The holidays are the best times to gather with family and friends to celebrate and relax. NJSHP wishes its entire membership a joyful and restful holiday season. Best wishes for happiness in 2012!

NEW JERSEY SOCIETY OF HEALTH-SYSTEM PHARMACISTS

2012

ANNUAL MEETING/EXHIBITION & INSTALLATION DINNER

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012

HILTON EAST BRUNSWICK 3 TOWER CENTER BLVD. EAST BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY (732) 828-2000

PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDAR!

The deadline to submit an abstract for the poster session of the 2012 NJSHP Annual Meeting is February 1, 2012, 11:59 pm EST. Please review the abstract submission form carefully as some submission criteria have changed. The form will be available to download from www.njshp.org. The form must be completed and submitted with an abstract to swilliam@njha.com. Information about the acceptance or rejection of the abstracts will be available by March 1, 2012.

North Central Chapter

January 26, 2012
Topic: A review of hyperglycemia management in the non-critically ill hospitalized patient - why, when and how to use subcutaneous insulin?
Location: Overlook Medical Center
99 Beauvoir Avenue
Summit, NJ 07902
Time: 5:30pm - 8:00pm
Speaker: Sandra M. Aguero, PharmD, BCPS
Clinical Assistant Professor
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Piscataway, NJ

Southern Chapter

January 30, 2012
Topic: Pharmacy-technician Centered Medication Reconciliation Program
Location: Our Lady of Lourdes Auditorium
1600 Haddon Avenue
Camden, NJ 08103
Time: 5:30pm - 8:00pm
Speaker: Sanchita Sen, PharmD, BCPS
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA

Click Here to complete the puzzle

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Or copy and paste the URL below into your internet browser: http://www.njshp.org/newsbrief/Puzzle/AntidotesCrossword.pdf

The Overdose and Antidotes Crossword was developed by two six-year pharmacy students from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy; Jacqueline Cheng and Michael Hsu in conjunction with Bruce Ruck, Pharm.D, DABAT of the New Jersey Poison Center. The correct answers are available by contacting Bruce Ruck at bruck@njpies.org.

Going Green has too many advantages we just couldn't resist!

•You will receive information more timely without the hassles of snail mail.
•Look for our meeting notices and newsletters to arrive in your e-mail so you can print or view.
•With our savings, we'll have more funds to enhance our member programs.
•Plus, going electronic is a great boost for the environment!

12/15/2011 A petition initiative to recognize pharmacists as providers under Section 1861 of the Social Security Act, led by ASHP member Sandra Leal, received a significant boost during the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting last week in New Orleans.

The petition on change.org has nearly 10,000 signatures. Members are encouraged to sign the petition as a way to demonstrate the importance that provider recognition for pharmacists can play in ensuring safe and effective medication use to the patients they serve.

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[January 1, 2012, AJHP News] Kate Traynor BETHESDA, MD 12 December 2011 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that it will pay $41.1 billion to hospitals for outpatient services provided to Medicare beneficiaries in 2012.

This figure was released November 1 upon the finalization of the 2012 Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS). The OPPS payments apply to equipment, supplies, and hospital staff but not the services of physicians and nonphysician practitioners paid under the Medicare physician fee schedule.

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[January 1, 2012, AJHP News] Kate Traynor BETHESDA, MD 12 December 2011 University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy Associate Professor Stephen Kogut has combined home pharmacy services and technology to secure funding for medication reviews and, he hopes, show the value of pharmacists' community care services.

"The idea is to couple pharmacists' home visits with electronic personal health record technology to try and address medication-related problems during the care transition from hospital discharge back to the community," Kogut said.

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12/7/2011 Many drugs that are fundamental and essential to patient care are in scare supply, which compromises providers’ ability to care for vulnerable patients, Kasey Thompson, vice president of ASHP’s office of Policy, Planning and Communications, told legislators today during a Capitol Hill hearing looking into the drug shortages crisis.

Thompson represented ASHP at a hearing held by the Senate Finance Committee, whose jurisdiction includes health programs under the Social Security Act, including Medicare and Medicaid. Thompson cited research from the Institute of Safe Medication Practices and the American Hospital Association that described suboptimal care brought on by drug shortages, including adverse drug events, delayed treatment, and cancelled procedures. He also pointed to research by ASHP and the University of Michigan that described the additional hours spent by hospital pharmacists to deal with shortages. "Every minute spent dealing with a drug shortage is time taken away from patient care," he said.

