The Minnesota Rural Health School was established in 1996 and is administered by the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, Duluth. The program provides rural interdisciplinary clinical experiences for health professions students in seven community sites. The core disciplines include medicine, physician assistant, pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, and social work. There ...

BACKGROUND: Many studies have supported the use of standardized patients (SPs) to evaluate medical students and residents in the context of an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). However, the psychometric impact of using students as patients and raters has been studied very little, and not at all in pharmacy. PURPOSE: ...

During the late 1990s, the Internet became a popular place to purchase merchandise, and states faced a new challenge in dealing with a type of business that is not the traditional "brick and mortar." As online pharmacies became part of the spectrum of stores on the Internet, states grappled with ...

OBJECTIVE: To explore pharmacy school education and pharmacy students' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), drug use, and syringe sales to injection drug users (IDUs). DESIGN: Qualitative study of a convenience sample of pharmacy school students. SETTING: A pharmacy school in the ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine pharmacists' attitudes and practices surrounding human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention among injection drug users. DESIGN: Focus groups. SETTING: Urban and rural sites in Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Missouri. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Eight focus groups, with 4 to 11 pharmacists participating in each group. INTERVENTIONS: Transcripts of ...

The objective of the study was to follow-up on important findings from a 1996 statewide survey of Indiana pharmacists regarding their opinions and practices related to the sale of cigarettes in pharmacies. More specifically, this study was designed to (1) collect 2001 state-wide data concerning the percentage of Indiana pharmacies ...

BACKGROUND: Clinical pharmacists have been involved with family practice residencies for more than 20 years. This survey was designed to evaluate the current state of clinical pharmacy services in the family practice residency program (FPRP) in the United States. METHODS: All FPRPs were contacted to identify clinical pharmacists involved with ...

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate financial terms and legal wording in insurance contracts and negotiate their terms with companies to improve an independent pharmacy's financial position and to determine the time required to negotiate a contract and translate that time into a salary cost. SETTING: An independent pharmacy in a small town ...

I explore all the pharmacy benefit options currently available to employers. First, I discuss the design of the benefit structure, which can involve up to five tiers of drug options and three tiers of pharmacy options. Next, I discuss how the employer can overlay a cost-sharing structure on top of ...

Preceptors are widely used among supervised practice programs in dietetics education. The majority of information regarding preceptors and the preceptor model has been conducted outside of dietetics and has focused on the characteristics of a preceptor or the advantages and disadvantages to the preceptorship. The literature reveals that although many ...

OBJECTIVE: To define programmatic objectives and initial operational priorities for CommuniRes, a university-based education and support service designed to help community pharmacists successfully implement and sustain community pharmacy residency programs (CPRPs). SETTING: Advisory committee of nationally recognized experts in CPRPs in a small-group planning session. PRACTICE DESCRIPTION: CPRPs are postgraduate ...

OBJECTIVES: To examine ways in which medicines information pharmacists approach ethical dilemmas encountered in information supply, to appreciate the factors affecting any observed variation in responses, and to identify and training deficits among medicines information (MI) pharmacists in this area. METHOD: A questionnaire was circulated to all medicines information pharmacists ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess primary headache education in colleges of pharmacy during the 2000-2001 academic year. DESIGN: A survey seeking to quantify students' primary headache education was mailed to all 82 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy member schools. RESULTS: A usable response was obtained from 65 of 74 answering schools. ...

Although not a member of the EU, Norway participates in the European-wide regulatory framework for granting marketing authorization to pharmaceutical products. Maximum prices for prescription medicines are determined by the Norwegian Medicines Agency that sets pharmacy purchase prices (based on prices in other Northern European countries) and the Ministry of ...

OBJECTIVE: The authors sought to ascertain the methods used by funeral directors to determine the demographic information recorded on death certificates. METHODS: Standardized questionnaires were administered to funeral directors in five urban locations in the U.S. In addition, personnel on four Indian reservations were interviewed. Study sites were selected for ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate compliance with the single dose mass chemotherapy program for control of filariasis, and to determine factors influencing compliance in the Gampaha district. DESIGN: A prospective study employing a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire. METHODS: Four groups comprising individuals over one year old with residence in the Gampaha district for ...

Access to sterile syringes can prevent transmission of blood-borne diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B and C. We conducted survey of attitudes of pharmacists to aid in development of the Expanded Syringe Access Demonstration Program (ESAP) in New York State. ESAP is an HIV prevention initiative ...

