Weekly Reflection 10/12
This week we learned about some of the behind the scenes work that is done in the pharmaceutical industry. Our first speaker was Dr. Shcherbakova who gave us a presentation on Pharmacoeconomics while out second speaker Dr. Houseman gave us his insight on the collaboration between pharmacists and physicians as well as drug utilization. All though both focused in different aspects of the industry, they both touched on topics that we have brought up in the past.
Dr. Shcherbakova described pharmacoeconomics as looking at the costs and then the consequences of a drug as it is making its way to market. Cost is extremely critical in the industry because of the sheer fa that health resources are scare and they have to spent wisely. There is no wiggle room when it comes to spending which means that manufacturers have to get drugs to market for the least amount of money but also make sure that quality is still being represented. In order to do so there are a multitude of cost studies done dependent on what the ultimate question is. These studies can show the cost per cure, a measurement of quality of life, or budget potential at a large scale. You want to start doing these in the Phase 3 to Phase 4 areas of a clinical trial because this is where the drug has to be prepared for market. As an analyst you need to know who your consumers are and how you can get them the least taxing drug but also benefit yourself with profit. This relates back to our speaker Roland who harped on the idea that cost, time, and scope are the most important factors in a clinical trial. When you have to go in front of the therapeutic governance board between phases or at the end of the trial you need to present these cost studies and be able to prove that your drug is worth it and it will provide the monetary units needed in the future. With this you need to make sure that your consumer target market is being accounted for and that cost alleviation is your main concern next to efficacy of the drug. There are many components of cost; direct medical, direct non-medical, indirect, and intangible. A direct medical cost can be the cost of the drug or the treatment, direct non-medical would be the cost of transportation to get to the pharmacy or care facility, the indirect costs would be something like loss of wages due to the condition, and the intangible cost would be the quality of life or emotional well being. All of these must be accounted for when doing a cost analysis because all of these affect patients at different levels. Each patient differs when it comes to the ability to pay for a drug treatment but this is why pharmacoeconomics exist; the industry has to include every patient and make a decision based on the majority.
Dr. Houseman brought up some interesting topics in his presentation. He broke down his lecture by talking about the three readings we had to do for homework. The first was in the Journal of the National Medical Association and is spoke about the connection between pharmacists and physicians. This article really outlined the profession as a pharmacist and how now a days it does not entail much medical education but rather retail. In the early years of the profession, pharmacists were a specialty trade and they had the ability to do compounding. Over the years the profession got more and more restricted. As Dr. Houseman said those who go to school for pharmacy are most likely going to end up in a community pharmacy and are taught to stand around for twelve hours a day attending to customers needs rather than patients. With this there is a stereotype thought about pharmacists and how they lack actual medical education despite the fact that they know more about drugs than any physician. This causes criticism between the two groups as physicians do not see pharmacists as having the ability to prescribe the correct drug and dosage to a patient. Pharmacists are trying to define what their actual territory is but they are being held back by this look portrayed on them. The second article talked about the same topic but rather the more optimistic side of it. The author spoke of a physician who collaborated with a pharmacists and it ended up with better outcomes because the pharmacist caught mistakes in the prescription as well as increased the time the physician could now spend with patients. Dr. Houseman brought up the idea that patients with conditions see multiple doctors throughout their journey but only see one pharmacist. With this there is room for a lot of miscommunication between physician notes and ideas and the pharmacist actually filling the prescription. This can lead to adverse events that can be detrimental to the patient but if there was a better relationship between the two the patients overall outcomes and quality of life would be improved. A problem than can arise in this area is the fact that physician education has changed much over the years. Newer doctors are trained to be collaborative and to use new drug treatments and therapies but older doctors had minimal advancements and modernization in their education. This can create stubbornness to work towards a more inter-professional work place. The final topic he touched on was drug utilization which is basically looking at the consequences and outcomes of drug patter of use. As an industry we want to find better and cheaper drugs that will drive down spending and costs to improve the economic factors of patient and healthcare administration. The over arching concept is to save lives but with a cost avoidance approach. Most hospitals are not for profit which means they only have such a large budget to spend on patient care, if they could do anything to decrease these amounts then they would have the ability to bring in more specialists or more technology in order to better the quality of care in the future. Dr. Houseman mentioned that today insurance companies give patient care facilities a lump sum of money to care for their patient based on their condition. If not all the money is used, the hospital gets to keep it. Therefore the hospital wants to treat that patient in the least resource heavy way in order to keep that extra money for themselves. This is one way to cut down costs but others can be decreases the number of antibiotics use, lab usage, device usage, cost per discharge, and increase the number of open beds. If you have four brands of drugs that are all the same but each varies in cost and effectiveness, you want to use the one that balances cost and efficacy in order to prove that the patient can get quality care but fore a least expensive way. This is just one example of how a minimal change can drastically build up extra funds over time. This whole lecture only further backed up and supported Dr. Shcherbakova's presentation about pharmacoeconomics and the fact that a cost analysis is so important to the industry. With the economy shifting so often and the circle of funds slowing down, the industry needs to save more than they are spending or else there will be a serious fallout down the line.
