Health professionals, roles

NICE was set up as a Special Health Authority for England and Wales and its role is to provide patients, health professionals and the public with authoritative, robust and reliable guidance on current best practice . 

The demographic shifts in life expectancy gains further complicate any analysis of the sources of longer life. To identify the specific role of pharmaceuticals in this remarkable trend, we focus on empirical research based on data from the last 20-30 years. The role of pharmaceutical products is not obvious, however, because of simultaneously increased average income, decreased poverty, greater and faster access to medical facilities, and improved training for health professionals, all of which combine with access to new and improved pharmaceutical products to yield longer life. 

It is clear that legislation alone will not prevent substance abuse. Education is an essential complement and all health care workers should play their r51e in individual or group education. They should also be good role models. Health professionals have easy access to drugs and they must be very careful that they do not fall temptation to the misuse of psychoactive products to alleviate their mood, prevent tiredness, and to combat other stress related symptoms. They should manage their patients along the same lines. 

As being part of a series launched under the umbrella of the IUBMB, the volume was planned to tackle not only the cutting edge research, but also to provide a source for basic, educational information. The target audience includes not only scientists and health professionals but also educators and students, policymakers, food and pharmaceutical developers, and many others interested in understanding how plant-derived phenolic compounds can affect human health and so, in part, explains how fruit and vegetables play a key role in enhancing human health. 

Pharmacists and technicians play a major role in medication safety in modern pharmacy practice. After summarizing several studies performed in hospitals and long-term care facilities, Allan and Barker (1990) estimated that medication errors occur at a rate of about 1 per patient per day. In a more recent study performed in ambulatory pharmacies, they found an overall dispensing accuracy rate for prescription medications of 98.3 percent (Allan, Barker, and Carnahan, 2003). While most of these errors probably have minimal clinical relevance and do not affect patients adversely, many experts believe that medication error rates may be higher in the ambulatory care setting because errors may not always be evident to the health professionals who work there. For example, medication errors can occur when a patient purchases nonprescription medications without speaking with the pharmacist about any potential interactions with his or her prescription medications or if patients fail to verify the appropriate dose of the over-the-counter (OTC) medication. 

Professional socialization is the dynamic process whereby students learn about the professional role and the expectations of performance in that role (Chalmers et al., 1995). As part of the socialization process, individuals learn formal and informal values, attitudes, beliefs, standards of practice, styles of communication, and modes of interaction as they are socialized into becoming health care professionals. They are trained to think and act in certain ways that are consistent with the ways of their profession (Muldary,... 

Women health care professionals may also experience unique sets of challenges and expectations within their work environments. It has been found that women see work as a means of self-fulfillment and professional autonomy and consequently may hold higher expectations for their careers than men (Muldary, 1983). Moreover, women health professionals who manage families in addition to their jobs have expectations to fulfill as professionals as well as wives or mothers. Expectations from each role can carry over into the other contexts and can result in little time for women to meet their personal needs. Another problem that can be experienced by women professionals is real or perceived sexism. Although beyond the scope of this chapter, real or perceived sexism can result in added frustrations and resentments that could further contribute to burnout. 

Pharmacists are health professionals who assist individuals in making the best use of medications. This Code, prepared and supported by pharmacists, is intended to state publicly the principles that form the fundamental basis of the roles and responsibilities of pharmacists. These principles, based on moral obligations and virtues, are established to guide pharmacists in relationships with patients, health professionals, and society. 

Functioning in governance and advisory roles local board or committee member. Service Area Health Professional Liaison, National Nursing Committee, national Board of Governors (American Red Cross, 2007c)... 

One of the most important roles of the mental health professional in the immediate aftermath of a disaster is to identify which individuals are most at risk for psychiatric complications, and to make referrals for further mental health evaluation and treatment when indicated. 

Levy and Sidel (2003) have described four overall roles for all health professionals in terrorism and public health. These are (1) develop improved preparedness, (2) respond to the health consequences of terrorist attacks and threats, (3) take action to prevent terrorism, and (4) promote a balance between response to terrorism and other public health concerns. When aligned with the public health emergency preparedness competencies, these four roles create a framework for the public health nursing response to a biological event. 

Some individuals go to more than one physician, and it is common for a patient to be treated by one or more specialists in addition to a family physician. Some patients are also seeing other health professionals (e.g., dentists, podiatrists, etc.), who may prescribe medication. It is frequently difficult for one prescriber to become aware of all the medications that have been prescribed by others for a particular patient, and many difficulties arise from such situations. For example, one physician may prescribe an antihistamine having sedative properties for a patient for whom another physician has prescribed an antianxiety agent, with the possible consequence of an excessive depressant effect. Even though the patient is seeing different prescribers, he will often have the prescriptions dispensed at the same pharmacy. Therefore, the pharmacist, by maintaining patient medication records, plays an important role in the detection and prevention of drug-related problems. 

The role of Health Benefits Limited (HBL) is to distribute and monitor the public health subsidy pajmients made to health professionals, such as doctors and pharmacists. Like PHARMAC, HBL was established in mid-1993 by the four RHAs that existed at that time and is now a subsidiary of the Health Funding Agency. 

As health professionals have become more aware of the importance of sleep, the treatment of sleep disorders has received increasing attention. As a result, new drugs have become available on the market and new information has become available on the role of sleep factors, the homeostatic regulation of sleep, circadian rhythm, chronotherapy, the role of immunology, and genetics of sleep disorders. The new knowledge will further enhance the ability of health professionalsto develop new medicines for the treatment of sleep disorders. 

Another facet, obviously, is to deal with the patient whose compliance has been substandard and take effective action to make as much improvement as possible in drug intake, and to switch, if necessary, to the agent whose therapeutic actions are least influenced by lapses in dosing. These are, of course, new issues that have previously not been considered in drug evaluation, for the simple reason that reliable measures of patient compliance have not previously been available. The potential roles of pharmacists, nurses and other health professionals remain to be defined as this new information and its implications become available and integrated into clinical thinking. 

Another contributing factor has been the need to help ensure lifelong competence in a rapidly changing, technologically complex field. The need to provide a means of standardization of practice has also had a role. Such a motivation was key, for example, to the development of the Federal Credentialing Program, which is creating a national database of health professionals that will include pharmacists. 

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