The Minnesota Department of Health's Office of Rural Health and Primary Care announced it awarded grants totaling $180,000 to preserve access to prescription medications and pharmacy services in several communities in greater Minnesota.
Funding comes from the Rural Pharmacy Planning and Transition Grant Program, which was enacted by the 2005 Minnesota Legislature as par of the Rural Pharmacy Preservation Act.
Grants awarded in the area went to:
¥ Cass Lake Indian Hospital, Cass Lake, $10,000 for a telepharmacy project serving remote areas of the Leech Lake Reservation.
¥ Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, Crosby, $35,000 for a multi-site telepharmacy project to provide after-hours access to a pharmacist for participating hospitals.
The state reported maintaining access to pharmacy services is particularly important because the rural population tens to be older and have more chronic health conditions.
The Office of Rural Health and Primary Care will begin accepting applications for 2007 grants early next year. For more information, go online to www.health.state.mn.us.
Source
Monday, April 24, 2006
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Funding to improve pharmacy services
The Minnesota Department of Health's Office of Rural Health and Primary Care have awarded grants totaling $180,000 to preserve access to prescription medications and pharmacy services in several communities in greater Minnesota.
The funding comes from the Rural Pharmacy Planning and Transition Grant Program, which was enacted by the 2005 Minnesota Legislature as part of the Rural Pharmacy Preservation Act.
The grants are being awarded as follows: Cass Lake Indian Hospital, Cass Lake, will receive $10,000 for a telepharmacy project serving remote areas of the Leech Lake Reservation; and Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, Crosby, will use their $35,500 grant for a multi-site telepharmacy project, to provide after-hours access to a pharmacist, for participating hospitals.
The Office of Rural Health and Primary Care will begin accepting applications for 2007 grants early next year.
For more information, visit the Web site of the Minnesota Department of Health - Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
Source
The funding comes from the Rural Pharmacy Planning and Transition Grant Program, which was enacted by the 2005 Minnesota Legislature as part of the Rural Pharmacy Preservation Act.
The grants are being awarded as follows: Cass Lake Indian Hospital, Cass Lake, will receive $10,000 for a telepharmacy project serving remote areas of the Leech Lake Reservation; and Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, Crosby, will use their $35,500 grant for a multi-site telepharmacy project, to provide after-hours access to a pharmacist, for participating hospitals.
The Office of Rural Health and Primary Care will begin accepting applications for 2007 grants early next year.
For more information, visit the Web site of the Minnesota Department of Health - Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
Source
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Grants awarded for rural pharmacists
Anne Polta
West Central Tribune - 04/20/2006
Johnson Memorial Health Services of Dawson has received a $46,500 state grant to develop a rural pharmacy residency program.
The program, a partnership with the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, will give future pharmacists a chance to train in a rural setting. It’s a strategy that’s designed not only to help improve rural access to pharmacy services but also to encourage these students to choose rural practice when they finish their training.
The grant is one of six to be awarded through a new rural pharmacy planning and transition grant program. The grant awards — $180,000 in all — were announced Wednesday by the Minnesota Department of Health’s Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
There were 13 applications for the funds, said Mark Schoenbaum, director of the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
“The interest in the program confirms that there is both interest and need for this,” he said.
Pharmacy services are particularly important in rural Minnesota, where there’s a higher proportion of elderly residents who are more likely to need prescription drugs.
Pharmacists often play a significant role in educating customers and helping ensure access to prescription drugs in rural Minnesota towns. They also provide critical services to local hospitals and nursing homes.
It’s getting harder for many towns, however, to maintain pharmacy services.
Johnson Memorial, for instance, no longer has its own pharmacist; instead it relies on pharmacists who commute from 40 to 50 miles away.
It’s hoped that the pharmacy transition grant program will help bridge gaps such as this.
Other grants that were awarded will help support projects ranging from telepharmacy services to a community needs assessment.
Schoenbaum said each of the grant recipients will be reporting their progress and results to the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
“We will be keeping track,” he said. “Part of our goal then is to make the success stories and the lessons learned available around the state.”
Source
West Central Tribune - 04/20/2006
Johnson Memorial Health Services of Dawson has received a $46,500 state grant to develop a rural pharmacy residency program.
The program, a partnership with the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, will give future pharmacists a chance to train in a rural setting. It’s a strategy that’s designed not only to help improve rural access to pharmacy services but also to encourage these students to choose rural practice when they finish their training.
