventions.