Drugstores on the Net, the Benefits and Risks of On-line Pharmacies
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Commerce. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Publisher:
Published: 1999
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13:
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Making Medicines Affordable
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2018-03-01
Total Pages: 235
ISBN-13: 0309468086
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.
PBMs
Author: Sheila Shulman
Publisher: CRC Press
Published: 1998-06-18
Total Pages: 216
ISBN-13: 9780789005120
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPBMs: Reshaping the Pharmaceutical Distribution Network provides HMOs and other third-party payers with information on the new and increasingly important role of pharmaceutical benefit companies (PBMs) in the health care industry. From this text, you will learn how PBMs can maintain and deliver a quality, cost-effective drug benefit plan to your company while achieving the anticipated market share for the product. PBMs: Reshaping the Pharmaceutical Distribution Network offers you suggestions on how to choose which PBM service is correct for your business, such as what qualifications to look for in a PBM, as well as what questions you should ask a respective company. This text also offers ways on how your company can benefit from becoming a client and may make your business more competitive in the pharmaceutical industry. PBMs: Reshaping the Pharmaceutical Distribution Network also informs you about the controversies that have arisen concerning the new position of PBMs in the industry. Through research and evaluation, this text addresses these issues from many different perspectives and gives you insight into other topics concerning PBMs, including: operating methods that PBMs currently rely on for designing and overseeing a drug benefit plan how the Food and Drug Administration currently views the role of PBMs and why they are contemplating regulatory intervention alerting PBMs, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, and managed care organizations to new legal issues involving fraud and abuse affecting pharmacy benefit management and pharmaceutical manufacturers reasons why retail drug chains and pharmacist organizations oppose recent industry developments regarding PBMs whether or not PBMs reflect a move toward greater centralized decisionmaking in the health care systemIn addition, PBMs: Reshaping the Pharmaceutical Distribution Network offers pharmaceutical companies, health care providers, and managed care organizations several suggestions for further research, which may make your business or your business relationships more efficient and productive in the future. If you or your company are considering the services of a pharmacy benefit management, PBMs: Reshaping the Pharmaceutical Distribution Network will guide you in choosing a company that helps you deliver the most cost-effective and efficient pharmaceutical benefits to customers.
Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2013-06-20
Total Pages: 377
ISBN-13: 0309269393
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe adulteration and fraudulent manufacture of medicines is an old problem, vastly aggravated by modern manufacturing and trade. In the last decade, impotent antimicrobial drugs have compromised the treatment of many deadly diseases in poor countries. More recently, negligent production at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy sickened hundreds of Americans. While the national drugs regulatory authority (hereafter, the regulatory authority) is responsible for the safety of a country's drug supply, no single country can entirely guarantee this today. The once common use of the term counterfeit to describe any drug that is not what it claims to be is at the heart of the argument. In a narrow, legal sense a counterfeit drug is one that infringes on a registered trademark. The lay meaning is much broader, including any drug made with intentional deceit. Some generic drug companies and civil society groups object to calling bad medicines counterfeit, seeing it as the deliberate conflation of public health and intellectual property concerns. Countering the Problem of Falsified and Substandard Drugs accepts the narrow meaning of counterfeit, and, because the nuances of trademark infringement must be dealt with by courts, case by case, the report does not discuss the problem of counterfeit medicines.
The Risks of Prescription Drugs
Author: Donald Light
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 179
ISBN-13: 0231146922
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFew people realize that prescription drugs have become a leading cause of death, disease, and disability. Adverse reactions to widely used drugs, such as psychotropics and birth control pills, as well as biologicals, result in FDA warnings against adverse reactions. The Risks of Prescription Drugs describes how most drugs approved by the FDA are under-tested for adverse drug reactions, yet offer few new benefits. Drugs cause more than 2.2 million hospitalizations and 110,000 hospital-based deaths a year. Serious drug reactions at home or in nursing homes would significantly raise the total. Women, older people, and people with disabilities are least used in clinical trials and most affected. Health policy experts Donald Light, Howard Brody, Peter Conrad, Allan Horwitz, and Cheryl Stults describe how current regulations reward drug companies to expand clinical risks and create new diseases so millions of patients are exposed to unnecessary risks, especially women and the elderly. They reward developing marginally better drugs rather than discovering breakthrough, life-saving drugs. The Risks of Prescription Drugs tackles critical questions about the pharmaceutical industry and the privatization of risk. To what extent does the FDA protect the public from serious side effects and disasters? What is the effect of giving the private sector and markets a greater role and reducing public oversight? This volume considers whether current rules and incentives put patients' health at greater risk, the effect of the expansion of disease categories, the industry's justification of high U.S. prices, and the underlying shifts in the burden of risk borne by individuals in the world of pharmaceuticals. Chapters cover risks of statins for high cholesterol, SSRI drugs for depression and anxiety, and hormone replacement therapy for menopause. A final chapter outlines six changes to make drugs safer and more effective. Suitable for courses on health and aging, gender, disability, and minority studies, this book identifies the Risk Proliferation Syndrome that maximizes the number of people exposed to these risks. Additional Columbia / SSRC books on the privatization of risk and its implications for Americans: Bailouts: Public Money, Private ProfitEdited by Robert E. Wright Disaster and the Politics of InterventionEdited by Andrew Lakoff Health at Risk: America's Ailing Health System-and How to Heal ItEdited by Jacob S. Hacker Laid Off, Laid Low: Political and Economic Consequences of Employment InsecurityEdited by Katherine S. Newman Pensions, Social Security, and the Privatization of RiskEdited by Mitchell A. Orenstein
Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2017-09-28
Total Pages: 483
ISBN-13: 0309459575
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDrug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.
