Pharmacy Benefits Management in the Veterans Health Administration Revisited: A Decade of Advancements, 2004-2014

Assessing patient satisfaction with the Medication Management Review service delivered in Jordan

“…As well as delivering services to patients, community pharmacists also play a significant role in providing product-related information to healthcare professionals. [30,31] Studies examining pharmacist services targeted at health professionals showed positive outcomes, such as a decrease in prescribing and medication costs, when compared to healthcare professionals not receiving these services. [32] This movement towards an effective pharmacy involvement not only improved the quality of patient care and/or physician education, but also resulted in reducing the overall cost of the treatment.…”

“…As well as delivering services to patients, community pharmacists also play a significant role in providing product‐related information to healthcare professionals . Studies examining pharmacist services targeted at health professionals showed positive outcomes, such as a decrease in prescribing and medication costs, when compared to healthcare professionals not receiving these services .…”

Responsiveness of Veterans Affairs Health Care System to Zolpidem Safety Warnings

“…The VA PBM oversees not only the national drug plan for Veterans receiving services through the VA Health Care system, but also plays a key role in disseminating and monitoring safe and appropriate medication use. 18,35 The VA Center for Medication Safety (VA MedSAFE) within the VA PBM employed several strategies to communicate the zolpidem drug safety warnings including publishing National PBM Bulletins to alert providers to the FDA warnings. 26 Additionally, the VA MedSAFE tracks and evaluates the use of potentially high-risk medications through medication use evaluations (MUEs) to assess safe use of medications across facilities.…”

Acute Pain Is Associated With Chronic Opioid Use After Total Knee Arthroplasty

“…Chronic significant opioid use was defined based on data extracted from the VA Pharmacy Benefits Management program that oversees the national drug plan for eligible veterans, including outpatient pharmacies. 17 In line with prior studies, we first excluded prescriptions in the first 3 months after discharge, 7,11,12 defining chronic use based only on prescriptions filled beyond postoperative month 3. Rather than “present” or “absent,” chronic significant use was then defined by the mean daily dose in oral morphine equivalents (OMEs in milligrams per day measured using published dose conversion formulae; Appendix 2, Supplemental Digital Content 2, http://links.lww.com/AAP/A259), calculated by smoothing the total amount dispensed over the 1-year period between postoperative months 4 and 15 (total opioid amount = combination of strength and number of pills in all outpatient prescriptions).…”