The Annals of pharmacotherapy
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Increasingly, hospitals are implementing multifaceted programs to improve medication reconciliation and transitions of care, often involving pharmacists. ⋯ Pharmacists are well positioned to participate in hospital-based medication reconciliation, identify patients with poor medication understanding or adherence, and provide tailored patient counseling to improve transitions of care. Additional studies are needed to confirm these findings in other settings and to determine the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of different models of pharmacist involvement.
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A quick way for a clinical pharmacist to eliminate himself or herself from "employee of the month" consideration is to mention the term medication shortage. Even with training geared toward maximizing resources, the cumulative disappearance of a plethora of medications for the treatment of nausea, vomiting, and/or primary headaches is almost too much for emergency medicine physicians to manage. With prochlorperazine, metoclopramide, promethazine, and ondansetron in increasingly short supply, it is time for the Food and Drug Administration to revisit droperidol's black box warning driven by QTc interval prolongation, given its questionable validity, and restore droperidol's place in the armamentarium of emergency medicine physicians.