The grant is one of six to be awarded through a new rural pharmacy planning and transition grant program. The grant awards — $180,000 in all — were announced Wednesday by the Minnesota Department of Health’s Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
There were 13 applications for the funds, said Mark Schoenbaum, director of the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
“The interest in the program confirms that there is both interest and need for this,” he said.
Pharmacy services are particularly important in rural Minnesota, where there’s a higher proportion of elderly residents who are more likely to need prescription drugs.
Pharmacists often play a significant role in educating customers and helping ensure access to prescription drugs in rural Minnesota towns. They also provide critical services to local hospitals and nursing homes.
It’s getting harder for many towns, however, to maintain pharmacy services.
Johnson Memorial, for instance, no longer has its own pharmacist; instead it relies on pharmacists who commute from 40 to 50 miles away.
It’s hoped that the pharmacy transition grant program will help bridge gaps such as this.
Other grants that were awarded will help support projects ranging from telepharmacy services to a community needs assessment.
Schoenbaum said each of the grant recipients will be reporting their progress and results to the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care.
“We will be keeping track,” he said. “Part of our goal then is to make the success stories and the lessons learned available around the state.”
Source
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Addressing pharmacist shortage through innovation
Anne Polta
West Central Tribune - 04/15/2006
MONTEVIDEO — For Jill Reinhardt and her husband, the decision to open a pharmacy in Gaylord has been a good thing.
They lease space in the Sibley Medical Center — a location that’s affordable for them and convenient for patients, physicians and the public. Their presence in Gaylord also means access to pharmacy services for the local nursing home.
Three months ago, the Reinhardts’ First Choice Pharmacy also established a telepharmacy to bring prescription-drug dispensing to the neighboring town of Henderson.
A new regional initiative is under way to help develop and foster innovative approaches such as these to southwestern Minnesota’s growing shortage of pharmacists.
“We know that we can do things better together than we can individually,” said Tom Richter, administrator of the Madison Lutheran Home and project director of the newly formed Southwest Minnesota Rural Pharmacy Network.
Organizers described the initiative and led a town meeting-style discussion with about 20 people Thursday night in Montevideo. The meeting was the final one in a series of four forums designed to launch a dialogue on the need for rural pharmacists.
It’s a critical issue across the state but especially so in southwestern Minnesota, said Todd Sorensen, project coordinator and associate professor in the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.
This region of the state has a disproportionate share of the elderly — a population that tends to have a greater reliance on prescription drugs, Sorensen said. It also has the highest number of single-pharmacy towns, leaving these communities at risk of losing local pharmacy services if a pharmacy shuts down or if pharmacists can’t be recruited and retained.
People who are elderly and low-income are especially vulnerable, Richter said. “If they can’t go to the local drugstore to get their prescription filled, they aren’t going to be able to go somewhere else.”
The pharmacist shortage not only affects customers but also hits small-town hospitals and nursing homes who often must rely on community pharmacies for services.
The challenges are many. The growth of prescription benefit plans and mail-order drugs is undercutting the ability of small pharmacies to remain financially viable.
Rural pharmacists themselves often are spread thin, commuting long distances to provide coverage. It can be an uphill battle to attract young pharmacists to rural practice. Those who are approaching retirement can have a tough time finding someone to replace them.
Organizers of the regional pharmacy network hope to find ways of maintaining the vital services that rural pharmacists provide.
The network’s board of directors will meet for a planning session next month to begin identifying specific projects to tackle.
“Each community may have to look at creative ways to try to keep their pharmacy operating. It may be with the local health care providers. It may be with the community,” Richter said.
A handful of independent initiatives are already being tried.
For instance, the Lac qui Parle Health Network, which consists of the hospitals in Appleton, Dawson and Madison, is working together to plan for the future of pharmacy services. The group has applied for a grant to establish a pharmacy residency program.
In Tyler, population 1,250, the presence of full-time pharmacist April Hanson has helped the hospital pharmacy make the leap from pencil and paper to computer-based inventory and ordering — all in the space of one year.
Hanson has implemented central dispensing of drugs and helped the hospital staff update its medication policies and procedures.
Pharmacists play an important role in patient safety and can be one of the leaders in helping rural providers improve their overall level of care, she said. “A full-time pharmacist is justifiable.”
From the town meetings, organizers also have gained several ideas.
One is to create a resource network of all the region’s pharmacists. Another is to develop an on-call system that allows pharmacists to better share coverage on nights, weekends, holidays and during illnesses or time off.
