Better Medication Adherence with Appointment-Based Medication Synchronization Program

From Journal of the American Pharmacists Association

This study described how patient adherence and persistence with chronic medications can be improved by allowing patients to meet with a pharmacist to solve medication-related problems and synchronize prescriptions to be dispensed on a single day of the month. Compared with control patients, those in the appointment-based medication synchronization (ABMS) group had 3.4 to 6.1 times greater odds of adherence compared with control patients. Control patients were 52% to 73% more likely to stop taking their chronic medications over 1 year…[more]

December 3, 2013 /  

Frio on the Front Lines of Iraq

From Healthcharities.org

Staff Sergeant Mark Thompson convinced the Army that having type-1 diabetes should not keep him from serving in Iraq. Thompson, 28, is an Iowa native. He has been married for nine years and has a son, Kyle, who is two years old. He has always had something of a travel bug, and it was this desire to see the world that inspired Thompson to join the Army…[more]

November 22, 2013 /  1

The Challenge of Diabetes for Doctor and Patient

From The New York Times

My patient was miserable — parched with thirst, exhausted and jumping up to go to the bathroom every few minutes. His vision was blurry and he’d been losing weight the last few weeks, despite eating voraciously. I’d only just met him, but I was able to diagnose diabetes in about a minute. What was unusual was that this was a scheduled office visit; usually, patients with such overwhelming symptoms are the provenance of emergency departments and urgent care centers…[more]

October 17, 2013 /  

Synchronized Prescription Fills Improve Patients’ Medication Adherence

From American Society of Health-System Pharmacists

A community pharmacy chain’s model of patient care received a boost from the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) in late May when the nonprofit organization announced it would support the expansion of the model into hundreds of sites nationally.

Minnesota-based Thrifty White Pharmacy, an employee-owned business whose approximately 160 stores and affiliate pharmacies serve patients in North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, launched the appointment-based model (ABM) of care in 2011… [more]

July 15, 2013 /