Nutritional and Herbal Therapies for Children and Adolescents
Author: George M. Kapalka
Publisher: Academic Press
Published: 2009-11-06
Total Pages: 440
ISBN-13: 008095801X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume assists practicing mental health professionals in expanding their knowledge about nutritional and herbal interventions that can be attempted as alternatives to prescription medications. Designed to provide guidance for non-medical caregivers treating children and adolescents who present with emotional and/or behavioral difficulties such as such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, sleep difficulties, impulsivity, distractibility, and other psychological and psychiatric disorders, the volume provides a comprehensive discussion of naturopathic solutions based on existing research. In areas where research is not extensive, conclusions are provided about potentially beneficial effects based on the specific pharmacologic action of the compounds. Dosage for specific age groups, schedules of administration, dietary considerations (i.e., whether or not to take the supplement with food), monitoring for response and adverse effects, signs of dangerous reactions, and the need to control interactions with other compounds (i.e., prescription medications) are thoroughly reviewed with regard to each supplement discussed in the book. - Reviews specific psychological disorders (i.e. ADHD, depression, mania, anxiety, sleep difficulties, tic behaviors and autism) and the available data about their treatment with the use of nutritional and herbal supplements - Provides rationale for the use of every specific compound with detailed recommendations tailored for each age group with regard to the dosage, frequency of administration, possible dangers and monitoring for side effects - Discusses claims of efficacy used to market various products and ground those claims within fully vetted scientific research - Discusses neurobiology, pharmacodynamics and pharmokinetics in detailed but accessible language *Non-medical clinicians with limited knowledge of medicine and pharmacology come away with understanding of key issues involved in - Fully covers assessment, diagnosis & treatment of children and adolescents, focusing on evidence-based practices *Consolidates broadly distributed literature into single source and specifically relates evidence-based tools to practical treatment, saving clinicians time in obtaining and translating information and improving the level of care they can provide - Detailed how-to explanation of practical evidence-based treatment techniques *Gives reader firm grasp of how to more effectively treat patients - Material related to diversity (including race, ethnicity, gender and social class) integrated into each chapter *Prepares readers for treating the wide range of youth they will encounter in practice
Preventing Medication Errors
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2006-12-11
Total Pages: 480
ISBN-13: 0309133734
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1996 the Institute of Medicine launched the Quality Chasm Series, a series of reports focused on assessing and improving the nation's quality of health care. Preventing Medication Errors is the newest volume in the series. Responding to the key messages in earlier volumes of the seriesâ€"To Err Is Human (2000), Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), and Patient Safety (2004)â€"this book sets forth an agenda for improving the safety of medication use. It begins by providing an overview of the system for drug development, regulation, distribution, and use. Preventing Medication Errors also examines the peer-reviewed literature on the incidence and the cost of medication errors and the effectiveness of error prevention strategies. Presenting data that will foster the reduction of medication errors, the book provides action agendas detailing the measures needed to improve the safety of medication use in both the short- and long-term. Patients, primary health care providers, health care organizations, purchasers of group health care, legislators, and those affiliated with providing medications and medication- related products and services will benefit from this guide to reducing medication errors.
Healthcare Heroes
Author: Mary Choy
Publisher:
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 242
ISBN-13: 9781905941315
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book provides expert insights and strategies to help readers find their best career path in healthcare. It features healthcare professionals and their stories, giving unfiltered, unedited, no holds barred version of what it’s really like to be a healthcare professional in the 21st century.
Companion to Psychiatric Studies
Author: Eve C. Johnstone
Publisher:
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 852
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis comprehensive and authoritative resource thoroughly covers the basic science of psychiatry as well as its clinical practice. It succinctly presents all of the information needed for psychiatric certification. The 7th Edition features a new soft-cover binding and a more user-friendly format, as well as an increased focus on evidence-based medicine.
