Viewpoints

Ongoing diabetes education facilitated by qualified diabetes educators can reduce healthcare costs and improve health outcomes for those diagnosed with diabetes and those at high risk for the disease.

Pharmacists are uniquely situated to administer vaccines to their patients. But with so many problems still overlooked and unresolved, are community pharmacists ready for this new task?

From medication therapy management to diabetes self-management education programs, retail pharmacists have begun to solidify a new role for themselves on the healthcare team.

Community pharmacists face a "War on Drugs" different from the one heard about on the news. This war doesn't even seem to be on lawmakers' radar.

Denying yourself food to protest the policies of a corporate behemoth seems a bit ... extreme. Nonetheless, such an action may be a legitimate warning about the state of retail pharmacy today.

In a recent survey by Medco Health Solutions Inc., only 66% of 1,092 patients with insurance surveyed "agreed that a generic drug is the same as the brand-name medication - many patients are still not comfortable using a generic and others still consider brand-name drugs to be superior."

Most of us probably didn't pay a lot of attention to business majors when we were in college. Unfortunately, the business majors have far more influence over the practice of pharmacy today than pharmacists do, and it's going to be up to them to find a way out of the pickle our profession finds itself in.

The 2,400-page healthcare reform bill included language establishing the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a group grounded in the tenets of comparative effectiveness research. Its mission is significant, but whether it has the power to effect change remains to be seen.

In the business world, it just seems like common sense that you dictate to your customers at your extreme peril. Even when you think God is on your side.

The continuing debate over healthcare reform keeps the subject of medication adherence in the public eye. For pharmacy, says NACDS, the issue is a top priority.

Prescription-drug benefit plans prosper by exploiting a non-transparent, non-accountable system. This needs to change.

There is an answer to 12-hour shifts, inadequate support, 20-minute lunch hours, and no bathroom breaks. Ask the United Steelworkers of America.

There is room for individual expression in our workplace; however, in a profession such as pharmacy, the main effort should be dedicated to patient care rather than how to successfully navigate the toxic personalities in the pharmacy.

As the years went by, it became evident just how much of a stamp the first person to get hold of you professionally will put on your career.

If you don't like the "reality" you're looking at, you can change the person who's doing the looking.

Pharmacists speak out about the pharmacist shortage and professional organizations.

Efforts to improve treatment of all physical conditions and patients' self-care are futile if comorbid depression is not controlled first.

After four decades of practice, the author offers some observations about the search for professional satisfaction and meaning in pharmacy.

Patient counseling and medication management therapy: You do the math.

As you look back over your life and career, what makes you most proud?

Increasing enrollment in pharmacy schools and changing economic factors appear to have eased the national pharmacist shortage. In order to plan appropriately for all stakeholders, we need to quantify the numbers when we talk about a pharmacist shortage.

Its very name implies that the American Pharmacists Association would be looking for and advocating solutions to the problems of actual pharmacists, but when it comes to addressing the barriers that stand in the way of our practicing our profession, APhA is nowhere to be found.

A successful pharmacy practice rests on customer service, patient care, and career satisfaction. This story illustrates all three.

Doctors don't do it. Attorneys don't do it. Physical therapists, insurance agents, title agents, audiologist, and nurse practitioners don't do it. Who came up with the fishbowl model of retail pharmacy anyway?

In the prescription drug market, discriminatory pricing is common for independent community pharmacies and their patients. This fall, a Federal District Court in New York will consider a critical case: Drug Mart Pharmacy Corp. et a. v. American Home Products Corp. et al. The outcome of the case may determine whether discriminatory pricing techniques are illegal.

Everyone seems to realize that when the lady being a pain in the neck carries a Gucci handbag, she's someone who helps pay the pharmacy's bills. Not so many people seem to realize that this is equally true of the lady carrying the Medicaid card.

Manufacturers, promoters, and sellers of dietary supplements are prohibited by law from making claims to treat or cure illness or disease, or their symptoms. Pharmacists should encourage patients to check with medical professionals before commencing use of any dietary supplement.

The best technique for counseling patients is a combination of Show & Tell and the Indian Health Services questions. If pharmacists could quickly decide which prescriptions needed extended counseling, they could employ this approach when it is most necessary. Now there's an algorithm for that.