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Researchers reporting at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting have found that the inclusion of pharmacists in the discharge process can significantly reduce medication errors at a medical-surgical unit. A review conducted before and after the institution of the pharmacist-led program showed medication errors decreased from 180 to 95, according to Christina Wadsworth, PharmD, and Renee Striker, PharmD, of Huron Hospital in East Cleveland, Ohio. The number of patients discharged with medication errors also fell from 76 percent to 47 percent. The program instituted by Wadsworth, Striker, and colleagues allows pharmacists to verify all continuing prescriptions at discharge and bring any errors to the attention of the prescribing physician. Hospital pharmacists also counselled patients about the correct use of their medications.

The University of Texas' Professional Development Center (PDC) is launching a certification program for pharmacy technicians. The 14-week program will begin in February 2012. It includes a 120-hour internship. "As our population ages and health care becomes more and more important, I anticipate there will be increased employment opportunities in all areas of health care, including pharmacy workers," PDC director Liliya Spinazzola said.

Legislation in Congress would make price gouging prescription drugs that are in short supply a federal crime. Senator Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., is proposing a bill that would enable U.S. Department of Justice to go after "unscrupulous drug distributors" who sell hospitals life-saving prescription drugs in short supply at steep price increases. Such problems have been growing this year, with shortages worsening significantly for normal cheap generic injected medications that are critical to the treatment of cancer, pain, and infections, as well as liquid nutrition and anesthesia for surgery. The Associated Press reported that at least 15 patient deaths have occurred since the middle of 2010 due to shortages. In a case in Alabama, nine patients died after getting inadvertently contaminated liquid nutrition that had to be hand-mixed from a powder because the usual liquid nutrition was not available. Schumer's bill would allow penalties of up to $500 million for each case of price gouging. "Forcing hospitals to buy life-saving medications at outrageously inflated prices is unquestionably unethical, and with this legislation it would be illegal, too," says Schumer in a statement. The number of new drug shortages each year has tripped since 2006, and as of November 30th of this year there had been 251 different new drug shortages in 2011. Causes for shortages include manufacturing deficiencies leading to production shutdowns, companies stopping production on some drugs will small profit margins, consolidation in the generic drug industry, and limited supplies of some ingredients. At the end of October, President Obama signed an executive order instructing the Food and Drug Administration to expand its reporting of potential drug shortages, quicken reviews of proposed production changes for drugs facing shortages, and give the Justice Department more information on possible collusion or price gouging.

Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have found that upgrading electronic health record (EHR) systems can lead to an increase in e-prescribing errors. Their study, presented at the New York eHealth Collaborative's Digital Health Conference, showed that the initial shift to EHR from paper-based prescribing decreased errors by 85 percent. However, when sites already using e-prescribing upgraded to a new EHR system, the error rate increased from a baseline of 8.6 errors per 100 prescriptions to 18 errors after three months, and 10.9 errors after one year. The error rate only dropped below the baseline, to 3.8, after two years of using the new system.

Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced new data at ASHP's Midyear Clinical Meeting that indicates opioid-related adverse events (ORAEs) are associated with an average $1,000 increase in hospitalization cost and more than a day increase in the length of the patient's hospital stay. These findings were gleaned from a retrospective analysis identifying adult patients who received opioids between Sept. 2008 and August 2010. Approximately 20 percent of surgical patients were identified as experiencing an ORAE.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers have found that certain diabetes medications and anti-coagulants are associated with two-thirds of the 99,628 older adults who are hospitalized annually because of drug-related adverse events. The study's findings are based on information from 58 hospitals nationwide. All patients involved in the study came from the CDC's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance project. The research did not include hospitalizations associated with drug abuse, withdrawal, or deliberate self-harm. Of the hospitalizations the study tracked, 33 percent were associated with warfarin, 14 percent were associated with insulin injections, 13 percent were associated with antiplatelet medications, and 11 percent were associated with oral hypoglycemic agents.

A Florida Health Department report says the state should share data from its new prescription drug monitoring system with other states. The tracking system began operating Sept. 1 as part of efforts to crack down on "doctor shopping" and "pill mills" that supply drug dealers and addicts. The report notes 223,700 prescriptions written in Florida were filled in other states in 2009. The report says changing state law to allow for an exchange of data would help out-of-state doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement officials determine whether prescriptions came from Florida.

Innovative uses of technology, such as the Louisiana Health Information Exchange, can improve care for individual patients. The exchange uses a Web-based platform to link various healthcare branches, including primary-care doctors to hospitals and pharmacists. Through a $10 million federal grant, the exchange hopes to get more providers to join the network to make it self-sustaining through subscription fees from medical enterprises. The system's goal is to ensure patient's medical records are on hand at the time of care, and it will link not only larger systems but rural hospitals and doctors as well. Other benefits of the program include enabling analysis of patient data and outcomes and comparisons of hospitalization rates for certain categories of patients.