Celebrating AmCare clinical pharmacy innovations and pharmacists across the country
Your CEO or CFO walks into your office and wants to know: what’s the financial impact of your clinical pharmacy program for the organization?
Do you have an answer?
All members of RxLive’s team share a deeply-held point of view that every pharmacist interaction with a patient can add value. And every time a pharmacist supports a provider we help to lessen the burden on the most overstretched people in healthcare today.
You learned in pharmacy school that if you don’t document it, it didn’t happen.
And over the years, our experience has taught us an additional lesson: if you can’t quantify it, it didn’t happen.
This month, The Collaborative Practice starts a conversation about impact, and specifically presents a framework for discussing impact. The result? You won’t simply answer your CEO’s question – you’ll crush it!
If you’d like to chat and learn more about how RxLive can help you integrate technology-powered pharmacists into your existing team to deliver impactful patient-centered care, please be in touch. And – SAVE THE DATE – join us next month, on Wednesday, April 19th at 11:30am CST, for our first webinar: The Value of Clinical Pharmacy presented by, RxLive’s Chief Customer Officer, Lynn Eschenbacher, PharmD, MBA, FASHP, CPEL.
All the the best –
The Team @ RxLive
Question for the Pharmacists
Each month we will post a clinical pharmacy practice-related question. The results will be listed in next month’s edition of The Collaborative Practice. Please share your response by following the button below.
Interested in the results from last month’s question? See them below:
Last Month's question for the pharmacists:
Who did your primary patient contact for medication education at discharge?
The impactability of clinical pharmacy expertise
This month, we spoke with Lynn Eschenbacher, RxLive’s new Chief Customer Officer and a dynamic leader in the healthcare industry, about the value of pharmacy intervention.
In the old, fee-for-service days of healthcare, the heroes in hospital systems were those who could control costs the most. That led to fragmented approaches to care and, often, diminished outcomes.
But the landscape is quickly changing. And mission-driven approaches that prioritize outcomes over volume are offering simultaneous benefits for patients and providers alike.
How? The value of pharmacy is rooted in the understanding that the department is more than a cost center. Clinical pharmacists possess unparalleled medication expertise that helps clinicians throughout healthcare systems work at the top of their license.
Powered by that knowledge, pharmacists are key drivers of access, affordability, and adherence – the “Three As” critical to positive patient health outcomes. And they’re irreplaceable educators, helping patients, providers, and even politicians understand the ins and outs of the prescription drug regimens that help keep Americans well.
“Think about the lifecycle of the patient,” Lynn says. “The majority of their life is outside the four walls of the hospital. It takes a deliberate, intentional design to ensure patients get the right medication at the right time,” across all access points and throughout all transitions of care.
For the full transcript of our conversation, click here.
The case for pharmacist intervention
In each edition of The Collaborative Practice, we highlight one anonymized patient case from a pharmacist in our network. The goal? Illustrate the value of pharmacist intervention and its benefit to the healthcare ecosystem. Here’s our case for this month…
Patient Case: the right dose at the right time
Recently, one of our clinical pharmacists met with a 68-year-old patient with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, Type 2 diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. Recognizing the correlation between the patient’s relatively high, 60 mg daily dose of Lovastatin and her decreased kidney function, the pharmacist recommended switching the prescription to 40 mg of Atorvastain.
As daily Atorvastatin therapy does not require any adjustment in reaction to decreased kidney function, this change in medication allows the patient to safely receive the statin dosage most appropriate for their diabetes care.
Lindsay researched the GlaxoSmithKline patient-assistance program and found that the patient may be eligible for a program that could potentially save them up to $400 per month.
Stories we’re following
From new telemedicine regulations to reducing sedative use in care homes, here are five stories that recently captured our attention:
DEA proposes new telemedicine regulations
The rules will expand patient access to 30-day supplies of some opioids and opioid-use disorder treatments without an in-person evaluation.Eli Lilly says it will cut the price of insulin
Previously increased sticker prices will be lowered, and the drugmaker will enforce an existing policy to cap out-of-pocket costs for insulin at $35 a month.
Latest developments in mRNA technology for vaccines: moving beyond COVID-19
mRNA vaccines can be targeted to specific virus strains, potentially making them more effective than traditional vaccines and improving responses to outbreaks.
Pharmacist-led intervention improves BP control of patients on oral chemotherapy
A recent report shows that oral chemotherapy patients who followed a pharmacist-led hypertension management program.
Pharmacy prescribers can reduce sedative use in care homes, study demonstrates
Researchers found that pharmacists with prescriptive authority improved outcomes through “effective deprescribing” of anticholinergic and sedative drugs.
Celebrating National Women’s Month
As we celebrate National Women’s Month, we’re thinking of female leaders in the pharmacy space and throughout STEM overall. With that in mind, if you missed the 50+ episode run of Beyond the Microscope, there’s no better time than now to dive in and take a listen.
Each episode highlights women in STEM, from astronomers to marine biologists. Sound up your alley? Episode 44: Swimming with Sharks (and Rays, Skates and Chimaeras) is a great place to start.
