CONGRESS: Senate bill includes $7 million for N.D.

North Dakota is in line to receive $7 million in federal funding for economic development and health care initiatives, according to North Dakota Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan.

The funding is included in the Fiscal Year 2008 Labor and Department of Health and Human Services Appropriations bill, according to Conrad and Dorgan.

The bill goes next to a House-Senate conference committee, which will iron out the differences between the two chambers.

The bill includes $1.5 million for UND's proposed Center for Forensic Research. The money will be used to build a multifunctional building at UND that would be used to conduct post-mortem examinations that would help solve crimes and identify unknown health problems and public health hazards.

The facility would help reduce the workload on the State Medical Examiner's Office and provide a valuable educational opportunity for students at UND's School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Other funding will support projects across the state - from an energy technology training program at Bismarck State College, to a Job Corps management program in Minot, to a new vocational education program in Belcourt.

“I'm proud of the work we were able to do in this bill both to continue support for some projects that have proven to be important, and to start some new initiatives that will help move our state forward,” said Dorgan, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Bismarck State College has a world-class education program, and this will allow them to continue building their reputation as a training hub for power plant operators. And projects like the NDSU Telepharmacy Project help expand access to health care for small communities that struggle to maintain basic health care services.”

“The research conducted at our universities and colleges is resulting in significant advances, both in North Dakota and across the nation,” Conrad said. “By continuing to invest in technology and advanced sciences, we continue to enhance North Dakota's reputation as a hotbed for scientific research while growing our state's economy.”

Here is a list of the other projects included in the bill:

-- Bismarck State College National Energy Technology Training and Education Project, $1 million: This funding will be used to develop a new Instrumentation and Control component to BSC's electronics and telecommunications technology program. The program will enhance BSC's nationally known program to prepare students to run power plants.

-- Minot State University Job Corps Program, $750,000: The funding will be used to expand MSU's customized master's degree program for Job Corps management personnel. The school will add a multi-track program that allows students to earn a Master of Science in management or a Master of Science in information systems, and a graduate certificate in knowledge management.

-- North Dakota State University Telepharmacy Project, $1 million: The funding will be used to expand NDSU's groundbreaking program by providing remote rural hospitals access to 24/7 pharmacy service by connecting them to a central hub using videoconferencing technology. The telepharmacy project has provided pharmacy service to more than 50 rural communities in North Dakota and Minnesota, where residents would otherwise be forced to drive long distances to fill a prescription.

-- North Dakota State College of Science Center for Nanoscience Technology Training, $1 million: This funding will be used to support the North Dakota State College of Science Center for Nanoscience Technology Training in Wahpeton. The Center provides students training in advanced courses related to nanoscience. The program will graduate its first students in the spring of 2008.

-- Marketplace for Kids, $500,000: This funding will support a number of daylong regional events in North Dakota that helps students explore entrepreneurship and self-employment through the recognition and development of their inventive, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. This year, more than 16,000 students participated in Marketplace for Kids.

-- Great Plains Autism Project, $500,000: This funding will be used to establish a program at Minot State University that provides training, research, diagnostic and treatment services for North Dakota children and youth diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders.

-- Turtle Mountain Career and Tech Ed Program, $750,000: This funding will be used to develop and implement a Career and Technical Education Program at Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt. The program will provide vocational and technical training to tribal residents and help boost the economy of the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

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Pharmacy machine coming to Royal City

ROYAL CITY - Royal City residents may no longer need to travel out of town to fill a prescription.

A telepharmacy service is being planned for Royal City Clinic, said Moses Lake Clinic Administrator David Olson.

Olson said he hopes to have the service running by the beginning of 2008.

A room at Royal City Clinic would house two vending machines, holding a total of 128 kinds of prescription medicine.

"Those vending machines are connected via a computer to a pharmacist in Bellevue," Olson said.

After the clinic's physician assistant writes out a prescription, the patient takes it to the pharmacy room. A pharmacy technician takes the prescription and sends it electronically to the pharmacist. The vending machine dispenses the prescription and a label is printed.

People who have questions about the prescription can get their questions answered live by the pharmacist, Olson noted.

"The computer monitor has a live video of the pharmacist in Bellevue," he said.

Olson said the machines, made out of titanium and steel, are secure. They are going to hold certain types of medication, such as inhalers and antibiotics - medications of little interest to a thief, he said. Narcotics are not going to be available from the machine.

Olson said Royal City used to have a pharmacy in the 1980s, but it closed down due to lack of business.

"A little place like Royal City wouldn't be able to afford that, but what they can afford is this system where the pharmacist is in Bellevue," he said.

He said the service could be a model for small towns unable to afford a pharmacy.

Royal City Clinic Physician Assistant Bret Moore said the clinic is excited about the new service.

