Author: Peter

Mobile apps and games becoming critical 'adjunct to clinical care management'. The Personal Connected Health Alliance and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society are partnering with the Games for Health Project to help increase the role of personal health technology in care delivery, convening clinical leaders and innovators with gamers and game developers.

Good: Convenience, convenience, convenience. More locations means more places to get treatment and possibly less waiting times. Bad: Cost. Will less competition in the market mean higher prices?

Mostashari, ......he founded Aledade to help doctor practices, as small as one, band together in so-called accountable care organizations. The shift from fee for service to payment based on keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital demands a level of technological and financial sophistication that small practices can rarely afford.

Remember when participating in a community brown bag consult was mandatory in pharmacy school? Students would arrived prepared with drug references in hand, ready to go through all of the medications that patients brought with them. Focusing more on the patient than the drugs can potentially make a bigger impact on outcomes and quality of life.

.......patients can receive different-looking tablets or capsules every time they refill their prescription when generics are dispensed. With such wide variation in a single medication’s appearance, and with constant interchanging of products as a result of drug shortages and generic equivalents, both patients and health care practitioners have become somewhat complacent about double-checking when the tablet, capsule, or liquid looks different.

"Further consolidation in the retail setting means pharmacy services are increasingly available only from a fewer number of larger entities. The CVS-Target deal reinforces the need and strengthens the case for allowing patients to use 'any willing pharmacy' that accepts a drug plan's terms and conditions, such as reimbursement. "Patients in underserved rural and inner-city areas rely on access to independent community pharmacies for prescription medication and counseling. For these and some other patients national pharmacy chains are not a practical option.

High costs associated with new chronic hepatitis C virus treatments should prompt pharmacists to reconsider their formula for determining the drugs’ worth....“incredibly innovative drugs” that “almost across the board have price tags associated with them that are challenging,”.... Because of the high cure rates associated with Sovaldi and Harvoni, pharmacists should “look at the total cost of health” with respect to the drugs’ potential to impact patient outcomes......

"There's no way Silk Road could be reasonably expected to reduce violence," Federal District Court Judge Katherine Forrest said at the recent sentencing hearing for Ross Ulbricht, the convicted founder of the Silk Road online drug market. But if people are buying online, there's no turf to fight over -- "with Silk Road functioning to considerable degree at the wholesale/broker market level, its virtual location should reduce violence, intimidation and territorialism,"

A pharmacist is being praised for coming to the rescue in a hostage and robbery situation. The hostages were kept in the back room of the store until pharmacist Donna Weatherford was able to convince Trail (the burglar) to let the other hostages go, while she remained behind to gather the requested drugs. Weatherford seized the moment to pick up the burglar’s gun and run outside, where police were waiting.....

....testing promising ways to improve how healthcare consumers, otherwise known as patients, shop for healthcare services. ......has shown that healthcare markets can be whipped into shape through the power of reference pricing.......patients are given a maximum number of dollars from insurance to cover a given healthcare procedure with the understanding that if they choose to receive care from a more expensive provider, they will be responsible for any charges exceeding that limit..