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Biomedical subjects

R P Penna

Publications and source records attributed to R P Penna.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1990

Pharmaceutical care: pharmacy's mission for the 1990s.

The case for pharmaceutical care as pharmacy's mission for the 1990s is presented. The emergence of pharmacy as a clinical profession has given pharmacists the skills and knowledge to improve the outcomes of drug therapy. It also presents them with the responsibility for those results. Practitioners of pharmaceutical care are concerned with the effect of their services on patients' quality of life and not merely with the act of providing services. They work with other health-care professionals as equals to ensure that therapeutic goals are achieved and that drug-related illness does not occur or is quickly detected and resolved. To be accepted and implemented, pharmaceutical care must first overcome pharmacy's product- and service-oriented focus, opposition from other health-care professions and drug manufacturers, financial and logistical problems, and ignorance and inertia among pharmacists themselves. Through a united effort, pharmacy organizations, schools, and individual pharmacists can translate the need for pharmaceutical care into demands for it by patients, insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, and the government. Pharmaceutical skills and knowledge have developed to the point where pharmacists must share in responsibility for the outcomes of drug therapy.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1987

Pharmacy: a profession in transition or a transitory profession?

Areas in pharmacy that are in transition are described, and ways to prevent the perception of pharmacy as a transitory profession are detailed. Pharmacy has adapted itself over the past 75 years to changes in the health-care system and in societal demands of the profession. The evolution of pharmacy functions has included drug product preparation, establishment of standards, drug distribution, and clinical pharmacy. The profession is continuing to change in reaction to economic and social forces. Hospital pharmacy flourished when it shifted from a profit to a cost center because pharmacy practice researchers documented the contribution of clinical pharmacy to patient care and because hospital pharmacy administrators developed sound management procedures to maintain efficient inventories. Current controversies in pharmacy practice are discussed, including pharmacist prescribing, physician dispensing, and therapeutic substitution. These terms inadequately describe the concepts, especially when they are taken out of context of the total health-care process involving a physician-pharmacist team. Because of the success of this teamwork in acute-care institutions, ambulatory pharmaceutical services should involve cooperative activities of pharmacists in professional service administrative organizations (PSAOs) and physicians in independent practice associations. The cost-effectiveness of PSAOs is discussed. Marketing of drug products is changing as the physician-pharmacist interaction becomes integral to the drug therapy decision-making process. Drug distribution should not be viewed as less professional than clinical activities. Although the pharmacy profession is reorienting itself toward patient care and the rational use of drugs in society, it must maintain its authority over the drug distribution system.

Drug Prescriptions↗