"It's going to save people gas and keep them safe off the road," Moore said.

Patients can get their medications faster and more conveniently than if they traveled out of town, he said. Patients can come in and be seen by him, receive their prescription and fill it in the same place. In addition, the clinic is less busy than others, Moore said.

"I think the patients here will actually have it easier than people in larger towns," he said.

Royal City residents said they would become patients of the clinic if a pharmacy was available, Olson said.

"We listened to the people in the community," he said.


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University Of North Dakota: Blue Cross Blue Shield Grants Administered By UND Encourage Use Of Technology To Improve Rural Health Care Delivery

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Nine grants have been awarded to facilities that have shown the initiative to utilize information and communication technology to improve health care delivery in rural communities. Nearly $425,000 was awarded through the Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota's (BCBSND) Rural Health Grant Program, which is administered by the Center for Rural Health at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

"We appreciate the diligent work done this year by all the provider organizations on many innovative and worthwhile projects," said Mike Unhjem, president and CEO of BCBSND. "I wish we could fund them all. The competition for available funds continues to be excellent and that shows us providers are achieving a high level of creativity in addressing cost-quality-access issues in rural areas. We're pleased to have supported this effort over the past six years."

Coal Country Community Health Center of Beulah will use the grant funds to purchase a digital radiology imaging system that will improve the quality of patient care, reduce errors, lower healthcare costs and boost productivity with rapid image availability.

Jacobson Memorial Hospital Care Center of Elgin will use the grant to purchase computed radiography equipment that will optimize patient care, reduce exam times, lower health care costs and boost productivity with rapid image availability.

Sakakawea Medical Center of Hazen will use the grant to implement an electronic medical records system that will include a picture archiving and communication system.

Hillsboro Medical Center and the Hillsboro Medical Center Foundation of Hillsboro will use the grant to implement an electronic medical records system that will be shared with other health care facilities, providers and patients by purchasing a picture archiving and communication system.

Kenmare Community Hospital of Kenmare will use the grant to implement a computerized radiography system that will coordinate with Trinity Health in Minot to network with the web-based picture archiving and communications system.

Linton Hospital of Linton will use the grant to purchase digital radiography equipment to enhance networking for the hospital and associated clinics, optimizing patient care, reducing exam times and reducing health care costs.

Northwood Deaconess Health Center of Northwood will use the grant to build a centralized data center to be shared between hospitals that will provide a cost-effective method to support implementation of telemedicine, telepharmacy and a picture archiving and communications system.

Turtle Lake Community Memorial Hospital of Turtle Lake will use the grant to purchase digital radiography equipment that will optimize patient care and boost productivity with rapid image availability.

Wishek Community Hospitals & Clinics of Wishek will use the grant to purchase digital radiography equipment that will optimize patient care, increase health information between facilities, lower health care costs and boost productivity.

"Many rural health care facilities are in the process of developing a plan to eventually implement electronic health records (EHR), per President Bush's vision that most Americans will have electronic health records by 2014," said Lynette Dickson, the program's director at the Center for Rural Health. "However, at $600,000 or more per facility, it is more realistic to build their systems one component at a time.

The funding that BCBSND provides through this grant program affords rural health care facilities the ability to get one step closer to a complete electronic system."

In an effort to strengthen the rural health delivery system in North Dakota, BCBSND initiated a new rural health grant program in 2001. Developed and administered by the Center for Rural Health, the purpose of the grant program is to support communities who demonstrate an effective plan to successfully transition to new models of rural health care delivery.

For more information about the BCBSND Rural Health Grand Program visit: http://www.med.und.nodak.edu/depts/rural/sorh/bcbs

CONTACT: Wendy Opsahl, Communications Coordinator, Center for Rural Health, UND Tel: +1 701 777 0871 e-mail: wopsahl@medicine.nodak.edu Lynette Dickson, Program Director, Center for Rural Health, UND Tel: +1 701 777 6049 e-mail: ldickson@medicine.nodak.edu Larry Gauper, Vice President, Corporate Communications, Noridian Mutual Insurance Co., Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota Tel: +1 701 282 1160 e-mail: larry.gauper@noridian.com Peter Johnson, Associate Director & UND Media Relations Coordinator Tel: +1 701 777 4317 e-mail: peter.johnson@mail.und.nodak.edu


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Two 24 Hour Augusta Pharmacies Slice Hours Due to Pharmacist Shortage

Filling prescriptions in Augusta is getting harder than it used to be. Two 24 hour Walgreens pharmacies have changed their hours and are no longer open 24 hours a day.

They say it's due to a shortage in pharmacists. And professors at the Medical College of Georgia say it's a problem all over the state.

"More diseases are known and treatments for the diseases have increased, so it reflects a real need." said Susan Fagan of The University of Georgia.

We did find two CVS pharmacies in Augusta that are open 24 hours a day.

