When it comes to helping customers make wiser and safer choices in their use of over-the-counter treatments, the pharmacist's best source of information is Nonprescription Product Therapeutics. This text emphasizes the pharmacist's role in triage--assessing the best nonprescription products for a client and knowing when medical conditions warrant a referral to another health professional. Organized by condition rather than by drug, the text is easy to consult, and complements a disease-based approach to therapeutics. Pharmacists will find useful information on ingredients, interactions, contraindications, and other essentials for helping customers choose appropriate nonprescription products. The Second Edition contains additional charts, drawings, illustrations, and tables. The book includes decision-making algorithms, case studies, patient counseling tips, and warnings on dangerous or life-threatening ingredients, actions, or situations. Another unique feature of this text is A Pharmacist's Journal--real-life reports from the front lines by an award-winning professor and researcher with over twenty years of experience in retail community pharmacy.

This timely new resource contains selected content from the popular text Nonprescription Product Therapeutics, providing all the necessary information for patient counseling situations. Lightweight and portable in a pocket-sized format, it's the ideal resource for pharmacy students and practicing pharmacists alike. There's no other rapid reference like it currently available. Features include counseling tips that highlight information patients need to know, patient assessment algorithms that guide you through complex therapeutic decisions, alerts on dangerous or life-threatening ingredients, actions, or situations, and a color insert containing 48 photos of disorders to aid in suggesting medications.

Written and peer reviewed by experts in practice and academia, the 19th edition of the Handbook of Nonprescription Drugs: An Interactive Approach to Self-Care is an authoritative resource for students and for health care providers who counsel and care for patients undertaking self-treatment¿nonprescription drugs, nutritional supplements, medical foods, nondrug and preventive measures, and complementary therapies. Its goal is to develop the knowledge and problem-solving skills needed to assess a patient¿s health status and current practice of self-treatment, to determine whether self-care is necessary or appropriate, and, if appropriate, to recommend safe and effective self-care measures.

This new edition of Non-prescription Medicines has been revised and updated to reflect amendments in legal category status of several products from prescription-only (POM) to pharmacy sale (P) status. Over-the-counter (OTC) medicines currently available in the UK are reviewed in alphabetically arranged chapters on the conditions that they are licensed to treat. 44 common conditions are covered and new chapters on Chlamydia, Obesity and Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia have been added. Each chapter includes:* an introduction to the condition* detailed description of the available products, including mode of action, side-effects, cautions and contraindications, interactions and dosage* product selection points* product recommendations. Non-prescription Medicines is the only publication in the UK that deals with available OTC medicines comprehensively and in depth. This vital resource will enable pharmacists, GPs, nurses and other healthcare professionals to make well-informed recommendations and to give sound advice to their patients. Updates are available online in January and June at (INSERT WEB ADDRESS)Alan Nathan is a freelance pharmacy writer and Consultant, London, UK.

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO IMPLEMENTING ADVANCED PHARMACY SERVICES IN COMMUNITY AND CLINIC SETTINGS Community and Clinical Pharmacy Services teaches pharmacy students and practicing pharmacists how to provide advanced levels of pharmacy services in community and clinic settings designed to help patients achieve specific health goals and treat common disease states. This unique text provides practical--rather than merely ideological--ways for pharmacists to utilize their extensive clinical knowledge and fill a major gap in American health care. It discusses barriers, necessary skills, required knowledge, and issues related to preparation, interventions, patient outcomes, economic aspects, and marketing considerations for therapeutic areas commonly addressed in the outpatient setting. The beginning of the book delves into the general management skills necessary to provide and implement advanced patient care services, including documentation, patient interviewing, and medication therapy management. Important chapters discuss disease states that would most likely be amenable to development of pharmacy services, including: Asthma Smoking Cessation Diabetes Hypertension Osteoporosis Obesity Also covered are immunizations, anticoagulation, and cardiometabolic services. The disease state chapters include learning aids such as summary points, first-hand accounts from experienced pharmacists who have implemented pharmacy services for that particular condition, a simulated patient case, and multiple-choice questions.

Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.