Sarah M Westberg | PubMed Health

PubMed2006

An interprofessional activity using standardized patients.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the development and implementation of an interprofessional activity using standardized patients. METHODS: In the interprofessional standardized patient experience (ISPE), pharmacy students are teamed with medical and nursing students. This team completes an assessment of a standardized patient. During this assessment, each student has time to interview the patient according to his/her own skills and patient care perspective. After the assessment is completed, the team collaborates to develop a patient care plan. Pre-experience and post-experience surveys were conducted. RESULTS: Pharmacy students' appreciation for each profession's role in patient care increased. CONCLUSIONS: Despite multiple challenges, an interprofessional activity involving multiple health professionals from multiple institutions can be successfully implemented. Feedback from pharmacy students indicated that this activity increased students' awareness and ability to work as members of the health professional team.

Communication↗

PubMed2004

The limitation of good intentions: prescribing medications for the uninsured.

Identifying affordable drug therapy options for individuals who lack prescription drug insurance is a problem frequently encountered by prescribers. Medication samples and manufacturer-sponsored assistance programs represent sources often used to address affordability issues. However, these sources have the potential to introduce health disparities through various mechanisms, including reduced access to the drug of choice, consistencies with access, and drug regimen complexities that adversely affect adherence. Prescribers should consider all sources of affordable medications and openly discuss treatment options and the anticipated outcomes of each with patients to ensure the prescribing of agents that optimize outcomes while balancing patient affordability.

Drug Costs↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Pharmacy-related health disparities experienced by non-english-speaking patients: impact of pharmaceutical care.

OBJECTIVES: To identify the availability of foreign language services in pharmacies near a medical clinic serving a large immigrant population and determine whether the type of observed drug therapy problems differed between English- and non-English-speaking patients at this clinic. SETTING: A community health care center in a diverse neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. PARTICIPANTS: 40 pharmacies near the clinic and in the surrounding Minneapolis-St. Paul area known to provide services to patients in languages in addition to English and 91 clinic patients, including 38 for whom English was not their primary language, seen for full pharmaceutical care assessments. INTERVENTIONS: Comprehensive drug therapy assessments were conducted for English- and non-English-speaking patients (with assistance from interpreters) in a primary care setting secondary to physician referral. Patient-specific data and the results of the pharmacist's assessment were recorded in a patient management database. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Language services provided by area pharmacies, frequency of drug therapy problems in English- and non-English-speaking patients, and the status of patient's medication conditions before and after provision of pharmaceutical care. RESULTS: Of the six primary languages other than English (Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotian, Somali, Spanish, and Cambodian) spoken by clinic patients, written or verbal information was available for five languages in one or more area pharmacies. The clinic pharmacist completed comprehensive assessments for 91 patients via 230 patient encounters, identifying 186 drug therapy problems. Problems related to adherence were significantly more prevalent in non-English-speaking patients compared with English-speaking patients (31% versus 12%). In all 91 patients, the percentage achieving desired drug therapy outcomes improved by 24% after a pharmacist joined the team of clinic providers. CONCLUSION: Despite the availability of clinic-based interpreters and foreign language services in pharmacies, adherence-related problems are significantly more common in non-English-speaking patients. Pharmacists committed to providing pharmaceutical care must consider the impact of language barriers when working to optimize drug therapy outcomes.

Adult↗