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Students in Alaska will no longer have to leave their home state to pursue a pharmacy degree...University of Alaska Anchorage and Idaho State University are partnering on a joint pharmacy program that will launch next fall with 10 to 15 students…One of the goals of the program is to encourage more students to stay in Alaska for work after graduation…"The premise is that we get pharmacists—clinical pharmacists—who are reared in the state, who are from here, and who will be networked into the pharmacy community here, so they stay here,"...

Spending on Medicaid rose nearly 14 percent on average in the last fiscal year, a report has found, largely because of a tide of newly eligible enrollees in the 29 states that had expanded the program by then to cover millions more low-income adults….But for most of those states, the per-member, per-month cost of the new enrollees was not higher — in a few cases, in fact, it was lower — than expected…almost all of the additional spending was covered by federal funds, which are paying the entire cost of expanding Medicaid through 2016 and at least 90 percent thereafter… states should be worried less about their eventual 10 percent share of the cost of expanding Medicaid than whether the federal government can pay 90 percent of it indefinitely…"We are talking tens of billions of dollars a year here,"…"If I was a state official, I would not count on that money hanging around."

Andi Lane Clark, PharmD, Director of Clinical Field Services at Rite Aid, forecasts several different innovative solutions that are poised to drive better medication adherence over the next 2-3 years.

Many pharmacists are looking to national certification as a standard by which to accurately discern a pharmacy technician’s knowledge…Technician certification is now seen as so important that earning it has become a mandatory or optional licensure requirement in 29 states…Regardless of state requirements, certification is still enormously beneficial…Employers place a considerable value on certification because it demonstrates your knowledge as a technician and your commitment to your role in the pharmacy…As we see things change in the profession and advanced roles for technicians open up, certification will open a number of new opportunities…national certification also serves as a "portable credential"…approximately 280,000 technicians are currently actively certified through the PTCB (Pharmacy Technician Certification Board)…current and future technicians interested in joining those numbers to follow these steps:

• Determine Eligibility
• Prepare for the Exam
• Apply Online
• Take the Exam and Await Results
• Maintain Certification

Health systems’ interest in gaining entry to the specialty-pharmacy market should not be a surprise, considering that specialty drug sales are growing at rates reported to be approximately 19% per year… the 340B pricing program could offer substantial incentives to certain qualifying health systems when they retain specialty-pharmacy prescriptions… Add in the trend of health systems’ entry into risk-sharing contracts, the formation of accountable care organizations, and the consolidation and merging of specialist physician practices… Health systems bring a number of advantages to the specialty marketplace… full integration and availability of clinical information to multidisciplinary health care providers allows for a level of care coordination that is unlikely to be matched by unaffiliated pharmacies.

The best-selling brand-name drugs are not necessarily the most-prescribed medications in the United States…IMS Health recently revealed the 50 most-prescribed brand-name drugs and the 50 best-selling brand-name drugs between April 2014 and March 2015…Here are some noteworthy discrepancies between prescription drug sales and prescribing patterns for particular conditions:

1. Hepatitis C
2. Contraceptives
3. Multiple Sclerosis
4. Hypertension
5. HIV
6. Arthritis
7. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
8. Cancer

NHS 111 and GP out-of-hours services are to be brought much closer together under a fundamental redesign of urgent care delivery throughout the National Health Service…NHS England said the new "front door" will offer patients simpler and better access to urgent care through a novel 24/7 clinical assessment, advice and treatment service via the 111 number, streamlining provision around the country… reshaping urgent care stem from NHS England’s ongoing Urgent and Emergency Care Review, and come as local health services are responding to the highest ever number of ambulance calls, A&E attendances and emergency admissions in NHS history, with even more demand expected through the coming winter months…Last winter several hospitals in England were forced to declare a ‘major incident’ and close their doors as they struggled to cope with the influx of patients, and A&E waiting times were the worst in a decade, underscoring the need for a new system.

James Schiffer, RPh, associate at Allegaert Berger & Vogel LLC, discusses some of the DEA's requirements for handling controlled substances.

Pharmacy education is a greatly debated topic. Since Albert Benjamin Prescott revolutionized our practice in the early 19th century with the abandonment of the apprenticeship model in favor of didactic learning, the process of developing pharmacists has undergone many changes.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients could spend less time in the hospital if their doctors utilize a checklist of steps called order sets, according to findings published in the Canadian Respiratory Journal…Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto…examined the effects of order sets on hospital stay…Using order sets to manage worsening COPD can lead to better medical care and better results for patients…By providing doctors with the best, evidence based information at the point in time when they are deciding on medications and tests for their patients, we can improve doctors' adherence to best practices…Our next step is to advocate for these order sets to be implemented across the healthcare system, to ensure that these patients receive best evidence based and standardized care..