The development of an innovative role for the pharmacy technician is described. The role of the pharmacy technician was based on a needs assessment and the expertise of the pharmacy technician selected. Initial responsibilities of the technician included chart reviews, benchmarking surveys, monthly financial impact analysis, initiative assessment, and quality ...

Providing quality pharmacy benefits while managing costs is an escalating challenge for employers. Easy solutions such as higher copays and standard three-tier systems will not provide effective, long-lasting results that include improved clinical outcomes. Employers must concentrate on educating employees on the real cost and value of their pharmacy benefits ...

The centenary of federation is occupying everyone's mind this year, and as part of their History of Pharmacy course in 2000, students at the School of Pharmacy at Curtin University in Perth were asked to give their thoughts on how Pharmacy has fared over the 100 years since the Australian ...

ELECTRONIC FILE CHARACTERISTICS: 34 files; MS Word (.DOC) embedded with MS PowerPoint (.PPT) and MS Excel (.XLS) files. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 CD-ROM; 4 3/4 in.; 1 MB. ABSTRACT: The purpose of this project was to determine the impact of a self-care intervention program coupled with a health promotion pharmacy that ...

The 1996 Medical Undergraduate course at Liverpool University provides the opportunity for second-year medical students to explore the importance of the roles of the personnel in the extended primary healthcare team. The community pharmacist is one such member that the students may not meet during a standard general practice attachment ...

The Study of Cardiovascular Risk Intervention by Pharmacists, a randomized, controlled trial in over 50 community pharmacies in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada, demonstrated that a pharmacist intervention program improved cholesterol risk management in patients at high risk for cardiovascular disease. In a substudy, costs and consequences were analyzed to describe ...

Hospice is a quickly growing field in health care in the United States. As the pharmacist's role in providing patient care to persons at the end of life increases, considerations should be given for training pharmacy students in this area. The objectives of this study were to examine the frequency ...

BACKGROUND: There is little literature available on dispensing patterns and unsupervised sale of medicines from pharmacies in developing countries. OBJECTIVE: This study obtained background information on pharmacies, assessed the level of training, knowledge and dispensing patterns of pharmacy attendants in Karachi. METHODOLOGY: This is a descriptive cross sectional study with ...

All pharmacists must develop the skills necessary to establish caring professional relationships with patients and colleagues. An absence of such relationships makes it difficult to compete for resources, motivate staff, or provide the best care to patients. Getting to know the people you spend so much of your life with ...

OBJECTIVE: In Marseille, southeastern France, HIV prevention programs for injection drug users (IDUs) simultaneously include access to sterile syringes through needle exchange programs (NEPs), legal pharmacy sales and, since 1996, vending machines that mechanically exchange new syringes for used ones. The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics ...

OBJECTIVE: To conduct an assessment of the needs and interests of West Virginia pharmacists with respect to continuing education (CE) and certificate programs (CP) versus a nontraditional PharmD program (NTP). METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted. The survey was mailed to 2800 West Virginia University School of Pharmacy alumni and ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between preadmission indicators of 49 PharmD students entering their first professional year at a new school of pharmacy and their scores on a Basic Math Skills Test (BMST). A secondary objective was to determine what factors, if any, contributed to the successful completion of the ...

The 'Rural Pharmacist Training and Support Program' was a pilot project that was conducted by the Monash University Centre for Rural Health. It examined the implementation of Pharmacy Board of Victoria Guidelines to Residential Care Facilities in the Loddon Mallee region of Victoria. Through a series of workshops, pharmacists were ...

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to determine if a selected sample of pharmacists who had attended a chemical dependency training program were performing more chemical dependency related activities than a group of American Pharmaceutical Association (APhA) members who had not had this training. Additionally, an assessment of ...

A drug-use and disease-state management (DUDSM) program was instituted in 1996 at a teaching hospital associated with a large nonprofit health care system. The program's goals are to optimize pharmacotherapeutic regimens, evaluate health outcomes of identified disease states, and evaluate the economic impact of pharmacotherapeutic options for given disease states ...

PURPOSE: Reports from various pharmacy labor market sectors suggest that the United States may be experiencing a shortage of pharmacists. To guide policy making and planning with respect to this shortage, it is necessary to develop a better understanding of the process by which pharmacists choose jobs. Using the economic ...

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the training of pharmacists in Accra, Ghana, in the syndromic management of STIs. METHODS: We randomly selected 50 pharmacy outlets that had received the training (intervention) and 50 outlets that had not received the training (no intervention). Simulated clients described the symptoms of urethral discharge to the ...

