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Canada is set to begin deploying a national electronic prescribing platform, called PrescribeIT...Canada Health Infoway, a federally funded, nonprofit digital health organization, said...that it has reached agreements to enable PrescribeIT in six provinces: Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland/Labrador. Those provinces represent 61% of the Canadian population...PrescribeIT will allow prescribers to securely transmit an prescription from an electronic medical record to the pharmacy management system at a patient’s pharmacy of choice...PrescribeIT’s features will include the ability to securely send e-scripts for all medications, including controlled substances; deliver a prescription to a patient’s pharmacy; send prescription renewal requests from a pharmacist to a prescriber; and cancel a transaction by the prescriber or pharmacist...PrescribeIT is expected to decrease patient wait times for their prescriptions, enhance patient safety by reducing the possibility of medication errors, improve medication management and patient health outcomes, reduce fraud and abuse by eliminating handwritten prescriptions, ensure data integrity for monitoring of controlled substances, and create a commercial-free prescribing and dispensing environment...

FDA...announced the approval of tisagenlecleucel, a first-in-class chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy consisting of genetically modified autologous T cells, for the treatment of B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children and young adults...After modification in the laboratory and infusion back into the patient, the CAR T cells target and eliminate both normal and malignant CD19-expressing B cells. The genetic modification enhances the initiation of T-cell activation and the persistence of the transformed T cells...Novartis will market tisagenlecleucel as Kymriah. Labeling for the product states that it is indicated in patients up to age 25 years with ALL that is refractory or in second or later relapse...Tisagenlecleucel has an FDA-required risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) program that includes elements to assure safe use. The labeling states that the immunotherapy is available "only through a restricted program."...

Weak patient admissions that plagued U.S. hospital operators in the June quarter are likely to persist through 2018, as patients fret about soaring out-of-pocket costs and the future of Obamacare remains uncertain...Companies including HCA Healthcare Inc, the largest for-profit hospital operator, and Tenet Healthcare Corp have reported dismal quarterly results and cut their forecasts for the year...High-deductible health plans - which shift initial medical costs to patients, but have lower monthly premiums - are becoming popular, resulting in patients pushing back non-emergency surgeries.

New legislation to deliver a real-time prescription monitoring system in Victoria has been welcomed by the peak national body for pharmacists, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia...Legislation introduced into the Victorian Parliament...will establish the legislative framework for a Victorian real-time monitoring system...PSA Victorian President Benjamin Marchant said PSA welcomed the long-overdue system, which will support clinical decision-making by prescribers and pharmacists to optimise use of medicines and save lives in Victoria...“The system will allow timely and relevant information to be shared among prescribers and pharmacists, ensuring potent medicines are used safely,” Mr Marchant said. “The system will identify people at risk of harm and provide referral pathways for pharmacists to support our patients...“PSA supports the Victorian legislation’s mandatory requirements for prescribers and pharmacists. The system should be integrated and streamlined for prescribing and dispensing software to ensure it is effective and useable.”...

Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

The UNLV School of Medicine is breaking with traditional teaching methods when the school’s 60 medical students start their anatomy class in November...Instead of using cadavers for dissections of the human body, the school invested $600,000 in the use of virtual technology. Students will learn anatomy by using virtual anatomy tables with large, interactive touch screens that are large, super high-resolution computer screens. They cost $100,000 each...The school describes them as body images in a wide variety of perspectives. They are primed with a library of images, such as X-rays, MRIs, CT scans and pathology slides...Students will be able dissect, rotate, slice, and reassemble organs and other anatomic structures as needed. They will download case studies of real patients and examine them. They also can explore the histology and histopathology of the organ systems studied… UNLV will be the first allopathic medical school to use virtual 3-D anatomy...This is a very innovative way of doing this...No one else in the country has attempted to do what we’re doing. We’re cutting-edge at this point...

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

The University of Nevada, Reno, is collaborating with an international company who is in the business of cancer treatment. They will be investing millions of dollars in better equipment at the College of Science (Nevada Terawatt Facility in Stead)...a...new venture with Israeli company HIL Applied Medical who is pouring millions of dollars into bringing UNR's "cheetah laser" to its full potential. They hope to find new ways to deliver proton therapy for cancer patients that is smaller, more effective and less expensive...This might scale into small and medium size hospitals like the ones we have in our local community here...Less than 5 percent of patients around the world have access to proton-therapy cancer treatment because equipment can cost upwards of $100 million. With this collaboration, they think they could get costs down to $1 million so it's a feasible option for more hospitals...Researchers from HIL Applied Medical will visit Reno often to conduct tests alongside Terawatt Facility technicians. As they move forward, the company anticipates creating more jobs in Reno...