Pharmacy is an interdisciplinary field that links health sciences with pharmaceutical science. It focuses on researching, developing, preparing, dispensing and monitoring medicines.
The terminology used to describe the different dimensions of the pharmacy sector differs internationally. This article addresses this issue by proposing a model that outlines the social and administrative pharmacy, clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical science disciplines.
Prescriptions
A prescription, or Rx, is a written instruction by a doctor or other licensed health professional to a pharmacist for a medicine. It includes the name of the medicine, dosage and how long it should be taken. The pharmacist then dispenses the drug to the patient. The physician usually signs the prescription and may include other physician identifiers such as their NPI number or DEA number.
Prescriptions are an important part of the healthcare system. They can help patients manage their conditions and stay healthy, as well as prevent serious illness and injury. They are also an essential tool for doctors and other providers to provide the care patients need.
Unlike over-the-counter medicines, which can be bought without a doctor's recommendation or prescription, all prescription drugs require a valid physician-patient relationship. The physician must evaluate the patient, determine if the prescribed medicine is safe and effective for that patient, and provide instructions on how to use it. expressrx
The share of nationwide spending on healthcare services that can be attributed to prescription drugs has nearly doubled since 1980. It now accounts for about 10 percent of total expenditures on healthcare services and supplies.
Some medicines are marketed as generics and cost less than brand-name medications. However, not all generics are the same. Some may not work as well, have different side effects or are available in different forms (pills, liquids, creams).
When it comes to the safety of generic drugs, the FDA sets standards for manufacturers. These standards are designed to ensure that the products meet certain specifications to protect people who take them, including workers who prepare and store them, patients who receive them, and consumers who buy them.
In some cases, your health insurance company or the pharmacy benefit manager might ask for a doctor's approval before your medicine is covered. This is called a "coverage review." Your health plan uses these reviews to control costs and make sure that the medicine is safe and effective for you.
An HRA is an account offered by employers that provides tax-free reimbursement for medical expenses up to a specified dollar amount each year. Some HRA plans also let you roll over any unused funds into the next year.
Medication Management
When someone is taking multiple medications, a pharmacist does far more than just fill the prescription. Medication management involves a thorough assessment of all the medications, including over-the-counter drugs, vitamins and supplements the patient is taking to determine if they are appropriate for their specific condition. This helps ensure that the medications are being taken correctly and are not interacting with each other in harmful ways or causing side effects.
As part of this, the pharmacist can also make recommendations for a more effective treatment regimen or suggest a lower dose to ease your symptoms and/or improve your quality of life. Additionally, the pharmacist can provide education on your condition and its medication and how to best use it. This can help patients and caregivers take a more active role in their own healthcare.
Medication management includes checking for possible drug interactions and educating patients on the proper way to take their medications including when they should be taken, with or without food, what foods to avoid and whether any of them can cause drowsiness. It can also include helping patients monitor their blood sugar, glycemic index and cholesterol levels as well as educate them on how to manage their diabetes, hypertension or heart disease with diet and exercise.
Medications are powerful medicines that can have surprising results for different patients because everyone's physiology is different. It may take hours, days or even weeks for the effect of a new medication to show up in a patient. Often, this is due to a new medication interfering with another one the patient is already taking, which is an example of polypharmacy.
Lastly, many pharmacists work with patients on anticoagulation management, the use of oral medication to prevent or treat clots and/or stroke in people with atrial fibrillation, high risk for stroke or other chronic illness that require blood thinners. This can involve teaching patients about the importance of taking their medications, demonstrating in-pharmacy finger sticks and INR testing, as well as collaborating with physicians to ensure optimal anticoagulation therapy outcomes. Ultimately, it is this expertise that makes pharmacies the most valuable member of the medical team when it comes to providing comprehensive medication management.
Pharmacy Services
Pharmacy services are a set of patient-oriented activities aimed at improving medication outcomes and enhancing customer experience. They include vaccinations, health screening services, wellness interventions, drug therapy management, and education. They can be delivered by pharmacists, pharmacies or healthcare organizations. These services support clinical, humanistic and economic benefits for patients, physicians, payers and providers.
These services can help reduce non-adherence, improve outcomes and help doctors with time management, increasing efficiency. They can also reduce the number of prescriptions, thereby decreasing costs and reducing the amount of paperwork doctors have to deal with. According to the American Medical Association, non-adherence is estimated to cost the US healthcare system between $100-289 billion annually.
The aim of the research was to explore pharmacists’ perceptions of the current state and future potential of pharmacy services. Interviews were conducted with 13 pharmacists who were involved in the delivery of pharmacy services. The results showed that the participants were aware of the term “pharmacy services” but had a limited understanding of its domains.
Many of them viewed pharmacy services as an essential part of their work. However, they cited numerous barriers that were impeding their implementation. These included regulatory processes, suboptimal enforcement of rules and regulations, insufficient employment opportunities for pharmacists, and a lack of training in new service delivery models.
Another important issue was the need to increase incentives for pharmacists to deliver these services. This was mainly due to the fact that duties performed on the micro level were not being compensated, while tasks performed on the macro level could have positive fiscal implications at an institutional level.
Across the country, community pharmacies offer an array of patient care services. These range from immunizations to blood pressure monitoring and diabetes management to smoking cessation programs. Most importantly, community pharmacies can also help doctors in managing their patients’ medications. For instance, some pharmacies will perform medication reviews on their patients before a clinic visit to help reduce the likelihood of prescribing inappropriate medications or recommending unnecessary tests and procedures. This helps physicians with time management, and allows the pharmacist to make useful suggestions on how to better manage a patient’s condition.
Education
The history of medicine shows that doctors have tended to view their role as one of lone healers, focused solely on diagnosis and treatment. The nuts and bolts of being a doctor – dealing with staff, managing office budgets, navigating a complex healthcare system – were considered secondary to the primary responsibility of diagnosing and treating patients. As a result, medical school curriculums have historically neglected the importance of teaching doctors how to work in the real world.
In the eighties, early publications supporting communication education began to emerge, and communication skills became an important component of medical school education. Then, as the medical profession embraced Evidence Based Medicine (EBM), there was an increasing demand for clinicians to keep up with the constant explosion of scientific achievement published in medical journals. This created a demand for new learning strategies and methods that were designed to improve clinical effectiveness.
As the demands on physicians continued to evolve, medical education responded by incorporating the principles of EBM into the curriculum. The goal of this approach was to ensure that the physician had a solid foundation in the science of medicine and could use clinical knowledge to guide patient care. Then, as the emphasis shifted to preventative and collaborative healthcare, the focus turned to teaching medical students how to engage with patients as collaborators in the shared decision making process.
Geisinger Commonwealth’s Total Health Curriculum has been developed to transform responsible medical students into compassionate and adaptable leaders who take a person-centered approach to improving the health of their communities. The curriculum includes six longitudinal themes that empower future doctors to address healthcare delivery issues and to promote the value of their medical services to the healthcare system and society.
The Health Systems theme builds on the strengths of Geisinger’s value-based care model to provide future doctors with an opportunity to engage in quality improvement and team-based approaches to improving healthcare outcomes. The Health Equity theme prepares future doctors to recognize and understand historic inequities to enable them to advocate on behalf of their patients.
The Access to Medicine Index 2024 features 20 pharmaceutical companies ranked for their efforts to improve access to medicines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The ERC, chaired by Hans Hogerzeil, consists of global experts from multilateral institutions, industry associations, governments, patient organisations and academia.