Pharmaceutical care during COVID-19 pandemic: challenges and perspectives

Abstract COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is raising many questions about the future of face-to-face interactions. The possible changes on healthcare delivery may provoke a long term disruption on pharmaceutical assistance requiring new approaches to provide pharmaceutical services. The proposal of pharmaceutical care is patient oriented, and its activities include different forms of interaction. The emergence of COVID-19 puts to the test all the efforts to reposition pharmaceutical care in the set of clinical activities. Now, the pharmaceutical consultations and group activities, which played a fundamental role in the reformulation of pharmacy practices, must be revised in order to reduce the risk of patient agglomeration and contamination. Several researchers suggest technology use to intermediate health care assistance. However, few studies had rigorously analyzed the effectiveness of virtual health care on the pharmaceutical field. Innovating the pharmacy workflow, during the course of a crisis like COVID-19, is the current challenge addressed to all pharmacists. This unforeseen situation requires us to reconsider our plans and actions. It will be necessary resilience, courage and creativity to achieve a consistent attitude, which provides a quick response to the health care needs in this time of crisis.

When technology precedes regulation: the challenges and opportunities of e-pharmacy in low-income and middle-income countries.

The recent growth of medicine sales online represents a major disruption to pharmacy markets, with COVID-19 encouraging this trend further. While e-pharmacy businesses were initially the preserve of high-income countries, in the past decade they have been growing rapidly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Public health concerns associated with e-pharmacy include the sale of prescription-only medicines without a prescription and the sale of substandard and falsified medicines. There are also non-health-related risks such as consumer fraud and lack of data privacy. However, e-pharmacy may also have the potential to improve access to medicines. Drawing on existing literature and a set of key informant interviews in Kenya, Nigeria and India, we examine the e-pharmacy regulatory systems in LMICs. None of the study countries had yet enacted a regulatory framework specific to e-pharmacy. Key regulatory challenges included the lack of consensus on regulatory models, lack of regulatory capacity, regulating sales across borders and risks of over-regulation. However, e-pharmacy also presents opportunities to enhance medicine regulation-through consolidation in the sector, and the traceability and transparency that online records offer. The regulatory process needs to be adapted to keep pace with this dynamic landscape and exploit these possibilities. This will require exploration of a range of innovative regulatory options, collaboration with larger, more compliant businesses, and engagement with global regulatory bodies. A key first step must be ensuring that national regulators are equipped with the necessary awareness and technical expertise to actively oversee this e-pharmacy activity.

Drugs supply and pharmaceutical care management practices at a designated hospital during the COVID-19 epidemic.

The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus that was first detected at the end of December 2019. The epidemic has affected various regions of China in different degrees. As the situations evolve, the COVID-19 had been confirmed in many countries, and made a assessment that it can be characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. Drugs are the main treatment of COVID-19 patients. Pharmaceutical service offers drug safety ensurance for COVID-19 patients. According to COVID-19 prevention and control policy and requirements, combined with series of diagnosis and treatment plans, pharmacists in the first provincial-level COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment unit in Jilin Province in Northeast China have established the management practices of drug supply and pharmaceutical care from four aspects: personnel, drugs supply management, off-label drug use management and pharmaceutical care. During the outbreak, the pharmaceutical department of THJU completed its assigned workload to ensure drug supply. So far, no nosocomial infections and medication errors have occurred, which has stabilized the mood of the staff and boosted the pharmacists' confidence in fighting the epidemic. For the treatment of COVID-19, pharmacists conducted adverse reaction monitoring and participated in the multidisciplinary consultation of COVID-19. Up to now, the COVID-19 patients admitted to THJU have not shown any new serious adverse reactions and been cured finally. The hospital pharmacy department timely adjusted the work mode, and the formed management practices is a powerful guarantee for the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. This paper summarized the details and practices of drug supply and pharmaceutical services management to provide experience for the people who involving in COVID-19 prevention and contain in other abroad epidemic areas.

Pharmacists' Patient Care Process: State "Scope of Practice" Priorities for Action.

To fully engage in the Pharmacists' Patient Care Process, pharmacists must be able to (1) participate in a Collaborative Practice Agreement, (2) order and interpret laboratory tests, (3) prescribe certain medications, (4) adapt medications, (5) administer medications, and (6) effectively delegate tasks to support staff. Each of these activities is dependent on state scope of practice laws, but these laws are not binary. Various state-level restrictions allow us to view these activities on a continuum from more restrictive to less restrictive. This continuum will allow pharmacy and public health stakeholders to identify priorities for action in their states.

