The FilmArray respiratory virus panel detects 15 viral agents in respiratory specimens using polymerase chain reaction. We performed FilmArray respiratory viral testing in a core laboratory at a regional children's hospital that provides service 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The average and median turnaround time were 1.6 and 1.4 hours, respectively, in contrast to 7 and 6.5 hours documented 1 ...

BACKGROUND Granting dispensing pharmacists the authority to prescribe has significant implications for pharmaceutical and health human resources policy, and quality of care. Despite the growing number of jurisdictions that have given pharmacists such privileges, there are few rigorous evaluations of these policy changes. This study will examine a January 2009 policy change in British Columbia (...

Declining systolic blood pressure (SBP) is common in very old age and is associated with adverse events, such as dementia. Knowledge of factors associated with SBP changes could explain the etiology of this decline in SBP. This study investigated longitudinal changes in socioeconomic factors, medical conditions, drug prescriptions, and assessments and their associations with SBP changes among v...

CONTEXT The dramatic rise in the use of prescription opioids to treat non-cancer pain has been paralleled by increasing prescription opioid abuse. However, detailed analyses of these trends and programs to address them are lacking. OBJECTIVE To study the association between state shipments of prescription opioids for medical use and prescription opioid abuse admissions and to assess the effec...

tin in 84 patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and in 13 healthy controls. The level of measured antiangiogenic agent was correlated with the phase and stage of the disease, and most importantly with clinical and laboratory parameters depicting the disease activity (haemoglobin, creatinine, albumins, calcium, M-component, C-reactive protein, b2-microglobulin, lactate dehydrogenase, stage of bone...

Background Measures taken over the past four years in Greece to reduce pharmaceutical expenditure have led to significant price reductions for medicines, but have also changed patient cost-sharing rates for prescription drugs. This study attempts to capture the resulting increase in patients’ out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses for prescription drugs during the 2011-2014 period.   Methods The authors ...

This commentary discusses pertinent issues from Hyosun Kim’s paper on online prescription drug promotion. The study is well-designed and the findings highlight some of the consequences of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) decision to deregulate online advertising of prescription drugs. While Kim’s findings confirm some of the early concerns, they also provide a perspective of implement...

Traditionally, medical prescriptions by doctors have been typically handwritten or printed by computer on paper and hand-delivered to pharmacists. Paperbased medical prescription is, however, causing increasing concern as incidences of prescription errors have been increasing causing minor to serious problems to patients, including deaths. Most of the errors of paper-based prescription could be...

The determinants of realized, perceived, and potential access to prescription drugs among an elderly population were studied. Data were derived from telephone interviews of 3498 noninstitutionalized elderly persons living in west Texas. Access indicators examined were whether the respondents were taking prescription drugs, had perceived problems in obtaining prescription drugs, had comprehensiv...