Patients experienced no change ALK inhibitor in HRQOL. From
the payers’ perspective, there was a significant $52 per patient per month increase in diabetes costs for both groups, with PCS fees and diabetes prescriptions accounting for most of the increase. In contrast, both groups experienced a nonsignificant but economically important 29% decrease in nondiabetes costs and a 16% decrease in all-diagnosis costs. Conclusion: A clear temporal relationship was found between PCS and improved A1c, improved patient satisfaction with pharmacy services, and decreased all-diagnosis costs. Findings from this study demonstrate that pharmacists provided effective cognitive services and refute the idea that pharmacists must be certified diabetes educators to help patients with diabetes improve clinical outcomes.”
“Objective:
To describe and explore handoffs in community pharmacy.
Design: Descriptive, exploratory, nonexperimental study.
Setting: Wisconsin, August to October 2008.
Participants: Community pharmacists.
Intervention: Brief, face-to-face, semistructured interviews.
Main outcome measure: Information on characteristics of handoffs, including the reasons for handoffs, what kind of information is shared during handoffs, and how information is shared.
Results: The overarching reasons handoffs are done in community pharmacy are because some of the necessary information is confusing, contradictory, or absent, ATM inhibitor and/or the drug product is not in stock. Handoff information typically consists of a description of the problem, the current status of the problem, what information is still needed,
and future steps to resolve the problem. Handoffs can occur synchronously during a shift change or asynchronously when one pharmacist signs out at the end of the day and another pharmacist opens the pharmacy the next morning. While synchronous handoffs are generally verbal in nature, asynchronous handoff information is primarily conveyed via paper or electronic notes on the dispensing computer system.
Conclusion: Our results suggest that handoffs do take place in community pharmacies and that the process is unstructured and variable. Future studies should fully characterize this process and explore possible strategies for improvement.”
“Objective: To measure the association of three categories of community NSC 66389 pharmacists’ subjective workload with perceived performance in pharmacists’ tasks.
Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study.
Setting: Wisconsin, September 2009.
Participants: 224 Wisconsin community pharmacists.
Intervention: Web-based or mailed survey.
Main outcome measures: Self-reported workload in task-, job-, and organization-related categories and their association with perceived performance on completing a profile review, checking the accuracy of a prescription, and providing a patient consultation for a new medication.