A discussion of one system designed for monitoring drug therapy in skilled nursing facility (SNF) patients is presented. This system will enable the pharmacist to fulfill the federal requirement for monitoring drug th...
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A discussion of one system designed for monitoring drug therapy in skilled nursing facility (SNF) patients is presented. This system will enable the pharmacist to fulfill the federal requirement for monitoring drug therapy and will provide the opportunity for gathering and analyzing drug usage data in fulfillment of the facility's utilization review requirement. The system described was developed and tested at five SNF's. Follow-up studies at each of the five facilities were then performed for comparison purposes. The data presented describe and analyze the results from both studies for two of the ten drugs studied: Digoxin and hydrochlorothiazide. The high rates of nonconformance to the established criteria are discussed and specific insights as to why drug therapy in these patients often seems inappropriate are provided.
The compliance with treatment of acute otitis media in 300 pediatric outpatients was evaluated. Complete compliance in taking prescribed antibiotics was noted in 7.3% of the patients. Pharmacists dispensed less than p...
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The compliance with treatment of acute otitis media in 300 pediatric outpatients was evaluated. Complete compliance in taking prescribed antibiotics was noted in 7.3% of the patients. Pharmacists dispensed less than prescribed amounts of antibiotics to 15% of patients. Bottles were incorrectly labeled 3% of the time. Volumes of 130 “teaspoons” examined varied from 2 to 9 ml. Parental understanding of the illness and of the effects of medication was inadequate and erroneous in many instances. Parents gave fewer than the prescribed number of doses in 36% of cases, and therapy was discontinued early in 37%. Recommendations for improving the quality of therapy for ambulatory pediatric patients are outlined.
Private pharmacies are an important source of health care in developing countries. A number of studies have documented deficiencies in treatment, but little has been done to improve practices. We conducted two control...
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Private pharmacies are an important source of health care in developing countries. A number of studies have documented deficiencies in treatment, but little has been done to improve practices. We conducted two controlled trials to determine the efficacy of face-to-face educational outreach in improving communication and product sales for cases of diarrhoea in children in 194 private pharmacies in two developing countries. A training guide was developed to enable a national diarrhoea control programme to identify problems and their causes in pharmacies, using quantitative and qualitative research methods. The guide also facilitates the design, implementation, and evaluation of an educational intervention, which includes brief one-on-one meetings between diarrhoea programme educators and pharmacists/owners, followed by one small group training session with all counter attendants working in the pharmacies. We evaluated the short-term impact of this intervention using a before-and-after comparison group design in Kenya, and a randomized controlled design in Indonesia, with the pharmacy as unit of analysis in both countries (n = 107 pharmacies in Kenya;n = 87 in Indonesia). Using trained surrogate patients posing as mothers of a child under five with diarrhoea, we measured sales of oral rehydration salts (ORS);sales of antidiarrhoeal agents;and history-taking and advice to continue fluids and food. We also measured knowledge about dehydration and drugs to treat diarrhoea among Kenyan pharmacy employees after training. Major discrepancies were found at baseline between reported and observed behaviour. For example, 66% of pharmacy attendants in Kenya, and 53% in Indonesia, reported selling ORS for the previous case of child diarrhoea, but in only 33% and 5% of surrogate patient visits was ORS actually sold for such cases. After training, there was a significant increase in knowledge about diarrhoea and its treatment among counter attendants in Kenya, where these changes we
Objectives: This study explored advice-giving behaviour in community pharmacies in order to understand the nature and process of pharmaceutical consultations and consumers' views of the advice-giving role. Method:...
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Objectives: This study explored advice-giving behaviour in community pharmacies in order to understand the nature and process of pharmaceutical consultations and consumers' views of the advice-giving role. Method: An ethnographic research strategy was used, combining patient interviews with non-participant observation of interactions between consumers and pharmacy staff. One week was spent in each of 10 pharmacies. Results: The study demonstrated that the advice given in a community pharmacy is almost wholly focused on product recommendation and use. Advice-giving varies according to whether consultations concern prescription or non-prescription medicines. When the latter are involved, advice-giving is mostly consumer-led. Consumers' major 'need' for pharmacy services appears to be for information about the effectiveness of products they buy, whilst pharmacists and pharmacy assistants concentrate on providing advice on the safety of medicines. Conclusion: The notion of pharmacists as general health advisors does not appear to be shared by the public and may be at odds with how the public view and use pharmacies. Protocols to guide staff may be improved by including the consumer perspective. Most consumers have previous experience of their ailments and use pharmacies as one of several resources available to them to treat their minor illness, having made their own diagnosis and assessment before entering the pharmacy. The scope for giving new advice is therefore limited. The broader role of community pharmacies merits further attention.
OBJECTIVE: To describe how developments in the pharmacy profession in The Netherlands converged into the current movement toward pharmaceutical care. SETTING: Dutch community pharmacy. DESCRIPTION: Literature was revi...
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OBJECTIVE: To describe how developments in the pharmacy profession in The Netherlands converged into the current movement toward pharmaceutical care. SETTING: Dutch community pharmacy. DESCRIPTION: Literature was reviewed for key elements of pharmacists' professional development over the last 40 years--the pharmacist-physician relationship, the pharmacist-patient relationship, the education of the pharmacist, provision of information to patients, medication surveillance, clinical pharmacy, and social pharmacy. Consideration was given to how, when and if these elements interacted and contributed to the movement toward pharmaceutical care. RESULTS: During the early years of the 20th century the professional role of the pharmacist, based on preparing medications, declined because of the increased industrial production of drugs. In The Netherlands, a number of developments, starting around 1995, led to a "reprofessionalization" movement in pharmacy, characterized by pharmacists' increased awareness of social and ethical responsibilities with respect to drugs and patients. These developments included an improved relationship between pharmacists and physicians, the implementation of clinical pharmacy and medical surveillance in daily community pharmacy practice in the 1970s and 1980s, and the increased awareness of the rights of patients to quality drug information and counseling in the 1980s and 1990s. By the end of 1980 these trends had coalesced into a professional movement supporting the need for a pharmaceutical care model of practice. CONCLUSION: Dutch pharmacy is gradually implementing pharmaceutical care in daily community practice. However, a proactive attitude, not only from the "front runners," but from all pharmacists, is desirable if pharmaceutical care is to be incorporated into routine community practice.
In a study of Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) patients, five variables were shown to be predictive of patient satisfaction with pharmacy services through multiple regression analysis. The variables of satisfacti...
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