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Chemotherapy on the Brain
Simply surviving cancer gives reason enough to celebrate. To sweeten the pot, researchers at the 2013 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference suggest cancer survivors garner another perk:...
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Pharmacists for Patient Safety
Pharmacists are a key component in improving patient safety, according to a new report released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health...
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Cancer’s Sweet Tooth
Who doesn’t love a sweet treat? Turns out even cancer cells have a penchant for sugar. Sugar serves as an energy source for any cell to grow and replicate – and cancer cells are no different. But...
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Creating a “Safety Culture”
The missing ingredient needed to create safer healthcare and better patient outcomes? A “culture of safety,” says Cynthia Barnard, MBA, from Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital, who led a...
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Psoriasis: The Summer Sun Approach
It’s fitting that August is National Psoriasis Awareness Month, especially when you consider that the plentiful summer sun this month serves as natural medication for the irritated skin of psoriasis....
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Shingles Not an Issue with Newer Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatments
Guest Blog: Monica Morgan, Pharm.D., Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy As if the aches and pains of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) weren’t trouble enough, people with this...
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Prescription “Stretching” Harms Health
Health care costs for patients, including prescription medications, continue to rise. Out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions reached $45 billion for Americans in 2011 (the most recent year data is...
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Saving Health Care Dollars, One Injection at a Time
As health care costs continue to rise, cost containment is on everyone’s mind. As health care costs continue to rise, cost containment is on everyone’s mind. Cutting services and benefits might save...
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Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Find Treatment Hard to Stick With
Arthritis & Rheumatism, only one in five people with rheumatoid arthritis reach an adherence rate of at least 80 percent for their oral medications. In addition, one-third of patient taking...
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Even Doctors Doubt Patients’ Medication Compliance
Source: Medication adherence in America: A national report 2013. National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) June 25, 2013. Patient medication compliance numbers remain so disappointingly low...
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Give Your Liver a Cup of Coffee
Coffee, one of the world’s most popular drinks, can be pretty healthy for your liver. As Dr. Nick Maroulis, Director of Pharmacy at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy, recently mentioned in a guest blog, The...
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Prescribers: Want Your Patients Treated? Then Don’t Hand Them a Prescription
When it comes to the treatment of tricky health conditions with specialty medications – such as Humira or Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis, Vivitrol for alcohol dependence, or medications to treat...
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Expensive Out-of-Pocket Costs: The Latest Treatment Side Effect?
High health care costs leading to financial strain should be considered a side effect of treating a disease for some patients, posits Peter Ubel, M.D., Professor at Duke University, and his colleagues...
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Overcoming Lupus Medication Compliance Challenges
The health challenges of lupus can be debilitating, yet two out of three lupus patients cared under Medicaid do not fully comply with their medication treatment plan. This new statistic emerged from a...
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Blood Pressure-Alzheimer’s Connection
Every 68 seconds an American develops Alzheimer’s disease, so chances are that you already know someone battling this terrible disease. In all, there are an estimated 5.2 million Americans currently...
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Eat Nuts for a Longer Life
Time to put nuts on the menu: a new study reveals that regularly including nuts in one’s diet slashes the risk of dying from any cause (that is, total mortality), as well as from the specific causes of...
View ArticlePatient Education Key to Adherence
Patient education is one of the keys to optimizing patient adherence. In short: the more patients know about their disease and medication treatment plan, they more likely they are to adhere to their...
View Article“Think Zebra” for World Primary Immunodeficiency Week
Guest Blogger: Meredith Ruppert, R.N. In partnership with World Primary Immunodeficiency Week celebrated this week (April 22-29th), The Immune Deficiency Foundation is asking everyone to join in to...
View ArticleI’ll Say It Again: Reminders Work
Taking each and every pill at the right time, every time is not as easy as it sounds. Most patients treating a disease find it hard to remember to take their medications completely in accord with the...
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What Other Medications Are You Taking?
Guest Blog: Monica Morgan, Pharm.D., Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy At the start of therapy with BioPlus and at each and every refill, I ask my patients “what other...
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Surgery Soon? First, Check Your Medicine Cabinet
My mother was recently diagnosed with a 7 mm breast lesion that is a ductal carcinoma. In preparing for surgery, I reviewed her medicines and dietary supplements. Mom is a very health conscience...
View ArticleWhat Makes Specialty Pharmacy Special?
Guest Blog: Russell Gay, Chief Strategic Officer at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy Many people wonder how a specialty pharmacy is different from any other kind of pharmacy. Let me share the story of a...
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The Scoop on Milk Thistle for Hepatitis C
Over the years, many of my hepatitis C patients have asked if milk thistle would provide additional benefit during treatment of their hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Since this herb doesn’t have any...
View ArticleDe-Stressing Puts the Brakes on MS
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive disease; slowing the advance of this disease improves quality of life for patients. Learning stress management techniques can be just as effective as...
View ArticleThe Future of Medication Adherence, Part 1
Medication adherence results in an extra $290 billion in costs, due to unnecessary hospital admissions, doctor visits, and lab tests, as well as impacting quality of life for patients. BioPlus...
View ArticleThe Future of Medication Adherence, Part 2
In last week’s blog (The Future of Medication Adherence, Part 1), medication adherence trends affecting the future of medication adherence were examined, including the changing role of pharmacists,...
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Safety Net: Patient Assistance Programs
Guest Blog: Barbara Weller, Vice President of Finance When a loved one is sick with a life-threatening illness, knowing that there are treatments available is comforting. Life-saving treatments priced...
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Vitamin-Virus Connection
Have you heard the buzz lately about vitamin B12 and hepatitis C? After a pilot study reported that vitamin B12 improved hepatitis cure rates, some of my patients have been asking whether vitamin B12...
View ArticleVoting for Better Medication Adherence
As politicians ramp up efforts for greater voter turnout in next month’s election, it turns out that a little trick from cognitive psychology applied in get-out-the-vote drives might also work to...
View ArticleYou Care Because You Ask
Guest Blog: Kathy Norris, Patient Care Manager at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy “You care because you ask.” This response came to me from a patient who I had just scheduled for her monthly medication...
View ArticleMedication Compliance Opportunities, Part 1
While everyone agrees that better medication adherence would improve treatment outcomes and save money—what isn’t so clear-cut is which methods are the most effective to achieve this goal. The Agency...
View ArticleMedication Compliance Opportunities, Part 2
In last week’s blog, I discussed a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that reviewed evidence from 68 scientific articles in an effort to determine which interventions...
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Facing the Next Disaster with Better Technology
As Hurricane Sandy made landfall, many hospitals throughout the region faced the difficult decision of whether to care in place for their patients after their generators failed or evacuate patients to...
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Compliance On the Cancer Front
Guest Blog: Amanda Brown, Director of Rx Coordinators at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy Navigating through cancer treatment tends to go better for patients when healthcare professionals offer...
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Going Nuts
Did you catch last Monday’s landmark study in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that nuts in the diet can protect against heart disease? Usually, I’m fairly critical of nutritional studies...
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