Milestones in managed care pharmacy.

Managed care pharmacy has a relatively short history, but one that is defined by significant achievements. Since the late 1960s, managed care pharmacists have applied their unique skills to formulary management, clinical programs, benefit design, and contract negotiations to support patient access to life-saving therapies, while also ensuring cost-effective use of limited health care resources. Key milestones include establishing the pharmacy benefit as an essential component of the U.S. health care system, launching the Medicare Part D program, and expanding medication therapy management services. The year 2020 brings another milestone-the 25th anniversary of AMCP's flagship publication, the Journal of Managed Care + Specialty Pharmacy. This year also serves as an inflection point. As managed care pharmacy professionals prepare for change and the challenges ahead-including the imperative to address the rising costs of health care and health disparities-the use of evidence, utilization management strategies, and innovation will support our continued success. DISCLOSURES: No funding supported the writing of this commentary. The authors have nothing to disclose.

The Long Term Care Pharmacy World is Changing.

The spread of COVID-19 may change the long-term care industry in ways that will last long after the pandemic has ended, and the diligent pharmacist needs to be aware of how to adjust to those changes.

A comparison of trends in opioid dispensing patterns between Medicaid pharmacy claims and prescription drug monitoring program data.

PURPOSE: Public and private payers have implemented benefit limitations to reduce high-risk opioid prescriptions. The effect of these policies on the increase of out-pocket payment is unclear. To understand this gap, we compared the discrepancies in trends between opioid prescription fills vs claims among Medicaid beneficiaries. METHODS: Data from the Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) and Oregon Medicaid administrative claims were used to identify Medicaid beneficiaries 18 years and older enrolled at least one full month from 2015 to 2017. Generalized linear models assessed the trends in the monthly rates of opioid PDMP prescription fills and pharmacy claims per 1000 eligible members. Rates by morphine equivalent dose (MED) tier (<50, 50-89, 90-120, >120 MED) and co-prescribed opioid and benzodiazepine were also assessed. RESULTS: During the study period, an average of 495 355 Medicaid members had 2 797 054 opioid PDMP fills and 2 472 155 opioid Medicaid pharmacy claims. Study participants had 15.4 (95% confidence interval [CI] 13.6 to 17.0; P < .001) more prescriptions per 1000 member per month in the PDMP data (114.1 [SD 7.4]) compared with the Medicaid claims data (98.7 [SD 7.9]). Similarly, there were 1.9 more co-occurring opioid/benzodiazepine prescriptions per 1000 members per month observed in the PDMP data than the Medicaid claims data (95% CI 1.7 to 2.1; P < .001). At each MED tier, the PDMP fills were consistently higher than the claims (P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Higher rate of fills in the PDMP compared to pharmacy claims suggests that there may be an increasing trend of out-of-pocket payment among Medicaid beneficiaries.

Managed Care Pharmacy Research on Inappropriate Opioid Use Interventions.

DISCLOSURES: No funding contributed to the writing of this commentary. The authors have nothing to disclose.

Leveraging telecommuting pharmacists in the post-COVID-19 world.

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many industries, including pharmacy, rapidly expanded the use of telecommuting workers to assure business continuity and address social distancing needs. Advances in electronic health records and telepharmacy over the past 2 decades enabled pharmacy leaders to easily adapt their practice models to allow for telecommuting alternatives during the pandemic. While these changes were generally intended to be part of the short-term response, the sustained expansion of telecommuting within the pharmacy profession merits further exploration. Documented experience with telepharmacy and telehealth indicate a wide array of clinical and operational pharmacist activities that could be conducted by telecommuters. In addition, experience with telecommuters in other industries suggests potential benefits ranging from improving pharmacists' work-life balance to mitigating postpandemic financial burden. Health care organizations should consider integrating part-time telecommuter pharmacists into contemporary practice models to address other frontline issues and facilitate ongoing expansion of clinical pharmacy services to meet emerging patient needs.

