Pharmacists product care

Product care and patient care are the essential functions of the pharmacist at the end of the supply chain where the pharmacist meets the patient. Product care is associated with procuring (availability), storage and dispensing, including instruction of the patient of medicinal products as well as with preparation if necessary. Patient care may include counselling on the choice of medication regimens, a key part of basic academic pharmaceutical education. It may also be associated with properties of medicinal products such as efficacy and safety or lack of safety and lack of efficacy. Healthcare professionals and patients are then the first to complain about the services delivered by the pharmacy. 

Amongst the wealth of information sources, specific ones may be valuable for pharmacists who are concerned with product care, preparation, adapting dosage forms and reconstitution. This chapter presents an authors and editors choice of essential references, textbooks, specific references and sources for postgraduate studying. For each source practical information is given. 

This chapter gives a selection of sources on product care, and preparation of medicines. The authors and editors consider them valuable and worth to be considered by pharmacists who are involved in product care, preparation and manufacturing, adapting dosage forms and reconstitution. 

Product knowledge for aU pharmacists working directly with patients, to enable them to make the appropriate medicine available, to store medicines properly, to adapt medicines if necessary and to dispense medicines with the appropriate information to inform patients and caregivers about product care and how to maintain their quality. This basic knowledge will also be of help to industrial pharmacist to remind and focus them on the application of the medicines manufactured. 

The American College of Apothecaries represents pharmacists whose practices can best be described as emphasizing prescription and related products. Some pharmacists practice as consultants and providers to long-term care health faciUties, eg, nursing homes. Both state and U.S. laws have mandated closer control of dmg products in such units. The American Association of Consultant Pharmacists has been formed to serve the needs of such pharmacists. 

Do not change from one brand of nitrates to anodier without consulting your pharmacist or primary care provider. Products manufactured by different companies may not be equally effective. 

Many patients are turning to dietary supplements in an effort to take a more active part in the management of their health. Whether or not health care practitioners condone this practice, pharmacists must be familiar with these products. Pharmacists should be aware of the safety and toxicity issues surrounsding these products. They cannot afford to jeopardize patients trust and respect by dismissing the potential utility of dietary supplements. Rather, pharmacists need to encourage patients to be open and honest about their dietary supplement use so the highest degree of health care service may be provided. 

This book provides tlie reader with a variety of practice MCQs, which can be used to assess essential pharmacy practice knowledge in a number of areas, including drug action, uses, clinical pharmacology, adverse effects, pharmaceutical care, counselling points, product selection and pharmaceutical calculations. It will be a very useful text both for pharmacy preregistration examination candidates and for practising pharmacists. 

Conventional evaluation of new medical technologies such as pharmaceutical products includes consideration of efficacy, effectiveness, and safety. The methodology for such analyses is well developed, and studies of safety and efficacy often are required prior to drug marketing. Health care researchers from a variety of disciplines have developed new techniques for the evaluation of the economic effects of clinical care and new medical technologies. Clinicians, pharmacists, economists, epidemiologists, operations researchers, and others have contributed to the field of clinical economics , an evolving discipline dedicated to the study of how different approaches to patient care and treatment influence the resources consumed in clinical medicine. 

The demands in the health care industry are greater than ever because customers (government, physicians, pharmacists, patients, and health insurance companies) are more interested in product safety, efficacy, and potency and asking value for money. 

D. Disclosure in the advertisement that pharmacists, physicians (or other health care providers), or veterinarians (in the case of animal drugs) may provide additional product information to consumers. This statement should communicate clearly that the referenced professional is a source of additional product information. 

Because nearly 70% of patients who use alternative therapies do not inform their health-care providers about these products, pharmacists and other health-care professionals should question all patients about their use of alternative therapies. Health-care professionals should remain vigilant for potential interactions between alternative therapies and prescription medications, especially medications with a narrow therapeutic index, and should report suspected interactions to the FDA... 

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