Should Pharmacists Prescribe Prescription Medications?

It is time to transform pharmacists’ traditional role as mere dispensers of medicine and let them also treat minor ailments, administer an array of vaccines and manage patients with chronic diseases, the country’s chain drug stores argue in a new report to be released Wednesday. Remaking druggists as more wide-reaching health professionals could free up millions of hours for overworked doctors, curb emergency-department crowding — and save the health-care system substantial sums, suggests the white paper.

TORONTO — Shoppers Drug Mart is finding that consumers who use its expanding list of pharmacy services are more loyal to the chain, its chief executive said Thursday, a much-needed asset in an era of declining drug prices and the fresh online threat of Amazon Canada. “When we have intimacy with our patients, it creates a much stronger bond and loyalty in the rest of the store,” CEO Domenic Pilla said at CIBC’s annual Retail and Consumer conference.

Given recent legislative and judicial decisions, there are vanishingly few electronic records that the government cannot rape at will.  Increasingly, government agencies can access electronic data without even bothering with silly stuff like warrants or judicial review.  Latest case in point:  Electronic medical records

Starve a cold? Feed a fever? Or just drink plenty of fluids and feel sorry for yourself.

The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology released its big report (pdf) on H1N1 on Tuesday.

When consumers need to get a drug prescription filled, they tend to turn to the neighborhood drugstore. Understandably so. But if drugstores were honest, some prescriptions would come with a special warning label: You May Be Getting Ripped Off. Consumers who have health insurance—and whose insurance cover their prescriptions—probably don’t notice or care about the full list prices for their prescriptions.

When consumers need to get a drug prescription filled, they tend to turn to the neighborhood drugstore. Understandably so. But if drugstores were honest, some prescriptions would come with a special warning label: You May Be Getting Ripped Off. Consumers who have health insurance—and whose insurance cover their prescriptions—probably don’t notice or care about the full list prices for their prescriptions.