The two Walgreens stores are open 24 hours a day, but the pharmacies are not. The pharmacy hours are 6:00am to 10:00pm Monday through Friday and 8:00am to 6:00pm Saturday and Sunday.

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Pharmacist shortage adds to risk of medication mistakes

Auckland City Hospital patients are at a higher level of risk of medication errors than usual because of an unprecedented shortage of pharmacists.

The scarcity of pharmacists is the latest in an unending series of health-worker shortages to afflict parts of Auckland or the whole country, some of the worst being among junior doctors, pathologists and anaesthetic technicians.

Auckland City Hospital budgets to employ the equivalent of 34 full-time pharmacists, but has only 22, leading to many wards having to do without one.

The basic role of pharmacists is to prepare medicines in the right doses, including cancer chemotherapy, to be administered to patients by nurses.

But to minimise medication errors, the hospital's pharmacists normally also work in 50 wards or other clinical areas such as mental health units.

"Unprecedented staff shortages in clinical pharmacy will result in services to 10 clinical areas being withdrawn in September," say Auckland District Health Board papers for October.

In his monthly report to the board, chief medical officer Dr David Sage says: " ... in the wards now functioning with a lower pharmacist presence there is acceptance of a higher level of risk.

"The created levels of vigilance requested of all the clinical staff in these wards pending replacement will have little impact because the role of the pharmacist is in part to pick up errors not detected by other clinical staff."

Chief pharmacist Sarah Fitt yesterday agreed. "Doctors are responsible for prescribing, nurses are responsible for administration and we put in an extra safety check.

"We've got so short we have had to put our focus back on our basic dispensing service."

Ms Fitt hoped to be down to four or five vacancies - from the present 12 - by the end of the year with the appointment of newly registered pharmacists and experienced staff.

Pharmacists would then be posted back to the 10 hospital wards - none had been withdrawn from the mental health units - at present without them.

"There is a national and international shortage of hospital pharmacists. Recruitment is always an issue for us," she said.

But it had become harder this year because of the ending of a reciprocal agreement between New Zealand and Britain covering pharmacist registration.

The agreement ended because of Britain's commitments to the European Union.

Before the changes coming into force on February 1, Ms Fitt said, it was relatively easy for pharmacists from either country to register in the other. Only a period of supervision and an interview were required.

But now New Zealanders had to have a lengthy period of extra study to work in Britain and Britons coming to New Zealand had to pass an exam.

"In the past, we've picked up people who were travelling. They work for six to nine months. People aren't going to bother doing an exam," said Ms Fitt, who came from Britain intending to stay one year and has been here for nearly nine.

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Las Cruces Deals With Nationwide Pharmacist Shortage

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Lines at a Las Cruces Walgreens pharmacy are stretched several customers long on a Sunday afternoon. Area pharmacists said this is the picture many pharmacies across the nation are seeing.

"It is a problem and it's probably very complicated," said Stan Muchnikoff, a pharmacist at a local Walgreens.

Muchnikoff said competitive pharmacy programs are part of the problem. The College of Pharmacy at University of New Mexico only accepts about 85 students a year, according to Doctor John Pieper, dean of the school.

Perhaps making the problem worse is that there are only 100 pharmacy schools across the nation.

Muchnikoff said the problem increases as more retirees move to Las Cruces, creating a need for more pharmacists.

While area pharmacies are learning to deal with the problem for customers everywhere, it boils down to patients waiting longer to have prescriptions filled.


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Pharmacy college in Kingsville doing well

KINGSVILLE — It may have taken years to build and fund the Texas A&M Health Science Center's Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy, but it has taken only one year for South Texas to begin seeing the impact of the region's first professional school.

The school's inaugural class is in its second year, and students have begun rotations with participating pharmacies and hospitals across South Texas.

College Dean Indra Reddy said all 76 students admitted into the first class in 2006 have progressed into their second year.

"There is a lot of pioneering spirit in this group," Reddy said. "We consider them to be trailblazers."

One of those trailblazers is 27-year-old Sergio Valdes -- one of the original students admitted into the school in 2005, a year before funding was secured.

Valdes, a Corpus Christi native, delayed the start of pharmacy school a full year until the Rangel College of Pharmacy opened its doors in 2006.

He didn't mind the wait.

"I always thought it was a great opportunity to be able to go to a pharmacy school so close to where I live," Valdes said.

In September, Valdes and his classmates received their white coats in a ceremony that marked the beginning of their professional lives.

Valdes plans to return to the city as a pharmacist upon graduation. He is the type of student the college's founders wanted to serve -- the type who would help to alleviate the growing pharmacist shortage across the country.

According to the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education, there are about 8,000 pharmacist vacancies in the United States, with about 71 pharmacists per 100,000 people.