Virtual academic detailing (e-Detailing): A vital tool during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continues its course in 2020, telehealth technology provides opportunities to connect patients and providers. Health policies have been amended to allow easy access to virtual health care, highlighting the field's dynamic ability to adapt to a public health crisis. Academic detailing, a peer-to-peer collaborative outreach designed to improve clinical decision-making, has traditionally relied on in-person encounters for effectiveness. A growth in the adoption of telehealth technology translates to increases in academic detailing reach for providers unable to meet with academic detailers in person. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has used academic detailing to promote and reinforce evidence-based practices and has encouraged more virtual academic detailing (e-Detailing). Moreover, VA academic detailers are primarily clinical pharmacy specialists who provide clinical services and education and have made meaningful contributions to improving health care at VA. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and physical isolation orders, VA academic detailers have continued to meet with providers to disseminate critical health care information in a timely fashion by using video-based telehealth. When working through the adoption of virtual technology for the delivery of medical care, providers may need time and nontraditional delivery of "evidence" before eliciting signals for change. Academic detailers are well suited for this role and can develop plans to help address provider discomfort surrounding the use of telehealth technology. By using e-Detailing as a method for both familiarizing and normalizing health professionals with video-based telehealth technology, pharmacists are uniquely poised to deliver consultation and direct-care services. Moreover, academic detailing pharmacists are ambassadors of change, serving an important role navigating the evolution of health care in response to emergent public health crises and helping define the norms of care delivery to follow.

Strategies to promote access to medications during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable and older people with chronic and complex conditions have self-isolated in their homes, potentially limiting opportunities for consultations to have medications prescribed and dispensed. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this article is to describe initiatives to ensure ongoing access to medications during the COVID-19 pandemic. DISCUSSION: Cooperation between wholesalers and purchase limits in pharmacies have helped to ensure supply of essential medications. Therapeutic substitution by pharmacists is permitted for specific products authorised by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Prescribers are permitted to issue digital image prescriptions, and implementation of electronic prescribing has been fast-tracked. Expanded continued dispensing arrangements introduced during the bushfire crises have been temporarily extended. Pharmacists are permitted to provide medication management reviews via telehealth. A Home Medicines Service has been introduced to facilitate delivery of medications to people who are vulnerable or elderly. Anticipatory prescribing and medication imprest systems are valuable for access to end-of-life medications within residential aged care.

Moving Pharmacy Benefits from Nice to Have to Essential Benefits.

DISCLOSURES: No funding supported the writing of this commentary. The authors have nothing to disclose.

Framework for Pharmacy Services Quality Improvement-A Bridge to Cross the Quality Chasm.

OBJECTIVE: To review the literature on the subject of quality improvement principles and methods applied to pharmacy services and to describe a framework for current and future efforts in pharmacy services quality improvement and effective drug therapy management. BACKGROUND: The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy produced the Catalog of Pharmacy Quality Indicators in 1997, followed by the Summary of National Pharmacy Quality Measures in February 1999. In April 2002, AMCP introduced Pharmacy's Framework for Drug Therapy Management in the 21st Century. The Framework documents include a self-assessment tool that details more than 250 specific "components" that describe tasks, behaviors, skills, functions, duties, and responsibilities that contribute to meeting customer expectations for effective drug therapy management. FINDINGS: There are many opportunities for quality improvement in clinical, service, and cost outcomes related to drug therapy management. These may include patient safety; incidence of medical errors; adverse drug events; patient adherence to therapy; attainment of target goals of blood pressure, glucose, and lipid levels; risk reduction for adverse cardiac events and osteoporotic-related fractures; patient satisfaction; risk of hospitalization or mortality; and cost of care. Health care practitioners can measure improvements in health care quality in several ways including (a) a better patient outcome at the same cost, (b) the same patient outcome at lower cost, (c) a better patient outcome at lower cost, or (d) a significantly better patient outcome at moderately higher cost. Measurement makes effective management possible. A framework of component factors (e.g., tasks) is necessary to facilitate changes in the key processes and critical factors that will help individual practitioners and health care systems meet customer expectations in regard to drug therapy, thus improving these outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Quality improvement in health care services in the United States will be made in incremental changes that rely on a structure-process-outcome model. The structure is provided by evidence created from controlled randomized trials and other studies of care and system outcomes that are based on the scientific method. The process portion is created by the application of evidence in the form of clinical practice guidelines, clinical practice models, and self-assessment tools such as Pharmacy's Framework for Drug Therapy Management. Incremental changes in structure and process will result in the desirable outcome of meeting customer needs for more effective drug therapy and disease management. DISCLOSURES: Authors Richard N. Fry and Steven G. Avey are employed by the Foundation for Managed Care Pharmacy, a nonprofit charitable trust that serves as the educational and philanthropic arm of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy; author Frederic R. Curtiss performed the majority of work associated with this manuscript prior to becoming editor-in-chief of the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy. This manuscript underwent blinded peer review and was subject to the same standards as every article published in JMCP.

Traversing the Quality Chasm: Revisiting the Framework for Pharmacy Services Quality Improvement.