The revision and outcomes of a pharmacy consultation program on a transitional care unit (TCU) are described. In 1996, the pharmacy consultation program for the TCU at a 550-bed, tertiary care, community teaching hospital was revised. The changes included increasing the number and depth of medication reviews, mandating pharmacist attendance ...

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine whether gender affects the correct use of a metered-dose inhaler (MDI)-spacer device. DESIGN: Prospective, observational study. SETTING: University classrooms. PATIENTS: Eighty-three students in their third year of a Doctor of Pharmacy program. INTERVENTION: Students were given the device and received 20 minutes of education on its ...

Over the past decade, leaders in pharmacy education and the profession in the United States focused on responding to the role of the pharmacist in the rapidly changing health care environment. This response included moving to the Doctor of Pharmacy as the entry-level degree in the profession. Less understood and ...

Some industry experts fear the pharmacist shortage will threaten patient safety during the next few years as the demand for prescriptions increases from 3 billion to 4 billion by 2004. And while there is a growing need for pharmacists, the number of students entering pharmacy schools essentially remains stagnant year ...

OBJECTIVE: To identify and quantify additional hidden costs associated with processing third party prescriptions. DESIGN/SETTING: Using time and motion techniques, the frequency of rejected third party prescriptions and the time involved to resolve those rejections were measured in one supermarket chain pharmacy and one independent pharmacy. From this information, additional ...

This paper describes the design, development, and administration of a Web-based survey to determine the use of the Internet in clinical practice by 450 dental professionals. The survey blended principles of a controlled mail survey with data collection through a Web-based database application. The survey was implemented as a series ...

OBJECTIVE: To describe the influence of pharmacy faculty, residents, and students at a community hospital by documenting the number and types of interventions attributable to their involvement in patient-care activities. METHODS: Between September 1, 1997, and May 31, 1999, data were collected using a computerized documentation system to characterize the ...

BACKGROUND: There is growing evidence that pharmacists' interventions to solve drug-related problems are effective and cost-saving. Since 1978, under the Quebec provincial drug plan, payment for two cognitive services, the pharmaceutical opinion and the refusal to dispense a prescription, has been disbursed to community pharmacists. However, the number of claims ...

This white paper is the culmination of a 5-year commitment by the Task Force on Professionalism to study and promote pharmacy student professionalism. The Task Force is a collaborative effort involving the American Pharmaceutical Association Academy of Students of Pharmacy (APhA-ASP) and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Council ...

A hospital pharmacy's efforts to advance clinical pharmacy practice and reduce pharmacy costs as part of a hospitalwide re-engineering program are described. In 1995, a 321-bed community hospital in Wisconsin undertook a three-year re-engineering program aimed at reducing operating expenses, primarily labor costs. The pharmacy department focused its efforts within ...

Lack of time to implement pharmaceutical care has been cited as a barrier to the routine provision of this extended patient-care service. Using self-reported work sampling methodology, this study investigated how community pharmacists utilise their time. Pharmacists working in community pharmacies in the Greater Belfast area were found to spend ...

The various physician, patient, and pharmacy requirements for participation in the System for Thalidomide Education and Prescribing Safety (S.T.E.P.S.) program and procedures that institutions may implement in order to comply with these requirements are described. In 1998, FDA approved the marketing of thalidomide (Thalomid, Celgene). Because of the drug's known ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of the setting-up of a computer program designed by the Hospital Pharmacy Department as a tool that provides information for the antimicrobial therapy monitoring. To assess its influence on pharmaceutical costs. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The computer application for the follow-up of antimicrobial treatments integrates information ...

OBJECTIVE: To describe an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to illustrate the relationship between healthcare ethics and law. METHODS: A mock trial was created for students enrolled in the Samford University McWhorter School of Pharmacy and Department of Paralegal Education. The trial served as the starting point to discuss confidentiality in health ...

This paper discusses post-master's degree internships in three very different organizations; the University of Illinois at Chicago, the National Library of Medicine, and the Library of Congress. It discusses the internships using several questions. Do the programs serve as a recruitment strategy? Do the programs develop key competencies needed by ...

In many countries, prescription data are used as an instrument to provide feedback on prescribing. This article describes the development and implementation of a computer program as a tool for pharmacotherapy audit meetings and it illustrates the possibilities of such a program. The program was developed to support the optimisation ...