Preventive Care and Outcomes of Interprofessional Medicare Annual Wellness Visits for Older Adults.

As we anticipate a growing population of older adults, we will see an increase in chronic conditions such as dementia and falls. To meet these public health needs, we must systematically provide screening, education, preventive care, and supportive care for older patients and their caregivers in a primary care setting. This will require a workforce trained in providing for the complex medical and psychosocial needs of an older adult population in an interprofessional and collaborative fashion. By integrating geriatric screening tools into an interdisciplinary Annual Wellness Visit teaching clinic, we were able to successfully improve rates of geriatric screening for dementia, depression, falls, medication reconciliation and advance care planning. We also saw improvements in patient care and satisfaction and provided the opportunity for interprofessional collaboration and education for students in medicine, nursing, pharmacy and social work.

A Pilot Program to Teach Pharmacy Students Practical Skills to Navigate Drug Insurance Benefits.

Pharmacists must be able to navigate prescription drug coverages to help providers and patients reduce out-of-pocket costs. Traditionally, curricula on drug insurance benefits rely on lectures and lack a practicum that offers students hands-on experience with determining formulary and cost-sharing information. An activity for pharmacy students to update a free public website that summarizes formularies and copayment requirements across major insurers was piloted. Pharmacy students were trained to locate online formularies and identify a drug's coverage tier, step therapy, prior authorization, and cost-sharing during a 6-week experiential rotation. Students checked formularies from six insurance plans for 250-plus drugs across 15 health conditions. Graduates were surveyed (74% response rate) about the activities' impact on their learning and ability to navigate drug benefits. Respondents rated the training as helpful in learning whether a drug was covered (100%), or required step therapy or prior authorization (100%). The majority of graduates reported being able to look up formulary coverage (90%), step therapy or prior authorization (90%), and copayment requirements (65%). Our innovative skills-based pilot activity was effective in teaching pharmacy students to navigate insurance formularies, which is essential for helping patients access medications.

Pilot Study: Evaluating the Impact of Pharmacist Patient-Specific Medication Recommendations for Diabetes Mellitus Therapy to Family Medicine Residents.

Pharmacists have demonstrated effectiveness in managing diabetes mellitus (DM) and lowering hemoglobin A1C (A1C) through direct patient management. Often patients with diabetes and elevated A1C may not be able to come into the clinic for separate appointments with a pharmacist or for diabetes education classes. A novel way that pharmacists can assist in improving the control of patients' diabetes and improve prescriber understanding and the use of medications for diabetes is by providing medication recommendations to medical residents prior to the patient's appointment with the medical resident. The results of this pilot study indicate that the recommendations provided to family medicine residents and implemented at the patient's office visit helped to lower A1C levels, although the population size was too small to show statistical significance. This pilot study's results support performing a larger study to determine if the pharmacist's recommendation not only improves patient care by lowering A1C levels but if it also helps improve medical resident's understanding and use of medications for diabetes.

The Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy Scripts: Improving the Accuracy of Patient Medication Lists: Performing Medication Reconciliation by Phone Prior to Appointments.

The purpose of this project was to utilize pharmacists and pharmacy students to perform comprehensive medication reconciliation by telephone prior to a patient's office visit with their primary care physician, to address any medication issues. The project's aims were to decrease polypharmacy, improve the accuracy of medication reconciliation, and to allow more time for the physician to meet with the patient. Patients were called prior to appointment and a thorough medication reconciliation was conducted including verification of current prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, and herbal supplements. A total of 21 patients were enrolled in the study, and in 36% of patients, the number of medications decreased after the intervention. However, overall, the average number of medications used by patients increased from an average of 8.9 to 9.5 medications (P = .39). All patients included in the study had at least one medication change in the electronic medical record system. Most of the changes were to add medications that were not on the medication list or to remove medications on the list that the patient was no longer taking. This study demonstrated improved accuracy with pharmacist/pharmacy student involvement in the medication reconciliation process.

Osteoporosis: A quick update.

Researchers estimate that approximately 10.2 million Americans have osteoporosis, and an additional 43 million have low bone density. Equally stark are the ramifications of these numbers. About one out of every 2 Caucasian women will experience an osteoporosis-related fracture at some point in their lifetime, as will approximately one in 5 men. Family physicians can have a meaningful impact on the extent to which this condition affects the population. To that end, we have put together a brief summary of the screening recommendations to keep in mind and a comparison of the different agents used to treat and prevent osteoporosis.