Community-based medication therapy management advanced pharmacy practice experiences (MTM APPE) can engage pharmacy students in public health initiatives, including emergency response preparedness, to successfully impact patient care. This study aimed to evaluate pharmacy students’ perceptions of their experience on an MTM APPE during disasters in Puerto Rico.

After completing the MTM APPE during times of hurricanes, earthquake or pandemic, pharmacy students were asked to voluntarily participate in a questionnaire about their perception of assisting during a disaster. The survey consisted of 5 questions. Four questions were based on a Likert scale with answers choices ranging from Agree, Not Sure, Disagree, or Not Applicable. One question requested free text comments from participants.

Sixteen students completed the survey. Pharmacy students agreed that the MTM APPE taught them the clinical skills needed to assist and educate individual patients and the community that suffered from a disaster, and that the role of the pharmacist is vital when a disaster disrupts a community’s health-care system.

Training in emergency response to disasters should be a considered component of MTM APPE.

The most common medical decision is the prescription of medicines. More than 130 different drugs with proven efficacy are currently available for the treatment of patients with mental disorders.

The aim was to use routine data available at a patient’s admission to the hospital to predict polypharmacy and drug-drug interactions (DDI).

The study used data obtained from a large clinical pharmacovigilance study sponsored by the Innovations Funds of the German Federal Joint Committee. It included all inpatient episodes admitted to eight psychiatric hospitals in Hesse, Germany, over two years. We used gradient boosting to predict respective outcomes. We tested the performance of our final models in unseen patients from another calendar year and separated the study sites used for training from the study sites used for performance testing.

A total of 53,909 episodes were included in the study. The models’ performance, as measured by the area under the ROC, was “excellent” (0.83) and “acceptable” (0.72) compared to common benchmarks for the prediction of polypharmacy and DDI, respectively. Both models were substantially better than a naive prediction based solely on basic diagnostic grouping.

This study has shown that polypharmacy and DDI at a psychiatric hospital can be predicted from routine data at patient admission. These predictions could support an efficient management of benefits and risks of hospital prescriptions, for instance by including pharmaceutical supervision early after admission for patients at risk before pharmacological treatment is established

This work was supported by the Innovations Funds of the German Federal Joint Committee (grant number: 01VSF16009). The funding body played no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscrip

Medication management is challenging for persons with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and their caregivers. Electronic medication management devices (eMMDs) are specifically designed to support this task. However, theory-driven interventions for eMMD training with this population are rarely described. This study aimed to develop and assess the appropriateness of an intervention protocol to train persons with early-stage AD how to use an eMMD.

Interviews with three categories of participants [persons with early-stage AD (n = 3), caregivers (n = 3), and clinicians (n = 3)] were conducted to understand medication management needs, perceived usefulness of an eMMD, and to explore training strategies. Subsequently, this knowledge was integrated in an intervention protocol which was validated with the three clinicians. A content analysis led to iterative modifications to maximize the acceptability and coherence of the intervention protocol in a homecare context.

The final intervention protocol specifies the expertise required to provide the training intervention and the target population, followed by an extensive presentation of eMMD features. Specific learning strategies tailored to the cognitive profile of persons with AD with step-by-step instructions for clinicians are included. Finally, it presents theoretical information on cognitive impairment in AD and how eMMDs can support them.

This intervention protocol with its theoretical and pragmatic foundation is an important starting point to enable persons with early-stage AD to become active users of eMMDs. Next steps should evaluate the immediate and long-term impacts of its implementation on medication management in the daily lives of persons with AD and their caregivers.

In addition to the traditional logistics role, pharmacists are undertaking important new roles in disasters. Despite this, little is known about the level of acceptance of these activities by other providers.

The aim of this study was to determine the international opinion of disaster and health professionals regarding the emerging roles of pharmacists in disasters.

Delegates at the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine’s (WADEM; Madison, Wisconsin USA) 20th Congress in Toronto, Canada (April 2017) were invited to complete an anonymous survey posing eight questions regarding attitudes towards pharmacists’ roles in disasters. Quantitative data were analyzed using IBM (IBM Corp.; Armonk, New York USA) SPSS statistical software version 23, and qualitative data were manually coded.

Of the 222 surveys handed out, 126 surveys were completed yielding a 56.8% response rate. Of the respondents, 96.8% (122/126) believed pharmacists had a role in disasters additional to logistics. Out of 11 potential roles pharmacists could perform in a disaster, provided on a 5-point Likert scale, eight roles were given a rating of “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” by 72.4% or more of the participants. Lack of understanding of a pharmacist’s roles and capabilities was the highest described barrier to pharmacists’ roles in disaster management.

This multi-disciplinary disaster health “community” agreed pharmacists have roles in disasters in addition to the established role in supply chain logistics. Participants accepted that pharmacists could possibly undertake numerous clinical roles in a disaster. Several barriers were identified that may be preventing pharmacists from being further included in disaster health management planning and response.

WatsonKE, TippettV, SingletonJA, NissenLM. Disaster Health Management: Do Pharmacists Fit in the Team?Prehosp Disaster Med. 2019;34(1):30–37.

Pharmacists’ participation in health care within multi-disciplinary teams in Humanitarian Assistance (HA) shall be encouraged. Limited literature exists on their role in the humanitarian context. The objective of this paper is to evidence the skill-specific, comprehensive core competencies that pharmacists must demonstrate working in humanitarian interventions.

The literature search laid the groundwork for the development of interview guides and further analysis of the data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with expatriate pharmacists and medical coordinators, all of whom have worked in the field of HA. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a content analysis methodology.

Three pharmacists and three medical coordinators were interviewed, who had worked in a combined 32 humanitarian missions. The main functions of pharmacists were focused on stock management and supply of medicinal products. However, pharmacists in HA did not perform many functions related to the provision of effective medication therapy management (MTM). A core competency framework for pharmacists working in the humanitarian field was created, which reflects the personal and technical competencies that are essential to work in HA.

Self-management in a pressured and changing environment, the ability to adapt to changing situations, and planning, prioritizing, and performing tasks well under pressure are the skills required for pharmacists and for any other humanitarian health worker. The results highlight great efforts being dedicated to pharmaceutical product supply and management by pharmacists working in HA.

VardanyanH, MoseguiGBG, MirandaES. Skills and Core Competencies of Pharmacists in Humanitarian Assistance. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(3):266–272.