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..new statewide coalition has been formed to get the country's presidential candidates to focus on chronic disease as the real driver of increasing health care costs…Kenneth Thorpe… chairman of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, said…that unless policymakers…focus on preventing and controlling diabetes, hypertension and other chronic conditions, the country will never get control over its health care costs. Thorpe was in Nevada to announce the formation of a Nevada chapter…The Nevada chapter is spending about $200,000 to publicize the issue ahead of the Democratic presidential debate next week in Las Vegas…

Did you know pharmacists are licensed by a state board? Learn more about what the board does and where it does it.

PharmTalk is a special production from the University of Arizona, College of Pharmacy that features Keith and Kevin Boesen.

Oklahoma may have used the wrong drug during an execution…After Oklahoma executed Charles Warner…an autopsy report said that his body and containers for lethal-injection drugs were delivered to the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Among those containers were empty vials labeled potassium acetate, even though the state’s lethal-injection protocol calls for the use of potassium chloride…potassium acetate and potassium chloride are "medically interchangeable."...The two different types of potassium appear to be equal, said David Gortler, an associate professor of pharmacology…"Potassium is potassium," Gortler said..."The pharmacology isn’t that much different between the different salts."

In what has turned into a legal trifecta for Pfizer, it has won the dismissal of a lawsuit that claimed the use of the antidepressant Zoloft (sertraline) during pregnancy caused birth defects in a child. The decision comes after Pfizer has won two jury verdicts in recent months over the same claims… Philadelphia state court Judge Mark Bernstein…granted a summary judgment…to Pfizer and dismissed the case…The dismissal came as…Bernstein also denied a request by the plaintiffs to add to the testimony of their expert…there is insufficient epidemiological evidence to link the drug to birth defects...FDA recently asked Pfizer to add information about possible links to birth defects to the Zoloft label.

The increasing roles that pharmacists and their national associations are taking in mental health care are illustrated in a new document…"Focus on mental health: The contribution of the pharmacist" is to be published on World Mental Health Day (10 October)... gives an overview of the areas in mental health care in which pharmacists are involved, including health promotion, early detection, triage, optimising treatment outcomes, education (including addiction prevention), shaping public policies, research and inter-professional practice…Gaps in the mental health care have long been acknowledged and global initiatives to address these gaps…requires a different skill mix and a different attitude to health…people experiencing mental health problems, pharmacists and family doctors are likely to be their first point of contact. Pharmacists have a significant role to play…

American Pharmacists Association…announced that The Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas Enhancement Act reached an important milestone in the House of Representatives, having a majority of members support the legislation…"This is a crucial moment in the public debate on how to improve health care access and how to reduce America's health care costs,"…."National surveys show Americans believe pharmacists are integral members of their health care team. Now, the majority of the House has stated that they agree."

The government and private insurers have been trying for years to move away from the fee-for-service system that pays doctors and hospitals based on the volume of tests they perform and treatments they prescribe. They want to replace it with contracts that reward quality and better outcomes… changes in the reimbursement model are rippling out to manufacturers of drugs and devices…shift could help address a long-standing problem with medical advances:..benefits observed in carefully designed clinical trials don’t always materialize when a treatment is deployed in the real world…linking payment to performance, while appealing in theory, is tricky. "What metric are you going to select to measure performance?

Pharmacists are beginning to be employed by ambulance services around Australia to improve medicines use and patient safety. In an article published in the September 2015 issue of the Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research, South Australian ambulance pharmacist Dr Peter Hayball describes the importance of his role…Paramedics give medicines to patients in approximately half of all ambulances cases. Often these are high-risk medicines. South Australian Ambulance Service recognised a real need for pharmacists' clinical skills in this environment and advocated for the role,..

Brian Haug, President of Pharmacy and Managed Markets, Pharmacy Times (PTNN) This weekly video program highlights the latest in pharmacy news, product news, and more. (video)

..Hong Kong’s Nathan Road is a favorite destination for tourists from the mainland…Small, rainbow-lit drugstores have become a feature of some of Hong Kong’s most expensive neighborhoods…Their lineups include muscle rubs, painkillers, aphrodisiacs, and traditional Chinese medicines...if you ask discreetly, some will also sell you something else: cancer and hepatitis C drugs...Visitors from the mainland also prefer to buy their medicine in Hong Kong because they believe it’s less likely to be counterfeit…Cancer rates in China are soaring…Most Chinese lack prescription drug benefits and must pay out of pocket for premium medicines. The upshot: Prices for treatments from foreign drugmakers are some of the highest in the world…90 percent of cancer drug sales at pharmacies are to mainland tourists...