Farmacia hospitalaria : órgano oficial de expresión científica de la Sociedad Española de Farmacia Hospitalaria
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All over the world pharmacists are standing up to the challenge of COVID- 19 and showing their commitment to the communities they serve. As the COVID-19 pandemic has tested global health systems to their limits, pharmacy professionals have shown themselves to be an integral part of them. Community pharmacists have supported government initiatives to control the pandemic and have ensured patients continued to receive their medicines. Hospital pharmacists have been moving beyond their specialties to help provide critical care to patients while dealing with ICU drug shortages. ⋯ Finally, FIP expresses its worries about equity of access to medicines during the pandemic, as younger, healthier people in rich countries are vaccinated before people at greater risk in poor countries. It insists it will continue to advocate on this topic as a core component of its global vision. In this article, we share with readers a snapshot of how our profession around the world has adapted to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and our thoughts on the how it is affecting the evolution of pharmacy practice.
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Remdesivir has not shown survival benefit for patients with severe COVID-19. However, subgroup analysis of ACTT-1 Study Group showed an apparent reduction in mortality for patients who required non‑high-flow oxygen. Presentation of SOLIDARITY study results were associated by a meta-analysis combining mortality results by subsets rom randomized clinical trials. The aim is a methodological assessment of reliability and clinical applicability about findings by subgroups on the effect of remdesivir on mortality in patients with COVID-19. ⋯ This structured interpretation of subgroup analysis suggested too much uncertainty in hypothesis about remdesivir could reduce mortality in patients with severe COVID-19 who required non-high- flow oxygen. It was probably a random finding. Therefore, a randomized clinical trial about effect of remdesivir in mortality in patients with COVID‑19 and non-high-flow oxygen is essential.
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To analyze the status of the implementation and development of telepharmacy as applied to the pharmaceutical care of outpatients treated at hospital pharmacy services in Spain during the COVID-19 pandemic. ⋯ The rate of implementation of telepharmacy in outpatient care in Spain during the study period in the pandemic was high. This made it possible to guarantee the continuity of care for a large number of patients.
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Hospital Pharmacy Service (HPS) in Spain have been impacted by the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the outbreak has forced HPSs to adapt their outpatient consultation services to Telepharmacy to optimize clinical outcomes and reduce the risk of contagion. The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the experience of HPSs with outpatient Telepharmacy during the COVID-19 pandemic and expose the lessons learned. ⋯ These measures are based on national and international recommendations on social distancing and hygiene. With regard to remote outpatient pharmacy services, teleconsultation with drug dispensing has been promoted based on five basic procedures, each with its advantages and limitations: home drug delivery from HPSs, with the advantage of universal access and the limitation of entailing a substantial investment in resources; HPS coordination with primary care pharmacists, which requires no investments but with limited access to some geographic areas; HPS coordination with community pharmacists based on a large network of pharmacies, which requires the patient to go to the pharmacy, without confidentiality being guaranteed for any patient; geolocation and hospital-based medication dispensing, which provides universal access and direct traceability, but entails investment in human resources; and HPS coordination with associations of patients, which does not entail any additional cost but limits the information available on the diseases of society members. Three main lessons have been learned during the pandemic: the satisfactory capacity of HPS to provide outpatient pharmacy consultation services in the setting of a public health crisis; the usefulness of Telepharmacy for the clinical follow-up, healthcare coordination, outpatient counseling, and informed dispensing and delivery of medication (with a high level of satisfaction among patients); and the need to foster Telepharmacy as a complementary tool through a mixed model of outpatient pharmacy consultation service that incorporates the advantages of each procedure and adapts to the individual needs of each patient in a context of humanized healthcare.
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In response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the Hospital Pharmacy Services have quickly adapted to respond to a critical situation characterized by the constant and continuous admission of patients with severe pneumonia who needed treatment, requiring a transformation of the hospital in order to increase the number of hospital and critical beds. Moreover, other out-ofhospital spaces have been transformed into hospitalization units to absorb the large number of patients that had to be treated and isolated. To guarantee the distribution of medicines and the quality of the pharmaceutical care, drug distribution systems, such as unit dose and automated dispensing systems, have undergone transformations. ⋯ All this without forgetting COVID treatment protocol's changes that were affected by the availability of the drugs. The increase in the number of beds in out-of-hospital spaces, such as field hospitals, hotels, socio-medical centers and nursing homes, has challenged Pharmacy Services, since new medication dispensing and conciliation circuits have been created forcing the increase of pharmacy staff's presence and modifying work shifts, to afford all the new tasks successfully. Development of contingency plans for the different Pharmacy Service activities and providing fluent communication channels are key elements for crisis situations or health emergencies such as the current pandemic.