A Lebhar-Friedman® Publication January/February 2010

What’s Inside

Core Program

Integrating homeopathy into the management
of acute otitis media in children

Acute otitis media is the most common reason for physician office visits among preschool-aged children and a significant cause for antibiotic prescriptions for children. The management of AOM creates a considerable cost and burden to the healthcare system, and also can greatly impact a family in terms of time lost from school and work. Recent evidence-based clinical practice guidelines published by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians encourage healthcare practitioners caring for children to consider the “wait-and-see prescription” — observation for 48 to 72 hours without the use of antibiotics in certain children based on diagnostic certainty, age, illness severity and assurance of follow-up. In these cases, caregivers often may seek alternative options that are safe, effective and readily available. This lesson will improve the pharmacist’s ability to counsel patients on the management of acute otitis media in children, including homeopathic treatments. Page 14

Supported by an educational grant from

The emergence of REMS and its impact on specialty pharmacy

The specialty pharmaceutical industry has been placed in the middle of an emerging trend to reduce the amount of severe adverse events experienced by patients. The safe use of drugs has become a primary consideration of the Food and Drug Administration through the use of new legislative authority to develop systems that can reduce the risk and improve the benefit of drug use. Pharmacists rapidly are being introduced to the post-marketing drug surveillance universe through these changes and the intersection of pharmacovigilance (avoidance of adverse events) and pharmacoepidemiology (the incidence of adverse events). This lesson focuses on this new administrative mandate on the FDA, the emergence of risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, or REMS, and its impact on the pharmacy marketplace. Page 20

Drug Store News is accredited by the
Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education
as a provider of continuing pharmacy education.