Photo: Alef Perez Our ERs are vast improvement over this kind of third world medicine illegals get in their own countries. |
A seven-year study just released on January 10, 2019, by
the University of Waterloo in Canada found that pharmacists could dramatically
reduce ER visits by “incorporating them with an expanded scope into the
community or hospital emergency departments,” thus reducing the overcrowding of
emergency rooms (ERs).
Wasem Alsabbagh and Sherilyn Houle found that “almost
one-third of non-urgent Emergency Department (ED) visits in Ontario were for
conditions that could potentially be managed by pharmacists with an expanded
scope of practice – available in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
“Overcrowding in EDs is a concern most Canadians can
relate to, and we know that it can lead to increased mortality and a higher
rate of patients who leave without receiving treatment,” said Wasem Alsabbagh,
a professor at the Waterloo School of Pharmacy.
He added, “Our findings support that we need to see more
pharmacists working with expanded scope in community practice or based in the
ED. This may reduce crowdedness and free more resources in EDs to care for more
acute patients.”
After the researchers examined data from 2010-2017 of all
Ontario hospital Emergency Department (ED) cases, they found that one in five
patients who sought emergency care had non-urgent health concerns. Such
unnecessary visits could have been potentially managed by a pharmacist.
To ascertain the percentage of non-urgent care, the
authors of the study used standard scales that measured the severity of the
patients’ symptoms and used statistics to determine which cases could have been
managed by pharmacists “working with an expanded scope.”
In the last decade, various provinces in Canada have
allowed pharmacists to write prescriptions for minor ailments. Such is the case
of Alberta where, since 2007, pharmacists were allowed to write prescriptions
for minor illness, to renew prescriptions, to administer injections, and to
give vaccinations.
In Ontario, in 2012 and then in 2016 pharmacists’ roles
expanded and they could renew prescriptions and administer flu vaccines and
others.
“Our study included all expanded scope services in use
across Canada when assessing which Emergency Department (ED) cases pharmacists
could manage,” said Alsabbagh. “Over the seven years of the study period, we
found that pharmacists with an expanded scope could potentially have managed
nearly 1.5 million cases in Ontario.”
What conditions could a pharmacist with an expanded scope
of practice treat? According to this study, skin-related problems like dermatitis,
coughs, and inflammation of the ear canal, nasal passages, and throat were some
of the cases that could have been managed by a pharmacist.
The Journal of Research in Social and Administrative
Pharmacy published Wasem Alsabbagh and Sherilyn Houle’s study called “The
Proportion, Conditions, and Predictors of Emergency Department Visits That Can
Be Potentially Managed by Pharmacists with an Expanded Scope of Practice.”https://uwaterloo.ca/pharmacy/news/pharmacists-could-dramatically-reduce-er-visits
As more doctors retire in this country, less students
study medicine due to its difficult, long, and expensive training, nurse practitioners’
and physician assistants’ roles expand, and more doctors are brought from third
world countries and medical schools, could pharmacists’ roles fill the vacuum
and expand beyond vaccinations in the United States where Emergency Rooms (ERs)
are equally crowded by minor cases? How would they define minor cases? What
would the medical licensing boards and medical schools do under such
circumstances? Would pharmacist training and medical liability have to change?
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