CPF Communications

CPF/NCPA Study Cited for the Environmental Impact and Cost of Medication Waste  

In the article, 'Why Amazon should keep prescription drugs off its voluminous shelves', by C. Michael White, Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut, White makes his case by providing a brief history of pharmacy; explaining why drugs are not stocks; emphasizing medication adherence and environmental costs; and showing the gains vs. pains of a potential Amazon entry into prescription pharmaceuticals.  

White says, 'The biggest online retailer’s entry into this market may lead to efficiency gains, but the cost would be dear in terms of further severing the link between patients and actual pharmacists. Research, including my own, shows that patients need more face-to-face time with pharmacists, not less.'

Regarding the environmental costs, a CPF-funded study conducted by the National Community Pharmacy Association (NCPA) was cited.  The study, 'Dispose My Meds National Data Collection Initiative', completed in 2015, touched on medication waste.  When evaluating medications turned in for disposal, the study found more than half of the prescriptions purchased from mail-order pharmacies still contained 80 percent of more of the original pills. Even more troubling, 39 percent had every single pill originally dispensed. That compares with much-lower rates of 37 percent and 17 percent for community pharmacies.
 

PQA Quality Forum - Transforming "Med Wreck" into "Med Rec"

Preventing harm from medications, or adverse drug events (ADEs), remains a top patient safety priority not only in hospitals but also across the continuum of care for patients. Many organizations have demonstrated that implementing medication reconciliation at all areas of care delivery is a necessary strategy for preventing ADEs. Medication reconciliation, the process of creating the most accurate list possible of all medications a patient is taking - including drug name, dosage, frequency, and route - and comparing that list with the medications that were actually ordered for the patient is an important step to reach the goal of providing correct medications to the patient at all transition points within all care delivery settings.

Join the PQA Quality Forum on June 22nd at 1 PM (ET), to learn from two experts on how their organization is trying to crack the medication reconciliation code. Speakers will provide insights on how various disciplines in their healthcare team, including pharmacists, work to improve medication reconciliation practices across the care continuum.


New York Times Letter to the Editor Emphasizes Pharmacists as Medication Experts

Lucinda L. Maine, PhD, RPh, Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), authored a letter to the editor of The New York Times underscoring the important role pharmacists' play in patient medication adherence. She urged the editor and reporter to interview pharmacists, not just physicians, and to consider the potential socioeconomic reasons, among others, as to why patients may not take their medications.

Congratulations Grantees!

Margie Snyder, PharmD MPH | Purdue University College of Pharmacy, Indiana

The research team is busy preparing for the identification and receipt of a large dataset from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with the Research Data Assistance Center (ResDAC) facilitating the purchase request.  
 

Their grant is 'The Impact of Community Pharmacy-Delivered Medication Synchronization on Healthcare Costs and Utilization'.

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the association between the medication synchronization approach with the Appointment Based Model (ABM) and per-member-per-month (PMPM) total healthcare costs in a nationwide sample of Medicare beneficiaries.

Secondary objectives are to evaluate the association between:

• 1) Synchronization and outpatient, inpatient, and emergency department (ED) utilization
• 2) Synchronization and time to first hospitalization and/or ED visit following enrollment in a ABM program
• 3) Synchronization and medication adherence

CPF Project Title: 

The Impact of Community Pharmacy-Delivered Medication Synchronization on Healthcare Utilization and Costs

Grant Details Page | Poster