Cost-effectiveness Of Activities Research Articles

Engaging Community Pharmacies in Promoting Outpatient Medication Safety - Identifying and Prioritizing Research Needs by Modified Nominal Group Technique.

Medication errors are one of the most endangering factors for patient safety, and they have become a key target for improvement in health- and social care systems worldwide. The most current development needs are related to outpatient care; however, up-to-date medication safety research and improvement activities have primarily focused on hospital environments. To promote medication safety in outpatient care, community pharmacies could be more effectively utilized. To identify the most central research needs, which would promote the use of community pharmacies in outpatient medication risk management and enhance collaboration between community pharmacies and other parts of the health- and social care system. The study applied a modified nominal group technique. A group of Finnish patient and medication safety experts (n=28) participated in the study and were divided into four nominal groups (incl. a pilot group). Data collection was conducted through electronic surveys and facilitated online group meetings. The collected data were analyzed using qualitative inductive thematic analysis and quantitative descriptive analysis by the van Breda technique. The final data comprised 83 research needs organized under five main themes with 22 subthemes. The most prioritized research needs covered all five main themes, which were: medication safety collaboration (final rank proportion 30%); medication care pathways (27%); operating processes of community pharmacies (17%); medication safety incident reporting (16%); and community pharmacy-based services improving medication safety (11%). The identified research needs for promoting outpatient medication safety by involving community pharmacies in medication risk management, covered a wide range of areas. Producing evidence about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of activities in these areas is particularly needed for practice development and policymaking, together with updating regulations supporting the implementation of the produced evidence.

Effective Justice

Effective Altruism is a social movement which encourages people to do as much good as they can when helping others, given limited money, time, effort, and other resources. This paper first identifies a minimal philosophical view that underpins this movement, and then argues that there is an analogous minimal philosophical view which might underpin Effective Justice, a possible social movement that would encourage promoting justice most effectively, given limited resources. The latter minimal view reflects an insight about justice, and our non-diminishing moral reason to promote more of it, that surprisingly has gone largely unnoticed and undiscussed. The Effective Altruism movement has led many to reconsider how best to help others, but relatively little attention has been paid to the differences in degrees of cost-effectiveness of activities designed to decrease injustice. This paper therefore not only furthers philosophical understanding of justice, but has potentially major practical implications.

Promoting Early Intervention for Substance Use Disorders Through Interdisciplinary Education for Health Professionals

Substance use disorders (SUDs) impose enormous costs on individuals, families and public resources. Illegal drugs and alcohol are responsible for thousands of deaths each year, and contribute to the spread of communicable diseases such HIV and Hepatitis C, as well as some of the worst social problems in the United States, including child abuse, domestic violence and sexual assault. It is evident that in all areas of health care, untreated SUDs elevate the risk of complications and poor outcomes, and drive up the cost of health care.Despite a general agreement that SUDs are a leading cause of death, disability and disease, front-line health professionals are not trained to identify individuals with SUDs, assess their condition, intervene on their behalf, or refer them to treatment. Numerous studies demonstrate the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of activities intended to detect and intervene early with individuals with SUDs in health care settings (; ; ). Several forces either facilitate or inhibit ef...