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Kristene Diggins, MBA, manager of professional practice at MinuteClinic, discusses what pharmacists should know about clinical inertia, and its effects on diabetes. (video)

..more and more, health care providers are teaming up with drugstores to provide care via in-store health clinics…trend based around convenience..shifts to focus more ..on the consumer, adapting means providing more services,..same-day access to a doctor, allowing people to interact with the health care system easily, and providing transparency...about the costs of procedures and quality of care.

Kimberly Henderson, MD, JD, medical director for the Health Systems Alliance at CVS Health and regional medical director for MinuteClinic, discusses what pharmacists need to know about managing COPD. (video)

A&P is seeking approval to sell pharmacy assets for several of the stores it is immediately closing to Rite Aid in a transaction valued at $8.1 million, Rite Aid has agreed to buy the prescription files for 12 stores that are closing…"When a pharmacy is closing, the value of pharmacy related assets, particularly customer prescriptions, is unstable and the transactions must occur on an accelerated timeline to avoid permanent and significant diminution of value,"

Prescription revenues provide insight on the power of top retail pharmacy businesses.If you’re curious to know how the retail pharmacy giants stack up against one another on prescription sales, here are the top 5 pharmacy chains based on 2014 figures:

1. CVS Health $48 billion in Rx revenues, $88.4 billion in pharmacy services revenue
2. Walgreens $49 billion
3. Express Scripts $38 billion
4. Walmart $18.8 billion
5. Rite Aid $18 billion

J.D. Power’s 2015 U.S. Pharmacy Study was released Monday, and it highlights that patients remain satisfied with their pharmacies despite myriad changes to the healthcare landscape in recent years…"Pharmacies serve as a benchmark for other entities in the healthcare ecosystem, as they continue to have the highest levels of customer satisfaction in the healthcare industry, demonstrating that focusing on customer satisfaction is good for both patients and businesses."

Walgreens will pay a $500,000 settlement concerning a civil complaint that the retail pharmacy giant was not compliant with California regulations related to pharmacist consultations… noncompliant with rules requiring pharmacists to perform consultations with patients receiving new prescriptions or new dosages…

..role of the health-system pharmacist in providing transitions-of-care services is expanding rapidly… medication-use practices have improved significantly among health-system pharmacists…survey, which was conducted by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, also showed progress in the use of medication safety technologies such as smart infusion pumps, barcode-assisted medication administration, electronic health records, and computerized order-entry systems.

Want to be paid in full for your patient care efforts? Prove they’re making a difference. That’s the message health systems and physician groups are getting from government health plans…a shift in federal payments to evidence-based care… spawning new risk-sharing patient-care initiatives…shifting..focus…from traditional fee-for-service…to one of accountability, cost management, collaborative care and a focus on the long-term health and wellness of the patient.

Medical errors happen everywhere. But in the world's largest democracy, stories of doctors being drunk, using rusty instruments or bicycle pumps during surgery, or ordering unjustified procedures are increasingly common… hard data are emerging that show how dismal medical care is for many in India, with providers routinely failing to diagnose common diseases and frequently prescribing useless and hazardous drugs.