09.02.08: Membership Drive: Garrett King and Jared Deck on the Healthcare Platforms of the presidential candidates PAX 111 5:30PM
09.16.08: Chapter Meeting: Patient Care Project Speakers PAX 111 7:00OPM
09.20.08: Chapter Meeting: Weatherford City Chamber of Commerce Health Fair Wellness Center 9:00AM
The National Heartburn Alliance, Procter and Gamble and APhA-ASP have partnered in a new patient care project to help American’s get "Heartburn Smart." More than 50 million Americans suffer the symptoms of heartburn more than twice a week. Approximately 10% of Americans suffer heartburn symptoms daily and more than a third of all Americans have heartburn on at least an occasional basis.
These patients have problems sleeping, enjoying their favorite meals and activities, and heartburn can make asthma worse in asthmatics, leading to a decreased quality of life. Student pharmacists and pharmacists have the ability to help the nearly 46% of patients who have improvement in their heartburn related symptoms with over the counter medications. Student pharmacists can help improve the quality of life of heartburn sufferers by presenting information on heartburn, and providing a personal consultation for patients. In 2004, the inaugural year of the Heartburn Awareness Challenge, student pharmacists educated over 13,000 heartburn sufferers across the nation. PHOTOS
Diabetes affects the health and wellbeing of people nationwide. Currently, one in four people in the United States has diabetes, has a family member with the disease, or will develop the disease. Of the 20.8 million people (7.0% of the population) in the United States with diabetes, 6.2 million of them are undiagnosed. A large number are undiagnosed because approximately 90% of diabetics have type 2 diabetes, the form of disease with few to mild symptoms in its early stages. Since its inception in 2001, student pharmacists who have participated in Operation Diabetes have screened 56,400 patients, and have referred 3,700 patients to their physician for follow up care. PHOTOS
Each year, about 60,000 Americans die of pneumococcal disease and 20,000 Americans die of influenza. In general, for every child who dies of a vaccine preventable disease, 400 adults die from the same diseases. Unfortunately, there is a lack of immunizations in underprivileged communities and in minorities such as African Americans. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources reports the national influenza vaccination rates for African Americans, based on Medicare claims, are one-half the rate for Caucasian beneficiaries. The majority of these individuals visited a doctor, but failed to receive an immunization vaccine.
Due to startling statistics like those mentioned above, the American Pharmacists Association Academy of Student Pharmacists (APhA-ASP) and the Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA) collaboratively developed Operation Immunization: The Nation's Student Pharmacists and Practitioners Protecting the Public Health in 1997. This program is an immunization awareness campaign designed to increase the public's knowledge of immunizations while raising the number of adults receiving immunizations. The campaign begins each fall in 89 communities and culminates during American Pharmacists Month, the month of October annually. Participants include the 89 APhA-ASP and 40 SNPhA chapters with the help of trained practitioners and other healthcare professionals trained and certified to give immunizations. Pharmacists have been recognized as the most accessible health professionals, with the equivalent of the entire U.S. population (250 million people) who visit a pharmacy every week. Thus, pharmacists and student pharmacists have a major role to play in ensuring higher immunization rates, and in decreasing vaccine-preventable disease. PHOTOS