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The rise of technology in healthcare has led to dramatic changes in approaches to patient care by healthcare professionals. The realm of digital health has created new opportunities for pharmacists to engage patients in clinical practice. Pharmacies and industry are increasingly integrating these innovations into their businesses and practice. This article highlights areas of digital health for pharmacists to be aware of, in particular regarding areas of medication adherence and disease management. Technology plays a massive role in our individual lives; it has morphed the human experience in ways that were simply unimaginable 50 years ago. We use technology in nearly every facet of our lives. From detecting an appropriate intensity with which to brush our teeth to counting calories lost through the course of a day, technology has made a major impact on individual health. The integration of technology into our everyday lives has changed the way we communicate, how we capture and share our lives with others, how we seek answers, and how we experience life overall. Given this change in the way people operate, it is important that pharmacists adapt to these trends and incorporate technology into daily practice. The incorporation of mobile devices and technology into healthcare has been coined as mobile health (mHealth), which falls under the broader spectrum of digital health.1 –4 Digital health focuses on the integration of mobile tools (e.g., smartphones), wearable devices, and telehealth to help personalize the treatment of patients through the widespread adoption of wireless technology. The idea of involving pharmacists in mHealth has been a topic of recent interest, due in large part to the potential ramifications for the profession.4 Today, patients are using the Internet to research their health questions and help guide their personal health choices, and some of the information they find can be misleading and unreliable. It is of the utmost importance that healthcare professionals ensure there are credible sources for patients to research their questions. As pharmacists, we can research and recommend tools to patients to help solve problems related to drug information, medication adherence, and access, which includes the recent rise of novel technological devices. All of our patients will have different comfort levels with technology; despite this spectrum, there is a place for everyone to feel comfortable using digital health tools. However, there are recent technological advances coming to the field, which are already providing a benefit to patients, ranging from mobile applications to wearable technologies to ingestible medications that notify providers of patient medication adherence. We seek to help pharmacists understand the different areas of digital health, which may have substantial influence on the realm of pharmacy practice in the years to come by addressing current and upcoming digital health developments.

With the job market tightening, pharmacists are looking for ways to increase their attractiveness to employers and demonstrate their clinical knowledge and expertise. Six certification programs for pharmacists are available from the Board of Pharmacy Specialties, while certification in geriatric pharmacy practice is available from the Commission for Certification in Geriatric Pharmacy. More than 15,000 pharmacists have already achieved board certification from one of these programs. Multidisciplinary certifications such as "certified diabetes educator" are also available to pharmacists. Interest in certification programs for pharmacists is likely to increase.

Through an IDT, strategies can be implemented for long-term care residents to prevent and better manage disruptive behavior. These strategies can result in the reduction of the use of antipsychotic medications. The field of long-term care would benefit from further research to identify additional nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic treatments for managing disruptive behavior.

A study of an adaptation of the D. Rosenhan and S. Messick technique of guessing at the frequency of smiling and angry faces, using 100 college-educated, socially functioning homosexual males (many of whom were professional people) and a heterosexual comparison group, is reported. The results provide evidence for the interaction of self-concept and the sex of the expected faces and the tendency to overestimate and underestimate the number of faces. The data also make clear that the significant Sex X Dominant Input (the measure of expectancy) interaction was contingent on self-concept. Although the results may or may not be unique to the homosexual group, the data are taken as at least an indication that the sweeping generalization, in the clinical literature, that male homosexuals have a preference for objects of the same sex, which has its basis in a high expectancy for negative reinforcement from female figures, may be in need of qualification or revision.