Pyxis @ Home

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared for marketing the INRange Systems' Electronic Medication Management Assistant (EMMA), a programmable device that stores and dispenses prescription medication for patients' use in the home.

Essentially a computerized medication box, EMMA was designed to be used under the supervision of a licensed health care provider. EMMA can reduce drug identification and dosing errors, and allow health care professionals to monitor patient adherence to medication regimens in an outpatient setting. It may be especially useful for aging patients, as well as those with complex medication regimens such as patients with HIV.

"FDA's clearance of the INRange remote medication management system puts an important safety tool directly in the hands of patients and their health care providers," said Daniel Schultz, M.D., director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "It will help take away some of the confusion patients can experience when taking prescription medications, and allow care providers to more closely monitor their patients' medications between office visits."

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Fill the Script!

From MSNBC.com:

Druggists who believe “morning-after” birth control pills are tantamount to abortion can’t stand in the way of a patient’s right to the drugs, state regulators have decided.

In a unanimous vote Thursday, the state Board of Pharmacy ruled that drug stores have a duty to fill lawful prescriptions despite an individual pharmacist’s personal objections to any particular medication.

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We Say: The last time I checked, the Docs wrote the scripts, and the pharmacists fill them. Why are they reinventing the wheel here? Then again, couldn't the pharmacist with an objection simply not stock a particular medication at their pharmacy?

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Too Many Antibiotics For Sinusitis

From Reuters:

Evidence from national databases suggests that both acute and chronic sinus inflammation (sinusitis) is being overtreated with poorly chosen medications, researchers report.

Data from 1999 and 2002 collected by the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey suggests that there were roughly 14 million visits annually because of chronic sinusitis and 3 million because of acute sinusitis.

According to the Sinus and Allergy Health Partnership, acute sinusitis lasts for up to 4 weeks, while chronic cases last at least 12 weeks.

Hadley J. Sharp and associates at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha report that 83 percent of visits for acute sinusitis resulted in a prescription for an antibiotic, as did 70 percent of visits for chronic sinusitis.

"Prescription antibiotic drugs are being used far more than bacterial causes studies would indicate," the authors warn.

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It's really hard to do nothing sometimes in medicine.

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