Bipolar membranes (BPMs) enable isolated acidic/alkaline regions in electrochemical devices, facilitating optimized catalytic environments for water electrolysis, CO2 reduction, and electrodialysis. For economic feasibility, BPMs must achieve stable, high current density operation with low overpotentials. We report a graphene oxide (GrOx) catalyzed, asymmetric BPM capable of electrodialysis at 1 A cm-2 with overpotentials < 250 mV. Experiments and continuum modeling demonstrate that the low overpotentials for water dissociation are achieved by deprotonation at GrOx catalyst sites located within the high electric field BPM junction region. The asymmetric nature of the BPM allows it to overcome water transport limitations due to its thin anion exchange layer, while maintaining near unity Faradaic efficiency for acid and base generation. Additionally, the asymmetric BPM exhibits voltage stability exceeding 1100 hours at 80 mA cm-2 and 100 hours at 500 mA cm-2 and its freestanding architecture implemented in an electrodialysis cell stack demonstrates its real-world applicability.
Background Hispanics are the largest growing population in the United States and their use of prescription medications can be influenced by the education and counseling they receive from pharmacists. However, little is known about pharmacists' communication with patients who speak Spanish or factors that can influence such communication. Objectives The objective of the study was to develop and validate an instrument to measure pharmacists' self-efficacy in communicating with Spanish-speaking patients. Methods An initial pool of 15 items developed from previous research and suggestions from communication experts and practicing pharmacists was subjected to cognitive interviewing. Nine retained items were administered to 1022 licensed pharmacists by mail survey. Summary statistics and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted. Retained factors were determined by the examination of eigenvalues and Scree test results. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were calculated to assess internal consistency. Results A total of 540 community pharmacists completed the survey. Item means ranged from 2.93(SD=1.47) to 1.58(SD=0.88) based on a 5-point scale (1-not at all confident to 5-extremely confident). EFA resulted in a 2-factor solution, accounting for 71% of the variance. The 2 factors consisted of Health and Drug Information (alpha = 0.92) and Opening the Encounter (alpha = 0.75). The alpha for the overall scale was 0.88. Conclusions We found evidence to support the reliability and validity of an instrument to measure pharmacists' self-efficacy beliefs about communicating with Spanish-speaking patients in community practice. Practitioners and researchers may use this instrument to inform pharmacy education, pharmacy practice improvement, and research efforts around communicating with Spanish-speaking clients.
Background: To successfully deliver pharmacy services, pharmacists and technicians need to work as a team and have effective communication. Objectives: To measure the amount of communication between community pharmacists and their technicians during monthly blood pressure (BP) clinics. Methods: Cross-sectional survey method was used to assess the amount of communication pharmacists and technicians had on each task. Study participants were pharmacist-technician pairs (teams) from 10 intervention community pharmacies in the Team Education and Adherence Monitoring (TEAM) trial. Each team provided services designed to improve BP among hypertensive African American patients. Thirteen specific tasks were identified as essential in providing monthly BP clinics, and they were being performed by either the pharmacist or technician. At the end of the trial, each pharmacist and technician were asked to report his/her perception of discussion levels that occurred for each task. The level of team communication was summarized for each task (task-specific) and for each team (team-specific). Results: For task-specific communication, 3 teams had communication regarding pharmacist tasks and 5 teams engaged in communication for technician tasks. More communication was reported for newly developed technician tasks in the BP clinic. For team-specific communication, 2 teams reported no communication on any task, and another 2 teams reported having communication on all the tasks. Overall, pharmacy teams showed different levels of communication in this study. Conclusion: The amounts of communication between pharmacists and technicians were found to vary for different tasks and teams. This suggests that the nature of tasks and the unique dynamics existing in each pharmacy team could influence pharmacist-technician communication.
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