Pharmacy Technology

MT. PLEASANT, Texas — The Bling is coming to Brookshire’s. Brookshire Grocery, a chain of more than 150 supermarkets and pharmacies operating in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, last week partnered with Bling Nation — a mobile technology platform that enables a new way to pay for groceries or prescriptions using only a mobile phone.

The tap-and-connect mobile phone capabilities available through Bling Nation also will allow Brookshire’s to connect with its customers through its Facebook page.

The men’s grooming segment continues to be an attractive category for manufacturers, and there is evidence that the wobbly economy has helped bolster the segment at mass.

Valued at $19.7 billion worldwide in 2009, male-specific grooming products will mushroom to $28 billion by 2014, stated consumer market research publisher Packaged Facts in its “Men’s Grooming Products: A Global Analysis” report published in November 2009.

NEW ORLEANS — Moving, in its own words, “beyond e-prescribing,” paperless platform provider Surescripts has begun expanding its nationwide e-prescribing network to allow doctors, pharmacists and other health professionals to exchange all types of clinical information.

ROCKVILLE, Md. — A backlog of more than 2,000 drug entities and devices is awaiting approval. That’s the situation facing the Food and Drug Administration and the generic pharmaceutical industry—and it’s the chief impetus behind the FDA’s push to impose user fees on generic drug makers seeking the agency’s review and approval for their brand-equivalent medicines.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — In a ruling hailed by retail pharmacy leaders, the Department of Defense now is insisting that drug manufacturers extend the same discounts for prescription drugs sold at community pharmacies that the military gets for medicines dispensed through base dispensaries or mail order.

WASHINGTON — A panel of healthcare thought leaders has concluded that a recent IRS rule change going into effect Jan. 14, 2011, will demand retail system challenges that are operationally impossible to overcome in the limited time frame required.

And the National Association of Chain Drug Stores couldn’t agree more.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The drumbeat in support of an expanded universally recognized role for pharmacists in helping patients successfully manage their drug therapy is getting steadily louder.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Poor medication adherence is one of the nation’s “most persistent” healthcare problems, costing the U.S. health system as much as $290 billion a year, or 13% of total health expenditures, according to the New England Healthcare Institute. In response, the nonprofit organization is calling for an urgent national campaign to improve adherence through a team-based, collaborative approach to long-term patient therapy.