DISCLOSURES: No funding supported the writing of this reflection. The authors have nothing to disclose.

Improved time to treatment failure and survival in ibrutinib-treated malignancies with a pharmaceutical care program: an observational cohort study.

Ibrutinib treatment has been shown to increase survival in patients with B cell malignancies. Real-life data suggest a large part of discontinuations are due to toxicities, impairing ibrutinib efficacy. We aimed to assess the impact of a pharmaceutical care program on the efficacy and safety of ibrutinib. This single-center, cohort, observational study enrolled patients with B cell malignancies. Patients were either assigned to the program or to receive usual care, based on physician decision. The program was conducted by clinical pharmacists specializing in oncology and included patient education for management of toxicities, adherence monitoring, interventions to reduce drug-drug interactions, and follow-up of transition from hospital to community. Between February 2014 and May 2017, we enrolled 155 patients, including 42 (27%) who were allocated to the program group and 113 (73%) to the usual care group. The effect of the program was beneficial in terms of time to treatment failure (p = 0.0005). The 30-month progression-free and overall survivals were significantly superior in the program group (respectively p = 0.002 and p = 0.004). Grade 3 or higher adverse events occurred more frequently for patients in the usual care group (15%) than program group (8%). A pharmaceutical care program provides a personalized environment for outpatient monitoring and control of the key risks associated with oral anticancer agents. This study shows evidence that management of ibrutinib treatment by clinical pharmacists results in significant improvement in survival and better tolerance than usual care.

Global oncology pharmacy response to COVID-19 pandemic: Medication access and safety.

Response, action, and adaptation of the way health services are delivered will impact our ability to provide optimized and continuity of care while acting within resource constraints imposed by COVID-19. Care for patients with cancer is particularly important given increased infection rates and worse outcomes from COVID-19 in this patient population, as well as potential adverse outcomes if treatment pathways need to be compromised. In this commentary, we provide a global oncology pharmacy perspective (including both developed and developing nations) on how COVID-19 has impacted access to and delivery of cancer therapies. This perspective was prepared by the International Society of Oncology Pharmacy Practitioners, with input from national and regional oncology pharmacy practice groups (42 practice leaders from 28 countries and regions) who contributed to a snapshot survey between 10 and 22 April 2020. Specifically, we highlight challenges related to safe handling of hazardous drugs and maintaining high-quality medication safety standards that have impacted various stakeholders.

The pharmacist's role in disaster research response.

PURPOSE: The need for high-quality research during disaster responses has been well described in the literature, and such research is supported by efforts at the federal level through the National Institutes of Health Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program. This article describes the fourth DR2 workshop with a specific focus on opportunities for pharmacists to get involved with disaster research efforts. SUMMARY: Pharmacists have historically played a significant role in disaster planning and response, and there are a number of opportunities for pharmacists to bring their unique perspective, positioning, and skills to disaster research response (ie, onsite and other research on the medical and public health aspects of disasters and public health emergencies). In February 2019, the fourth DR2 workshop was held in Tucson, AZ, in conjunction with the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson, the university's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona College of Pharmacy, and the university's Bio5 Institute to explore clinical and population-based research in a simulated disaster setting. This article describes the workshop and discusses several opportunities for pharmacists to design, lead, and support research efforts during disaster scenarios through involvement in research areas including clinical, operational, educational, and logistic aspects of pharmacy practice. CONCLUSION: Due to their positioning throughout health systems, unique perspective, training, and skills, pharmacists are uniquely situated to play an important role in disaster research response.

Ambulatory care elective: Introduction to core practice concepts.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Introduction to various pharmacy practice environments is effectively accomplished through concentrated elective courses. The ambulatory care elective utilized innovative active learning strategies to enhance chronic disease management, foster empathy, and introduce strategic planning in an ambulatory care center. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND SETTING: A new two-credit hour ambulatory elective course was offered to third-year pharmacy students in a four-year doctor of pharmacy program. This 30-hour, 2-week long course, ran simultaneously between three campuses, and included six modules. The course employed lectures, active learning activities, shadowing, role playing, and a simulation. FINDINGS: Course evaluations and student reflections indicate high satisfaction with the course and reveal value in the simulation. SUMMARY: Active learning sessions in this third-year pharmacy elective allowed application of lecture materials to explore the focused practice of ambulatory care. Discussion topics were varied, allowing students to gauge the breadth of opportunities offered in ambulatory pharmacy, while also appreciating the scope of skills required for successful and sustainable practice. Students valued the chronic disease state simulation, which provided a unique approach to foster personal attributes.