There have been suggestions to develop internships that bring pharmacy students to rural Minnesota in hopes they will decide to return when they complete their training.
“We’d like to get as many ideas as possible,” Sorensen said. “A lot of ideas have been already brought up — some really good ones that we wouldn’t have thought of on our own.”
Organizers also said it’ll be critical to educate communities about the role of rural pharmacies and enlist their involvement.
In most cases, once a pharmacy closes in a rural town, it’s very difficult to gain it back, Richter said.
“That’s when people finally wake up and say, ‘We have to do something.’ If they don’t all come together, they will lose their pharmacy,” he said.
Source.
West Central Tribune - 04/15/2006
MONTEVIDEO — For Jill Reinhardt and her husband, the decision to open a pharmacy in Gaylord has been a good thing.
They lease space in the Sibley Medical Center — a location that’s affordable for them and convenient for patients, physicians and the public. Their presence in Gaylord also means access to pharmacy services for the local nursing home.
Three months ago, the Reinhardts’ First Choice Pharmacy also established a telepharmacy to bring prescription-drug dispensing to the neighboring town of Henderson.
A new regional initiative is under way to help develop and foster innovative approaches such as these to southwestern Minnesota’s growing shortage of pharmacists.
“We know that we can do things better together than we can individually,” said Tom Richter, administrator of the Madison Lutheran Home and project director of the newly formed Southwest Minnesota Rural Pharmacy Network.
Organizers described the initiative and led a town meeting-style discussion with about 20 people Thursday night in Montevideo. The meeting was the final one in a series of four forums designed to launch a dialogue on the need for rural pharmacists.
It’s a critical issue across the state but especially so in southwestern Minnesota, said Todd Sorensen, project coordinator and associate professor in the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.
This region of the state has a disproportionate share of the elderly — a population that tends to have a greater reliance on prescription drugs, Sorensen said. It also has the highest number of single-pharmacy towns, leaving these communities at risk of losing local pharmacy services if a pharmacy shuts down or if pharmacists can’t be recruited and retained.
People who are elderly and low-income are especially vulnerable, Richter said. “If they can’t go to the local drugstore to get their prescription filled, they aren’t going to be able to go somewhere else.”
The pharmacist shortage not only affects customers but also hits small-town hospitals and nursing homes who often must rely on community pharmacies for services.
The challenges are many. The growth of prescription benefit plans and mail-order drugs is undercutting the ability of small pharmacies to remain financially viable.
Rural pharmacists themselves often are spread thin, commuting long distances to provide coverage. It can be an uphill battle to attract young pharmacists to rural practice. Those who are approaching retirement can have a tough time finding someone to replace them.
Organizers of the regional pharmacy network hope to find ways of maintaining the vital services that rural pharmacists provide.
The network’s board of directors will meet for a planning session next month to begin identifying specific projects to tackle.
“Each community may have to look at creative ways to try to keep their pharmacy operating. It may be with the local health care providers. It may be with the community,” Richter said.
A handful of independent initiatives are already being tried.
For instance, the Lac qui Parle Health Network, which consists of the hospitals in Appleton, Dawson and Madison, is working together to plan for the future of pharmacy services. The group has applied for a grant to establish a pharmacy residency program.
In Tyler, population 1,250, the presence of full-time pharmacist April Hanson has helped the hospital pharmacy make the leap from pencil and paper to computer-based inventory and ordering — all in the space of one year.
Hanson has implemented central dispensing of drugs and helped the hospital staff update its medication policies and procedures.
Pharmacists play an important role in patient safety and can be one of the leaders in helping rural providers improve their overall level of care, she said. “A full-time pharmacist is justifiable.”
From the town meetings, organizers also have gained several ideas.
One is to create a resource network of all the region’s pharmacists. Another is to develop an on-call system that allows pharmacists to better share coverage on nights, weekends, holidays and during illnesses or time off.
There have been suggestions to develop internships that bring pharmacy students to rural Minnesota in hopes they will decide to return when they complete their training.
“We’d like to get as many ideas as possible,” Sorensen said. “A lot of ideas have been already brought up — some really good ones that we wouldn’t have thought of on our own.”
Organizers also said it’ll be critical to educate communities about the role of rural pharmacies and enlist their involvement.
In most cases, once a pharmacy closes in a rural town, it’s very difficult to gain it back, Richter said.
“That’s when people finally wake up and say, ‘We have to do something.’ If they don’t all come together, they will lose their pharmacy,” he said.
Source.
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