The shortage in Texas is even more striking.

Data from the Texas Department of State Health Services indicate the shortage is most dire along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Among border counties, the pharmacist per 100,000 population ratio is about 58. In rural border counties, the number drops to about 41 pharmacists per 100,000.

Corpus Christi pharmacist Ron Garza, an outspoken advocate for creating the Kingsville pharmacy school, said the college is doing everything to make a difference in the future of pharmacy.

One day a week, Garza mentors Valdes, providing him with real-world pharmacy experience at DeLeon's Clinic Pharmacy.

"It gives me a sense of satisfaction to know that the next generation of South Texas pharmacists are going to come from South Texas and that they are on their way to learning the discipline," Garza said.

Reddy said the college and its community partnerships are continuing to grow. The school's clinical rotation network -- pharmacies and hospitals willing to work with students -- now stands at about 160.

For fall 2007, the college admitted its second class of 77 students, 73 from Texas and four from out of state.

The college also now is in its second stage of accreditation and expects to enter the third once the inaugural class graduates in 2010.

"All of these advances mean the trust placed in us by the state is well-founded and our students will go on to serve their communities as pharmacists," Reddy said.

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Sullivan urges pharmacists to be IT compliant

Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State has urged Pharmacists in the country to be Information Technology compliant in line with changing trends.

Chime who made the call on Friday in Enugu, observed that IT compliance was in line with changing trends in their profession.

The governor spoke through his Health Commissioner, Dr Martin Chukwunweike during the state’s Annual Seminar of the Nigeria Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacists.

He noted that the time had come where each hospital must have a resident pharmacist before being registered by Nigeria Medical Council (NMC).

The governor called for regular interaction between the Pharmacists, Doctors and Nurses to improve the standard of health care delivery.

He said that the state government had disbursed money for the fencing of the state’s Pharmaceutical Store.

He gave the assurance that the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital (ESUTH) would also receive attention from the government.

Earlier, Prof Godfrey Obiaga, a fellow of Pharmaceutica1 Society of Nigeria (PSN), had enumerated some of the challenges of the profession in the 21st century.

He said some of them included Telepharmacy, Pharmacovigilance, Herbal and Traditional Medicines and the detection of fake drugs.

Obiaga enjoined Pharmacists to put the integrity of their practices first and urged them to continue to work hard.

“We have to work hard to retain the enviable respect the profession has attained,” he said.

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Trade group says state among worst in pharmacist shortages

GREENSBORO, N.C. - A professional trade group says North Carolina has one of the nation's worst shortages of pharmacists.

The Association of Community Pharmacists says because the law requires a pharmacist to be on duty any time a pharmacy is open, the shortage can affect a pharmacy's hours.

And while the number of pharmacists in North Carolina is growing, it cannot keep up with increasing demand.

The Pharmacy Manpower Project tracks demand for and supply of licensed pharmacists and rates it on a scale from 1, meaning demand for licensed pharmacists is much less than the supply, to 5, which means great difficulty filling open positions. North Carolina has a rating of 4.57 as of June, trailing only Alabama.

The shortage extends to those who teach future pharmacists. A report this summer at a meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy says there were more than 400 vacancies among a national market of 5,000 teaching positions in 2006.

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Paddock Laboratories Pharmacy Education Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth Now Open

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 24, 2007--UMD’s $15.2 million renovation to the Life Sciences Building is complete and the new Paddock Laboratories Pharmacy Education Center opened its doors Sept. 7, 2007.

The $15.2 million renovations to the 38 year-old University of Minnesota Duluth Life Science Building began Jan. 26, 2006 and were completed in less than two years. The fully-renovated building will house the UMD Department of Biology and the new Duluth College of Pharmacy in a state-of-the-art facility designed for science education and research.

Renovations to the Life Science Building were made possible due to the generous financial donation of Bruce Paddock, Duluth native and 1970 alumnus of the College of Pharmacy. The Paddock Laboratories Pharmacy Education Center will have five classrooms and two large laboratories for faculty laboratory research and student professional practice experience. In addition, there will be study space, computer laboratories and a student lounge. “We are thrilled with the new space,” said University of Minnesota Dean of Pharmacy, Marilyn Speedie, Ph.D.

The Duluth expansion is helping the College of Pharmacy to better address Minnesota’s rural pharmacist shortage and bringing quality health care to underserved areas of our state. “I’m pleased to hear 46% of the Duluth branch-campus graduates are working in rural settings,” said Chairman of Paddock Laboratories, Bruce Paddock, “The new Duluth program is working and our goals are being met and I am very proud to be a part of it.” Paddock will also support the Duluth College of Pharmacy commitment to expand pharmacy services to Greater Minnesota by continuing to provide the Paddock Laboratories Scholarships for undergraduate pharmacy students who demonstrate financial need.

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