In recent years, Internet pharmacies have emerged in Canada, primarily to supply US customers with lower-cost drugs. The pharmacies use e-commerce and other technologies to reach large numbers of potential customers and to exploit the sizeable price difference that exists for prescription drugs in the two countries. The resulting cross-border trade in drugs grew rapidly from 2001. Despite rapid...

BACKGROUND The number of patients with limited English proficiency is on the rise in the United States, and conveying medication information to these individuals in an effective manner is crucial to improve adherence and reduce medication errors. OBJECTIVES To examine (1) self-reported capability for and actual provision of prescription labels or verbal medication information in languages oth...

Patients' satisfaction with pharmaceutical services at independent community pharmacies and chain community pharmacies was studied. An interviewer administered the Pharmacy Encounter Survey (PES) face-to-face to 260 consecutive people immediately after their visits to randomly selected chain pharmacies (n = 10) or independent pharmacies (n = 16) in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. The 15-item...

BACKGROUND Plan sponsors encourage the use of mail order pharmacies because they believe mail order dispensing will lower their prescription drug costs. Health plans and pharmacy benefit management companies (PBMs) usually offer patients substantially lower copayments to incentivize them to use mail order pharmacies. A number of health plans and PBMs now require patients to use these pharmacies...

Results of a 1992 Medicaid cost-of-dispensing study among North Carolina pharmacies are presented. The estimated statewide weighted average cost incurred by pharmacies to dispense a prescription was $5.37 in 1991. The variation in dispensing costs found among pharmacies of various sizes, organizational types, and locations is identified. Higher average dispensing costs were reported for large c...

BACKGROUND The HIV epidemic in Russia is concentrated among injection drug users (IDUs). This is especially true for St. Petersburg where high HIV incidence persists among the city's estimated 80,000 IDUs. Although sterile syringes are legally available, access for IDUs may be hampered. To explore the feasibility of using pharmacies to expand syringe access and provide other prevention services...

BACKGROUND Counter counseling is an important part of community pharmacies service delivery. Difficulties arise because customers appear less interested than the staff in discussing their medicine. It is unclear how individual pharmacies differ with regard to overcoming these obstacles. OBJECTIVE This study explores differences in the communication practices of pharmacies with regard to engag...

AIM To compare the service quality in public and private pharmacies in the city of Kragujevac by measuring patient care and health facility indicators. METHODS The patient care indicators and health facility indicators, established by the World Health Organization in 1995, were measured prospectively in 7 public and 7 private pharmacies in Kragujevac, Yugoslavia, during November and December ...

INTRODUCTION Pharmacists can assist patients in managing their blood pressure levels. We assessed whether adherence to blood pressure medication improved among people who used community pharmacies in rural Montana after pharmacists initiated consultations and distributed educational materials developed for the Million Hearts Initiative's "Team Up. Pressure Down." (TUPD) program. METHODS From ...

OBJECTIVES To describe older adults' perceptions of evaluating and comparing pharmacies based on the Consumer Experience with Pharmacy Services Survey (CEPSS), describe older adults' perceived importance of the CEPSS and its specific domains, and explore older adults' perceptions of the influence of specific CEPSS domains in choosing/switching pharmacies. DESIGN Focus group methodology was co...