Dr. Shcherbakova described pharmacoeconomics as looking at the costs and then the consequences of a drug as it is making its way to market. Cost is extremely critical in the industry because of the sheer fa that health resources are scare and they have to spent wisely. There is no wiggle room when it comes to spending which means that manufacturers have to get drugs to market for the least amount of money but also make sure that quality is still being represented. In order to do so there are a multitude of cost studies done dependent on what the ultimate question is. These studies can show the cost per cure, a measurement of quality of life, or budget potential at a large scale. You want to start doing these in the Phase 3 to Phase 4 areas of a clinical trial because this is where the drug has to be prepared for market. As an analyst you need to know who your consumers are and how you can get them the least taxing drug but also benefit yourself with profit. This relates back to our speaker Roland who harped on the idea that cost, time, and scope are the most important factors in a clinical trial. When you have to go in front of the therapeutic governance board between phases or at the end of the trial you need to present these cost studies and be able to prove that your drug is worth it and it will provide the monetary units needed in the future. With this you need to make sure that your consumer target market is being accounted for and that cost alleviation is your main concern next to efficacy of the drug. There are many components of cost; direct medical, direct non-medical, indirect, and intangible. A direct medical cost can be the cost of the drug or the treatment, direct non-medical would be the cost of transportation to get to the pharmacy or care facility, the indirect costs would be something like loss of wages due to the condition, and the intangible cost would be the quality of life or emotional well being. All of these must be accounted for when doing a cost analysis because all of these affect patients at different levels. Each patient differs when it comes to the ability to pay for a drug treatment but this is why pharmacoeconomics exist; the industry has to include every patient and make a decision based on the majority.
Dr. Houseman brought up some interesting topics in his presentation. He broke down his lecture by talking about the three readings we had to do for homework. The first was in the Journal of the National Medical Association and is spoke about the connection between pharmacists and physicians. This article really outlined the profession as a pharmacist and how now a days it does not entail much medical education but rather retail. In the early years of the profession, pharmacists were a specialty trade and they had the ability to do compounding. Over the years the profession got more and more restricted. As Dr. Houseman said those who go to school for pharmacy are most likely going to end up in a community pharmacy and are taught to stand around for twelve hours a day attending to customers needs rather than patients. With this there is a stereotype thought about pharmacists and how they lack actual medical education despite the fact that they know more about drugs than any physician. This causes criticism between the two groups as physicians do not see pharmacists as having the ability to prescribe the correct drug and dosage to a patient. Pharmacists are trying to define what their actual territory is but they are being held back by this look portrayed on them. The second article talked about the same topic but rather the more optimistic side of it. The author spoke of a physician who collaborated with a pharmacists and it ended up with better outcomes because the pharmacist caught mistakes in the prescription as well as increased the time the physician could now spend with patients. Dr. Houseman brought up the idea that patients with conditions see multiple doctors throughout their journey but only see one pharmacist. With this there is room for a lot of miscommunication between physician notes and ideas and the pharmacist actually filling the prescription. This can lead to adverse events that can be detrimental to the patient but if there was a better relationship between the two the patients overall outcomes and quality of life would be improved. A problem than can arise in this area is the fact that physician education has changed much over the years. Newer doctors are trained to be collaborative and to use new drug treatments and therapies but older doctors had minimal advancements and modernization in their education. This can create stubbornness to work towards a more inter-professional work place. The final topic he touched on was drug utilization which is basically looking at the consequences and outcomes of drug patter of use. As an industry we want to find better and cheaper drugs that will drive down spending and costs to improve the economic factors of patient and healthcare administration. The over arching concept is to save lives but with a cost avoidance approach. Most hospitals are not for profit which means they only have such a large budget to spend on patient care, if they could do anything to decrease these amounts then they would have the ability to bring in more specialists or more technology in order to better the quality of care in the future. Dr. Houseman mentioned that today insurance companies give patient care facilities a lump sum of money to care for their patient based on their condition. If not all the money is used, the hospital gets to keep it. Therefore the hospital wants to treat that patient in the least resource heavy way in order to keep that extra money for themselves. This is one way to cut down costs but others can be decreases the number of antibiotics use, lab usage, device usage, cost per discharge, and increase the number of open beds. If you have four brands of drugs that are all the same but each varies in cost and effectiveness, you want to use the one that balances cost and efficacy in order to prove that the patient can get quality care but fore a least expensive way. This is just one example of how a minimal change can drastically build up extra funds over time. This whole lecture only further backed up and supported Dr. Shcherbakova's presentation about pharmacoeconomics and the fact that a cost analysis is so important to the industry. With the economy shifting so often and the circle of funds slowing down, the industry needs to save more than they are spending or else there will be a serious fallout down the line.
Comments
Post a Comment