International Business Times Cites CHLPI’s Research in Recent Article

Research from CHLPI’s PATHS project was cited in a recently published article by International Business Times. The article, “Health Care Reform 2015: As Pharmacists Push For A Bigger Role In Healthcare, Doctors Flinch,” was published on July 29, 2015.

Excerpt from the article:

“There’s a joke in healthcare that pharmacists are the most overqualified professionals in the industry. Pharmacy students learn to do everything from counseling diabetic patients to administering high-risk anticoagulation therapy. But once they graduate, most revert to dispensing pills because a pharmacy’s revenue depends on the throughput of medicine.

Tung wants to change all that. She and other advocates argue that allowing pharmacists to take on more responsibility in the healthcare system can expand patient access to medication, save money and improve health. So earlier this year, Tung purchased screening equipment and schooled herself on the appropriate use of Truvada. She began accepting patients at high risk for HIV at her pharmacy in March. Since then, 88 patients have received Truvada from her clinic in just five months compared with 15 in 2014.

“It’s been way more successful than we ever imagined,” she says. To her knowledge, Kelley-Ross is the first community pharmacy in the country to dispense Truvada without requiring patients to visit a physician…

…Harvard University’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation later found that a program modeled off the Asheville Project — which sent diabetes patients to counseling from pharmacists, among other features — resulted in lower blood pressure and levels of harmful cholesterol, greater patient satisfaction and a 10.8 percent reduction in healthcare costs.”

Read the full article here.