Pharmacists focused on genuine connections make their mark during the pandemic and beyond.

Loren Bonner

Most adverse drug events are handled internally by the hospital or pharmacy where they occur. The results may be tragic and the risk of legal liability may be significant, yet the incident is not newsworthy. There is no report in the media, and there is no need for a public explanation.

David B. Brushwood, BSPharm, JD

Pharmacists are experiencing high levels of occupational stress, burnout, and moral distress, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this trend.

Loren Bonner

Gabapentin has landed on Schedule V Controlled Substance lists in 7 states over the last 5 years. During that same time period, 12 other states have placed the drug in their prescription drug monitoring programs (PMP).

Loren Bonner

Early last summer, Walmart announced the launch of a new privatebrand, cash-pay analog insulin, made by drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk. Sold under Walmart’s private ReliOn label, vials go for $72.88 each and FlexPens for $85.88 each. Walmart calculates that the products will save customers between 58% and 75% of the cash price for branded analog insulin products, which translates to savings of up to $101 per branded vial or $251 per package of branded FlexPens.

Sonya Collins

Health care providers often hear that patients want to receive care from someone who looks like them. In the medical sphere, a growing body of research even supports the claim that this leads to better care, but the majority of physicians are not representative of certain minority groups.

Loren Bonner

Updates from FDA

In June, the American Headache Society (AHS) released an updated consensus statement to help guide health care providers in the treatment of migraine.

Clarissa Chan, PharmD

Melatonin use was associated with a significant reduction in vancomycin-related acute kidney injury (AKI), according to results of a single-center, retrospective observational study published recently in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Maria G. Tanzi, PharmD

Since 2018, blood pressure, diabetes, heartburn, and, most recently, smoking cessation medications have been recalled due to carcinogenic impurities called nitrosamines.

Clarissa Chan, PharmD

The maca plant (Lepidium meyenii), native to the Andes of central Peru, has traditionally been used as a staple crop as one of the few plants that successfully grow in that harsh climate.

Mickie Cathers

Up to 75% of Americans will experience foot health problems at some point in their lives. Women are 4 times more likely to experience foot problems than men.

Daniel L. Krinsky, RPh, MS

In July 2021, FDA approved the first interchangeable biosimilar insulin product (Semglee–Viatris/Biocon Biologics, insulin glargineyfgn), which can be substituted for its reference product (Lantus–Sanofi Aventis, insulin glargine) at the pharmacy level, depending on state pharmacy laws.

Maria G. Tanzi, PharmD

Trending Topics in Health-System Pharmacy

Providing comprehensive medical services to patients in Alaska can be challenging—the state has over 660,000 square miles with a population under 800,000 people.

Joey Sweeney, PharmD, BCPS

Two new sets of guidelines on the management of Clostridioides difficile are now available—one from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), and the other from the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG).

Maria G. Tanzi, PharmD

Doses of buprenorphine well above the established standards (>12 mg) administered in the emergency department are safe and welltolerated in individuals experiencing opioid withdrawal symptoms, says a new case series published by Herring and colleagues in the July 2021 issue of JAMA.

Corey Diamond, PharmD

Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless other victims of racist violence have prompted more conversations focused on societal discrimination and racial injustice, but police violence is not the only form racial injustice takes in the United States. The global COVID-19 pandemic has also shone a light on and underscored the inadequacies and inequities of the United States health care system, as well as the negative consequences of those inequities disproportionately experienced by communities of color.

Juan Rodriguez, BSPS; Adrienne Simmons, PharmD, MS, BCPS, AAHIVP; Arya Amirfar, PharmD, MPH, FAPhA

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