Rhode Island pharmacists rallied at the Statehouse last Thursday to express their support for a national health care agenda designed to leverage their profession’s expertise to combat medication misuse and errors, and promote health care affordability.
The agenda, conceived by the American Pharmacists Association, is based on three “principles”:
In a news release about the rally, the Rhode Island Pharmacists Association noted that the health care system incurs more than $177 billion a year in “mostly avoidable” costs to treat adverse events due to failure to take medications as prescribed.
Yet proper use of prescription drugs helps improve patients’ health and quality of life, the group noted, and pharmacists can make a big difference by educating patients on how to take their prescription medications properly and safely.
Pharmacists can also administer health screenings and immunizations, and they can help patients identify lower-cost options for their care, such as generic drugs.
On the IT front, the pharmacists’ agenda notes that electronic medical records and e-prescribing are expanding rapidly, and they’re expected to grow even more with the infusion of federal economic stimulus dollars. Yet not all systems connect well with one another, so pharmacists want to make sure providers and pharmacies are on the same page.
To learn more about the Pharmacy Principles for Health Care Reform, go to www.pharmacist.com.
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