Author: Peter

Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner (New Zealand) has found a man wrongly took a chemotherapy drug (cyclophosphamide) for three weeks because a pharmacy dispensed the wrong medication…The 79-year old man was supposed to be taking an immuno-suppressant (cyclosporine), following a kidney transplant…He took the chemotherapy drug for about three weeks before asking the pharmacist why his tablets had changed…The pharmacist checked the records and found a technician had filled the prescription, but that he had signed it off... he did nothing further, he didn't complete an incident form, he didn't alert the owner of the pharmacy…the pharmacist was also remiss for not offering any counselling to the patient…pharmacist has been ordered to apologise to the man in writing, and further action could follow.

Knox Singleton, Inova CEO, and Mark Bertolini, Aetna chairman & CEO, discuss ways to cut the costs of health care by changing the current model.

As pharmacy technicians take on increasingly important roles and responsibilities, the regulations governing the profession continue to strengthen…Organizations such as the Pharmacy Technicians Certification Board are able to provide a national standard for technicians, but in the end, each state determines its own minimum requirements for working as a pharmacy tech… Current and aspiring techs unsure of their state’s laws can consult the following reference guide that explains how to become licensed as a pharmacy technician in each state.

Clark County man has become the first documented West Nile virus patient of 2015 in Southern Nevada…The man over the age of 50 has the more serious form of the illness, according to the Southern Nevada Health District… Environmental health specialists routinely survey known breeding sources for mosquitoes and trap them for identification and disease analysis…The health district has collected West Nile positive mosquitoes this year in 22 local ZIP codes: 89011, 89012, 89014, 89025, 89027, 89029, 89031, 89074, 89107, 89113, 89117, 89118, 89119, 89123, 89128, 89129, 89130, 89131, 89134, 89143, 89146 and 89147.

Ashley Talamo, Publisher: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program highlights the latest in pharmacy news, product news, and more. (video)

Visible from neighboring France and Germany, a new 41-storey skyscraper that drugs company Roche opened near the river Rhine…reaches 178 meters (584 ft) into the sky, easily the tallest building in Switzerland…The 550-million Swiss franc ($575 million) tower shows that the company retains its loyalty to the city of Basel where it was founded in 1896…(Roche) already has an even taller building, at 205 meters (672 ft), in the works, due to be occupied around 2021..

National Institutes of Health…approved a blueprint for President Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative and named an NIH insider as interim director of the project (Francis Collins)…sweeping study,…goals of the study are to develop better estimates on individuals' risk for developing disease...

Lisa Kroon, PharmD, CDE, professor and department chairperson of clinical pharmacy at University of California, San Francisco, School of Pharmacy, talks about gaps in pharmacy systems' support of smoking cessation.

Novartis has been hit by a slowdown in emerging markets, particularly in China, where previously double-digit growth has decelerated to mid-single digits,…Despite the increasing risks,..the Swiss company was not pulling back from emerging markets, rather relying on the strength of generics in China to drive business growth…We are going to live through the volatility…

Three Northern Nevada hospitals along with area provider groups are ganging up on childhood cancer…Renown health, Saint Mary’s, Carson Tahoe Health, Washoe County and the Access to Healthcare Network joining forces to establish the first full-time clinic in Northern Nevada to provide complete services to child cancer patients… the Sierra Pediatric Blood and Cancer Consortium...