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Background: Heart failure (HF) hospitalization rates have remained high in the past 10 years. Numerous studies have shown significant improvement in HF readmission rates when pharmacists or pharmacy residents conduct postdischarge telephone calls. Objective: The purpose of this retrospective review of a pilot program was to evaluate the impact of pharmacy student-driven postdischarge phone calls on 30-and 90-day hospital readmission rates in patients recently discharged with HF. Methods: A retrospective manual chart review was conducted for all patients who received a telephone call from the pharmacy students. The primary endpoint compared historical readmissions, 30 and 90 days prior to hospital discharge, with 30 and 90 days post discharge readmissions. For the secondary endpoints, historical and postdischarge 30-day and 90-day readmission rates were compared for patients with a primary diagnosis of HF and for patients with a secondary diagnosis of HF. Descriptive statistics were calculated in the form of means and standard deviations for continuous variables and frequencies and percentages for categorical variables. Results: Statistically significant decrease was observed for both the 30-day (P = .006) and 90-day (P = .007) readmission periods. Prior to the pharmacy students' phone calls, the overall group of 131 patients had historical readmission rates of 24.43% within 30 days and 38.17% within 90 days after hospital discharge. After the postdischarge phone calls, the readmission rates decreased to 11.45%, for 30 days, and 22.90%, for 90 days. Conclusion: Postdischarge phone calls, specifically made by pharmacy students, demonstrated a positive impact on reducing HF-associated hospital readmissions, adding to the growing body of evidence of different methods of pharmacy interventions and highlighting the clinical impact pharmacy students may have in transition of care services.

This research investigates the influence of three theoretically valid independent variables -horizontal and vertical individualism-collectivism, ethical idealism and trust propensity -on employees' attitudes toward ethically questionable negotiation tactics in Peru. A total of 233 usable responses were collected from participants employed in various industries in the capital area, Lima. The results empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely pretending, deceiving and lying tactics, which seem to range in their scale of severity from being more to less socially acceptable. Peruvian employees who scored high on vertical individualism tended to score high on the endorsement of pretending, deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on horizontal collectivism tended to score low on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on vertical collectivism tended to score high on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics.

As the debate over the value of microfinance institutions (MFIs) intensifies, it remains apparent that microfinance may, at the very least, be considered as one tool in the arsenal of the war against poverty in base of pyramid (BoP) markets. Given the variety of actors in the microfinance arena, stakeholders have placed a relatively new emphasis on performance reporting for MFIs, allowing comparisons and identifications of performance gaps. One result of this scrutiny is an increased importance placed on MFIs' social performance, with an eye to understanding measures of MFIs' intent, process, and results in the social realm-in addition to their financial sustainability. While a number of factors may explain differences in social performance, in this paper we take a close look at a particular factor that may have a positive relationship with social performance-that of an MFI's religious affiliation or religiosity. Using archival data, we derived three sets of randomly paired samples, pairing religious MFIs with non-religious ones, and compared social performance indicators derived from the literature across the samples. We sought to understand whether religiously-affiliated MFIs would, in fact, demonstrate stronger social performance intent, wider social performance reach via service delivery processes, and better social performance outcomes in BoP markets. Statistical analysis provided preliminary evidence that religiouslyaffiliated MFIs display stronger social performance, suggesting new avenues for future research.

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A retrospect into ethos, this study examines the impact of individualism, collectivism, ethical idealism and interpersonal trust on negotiators' attitudes toward questionable negotiation tactics in Greece. A thousand survey questionnaires were administered to Greek employees, of which 327 usable responses were collected. Our findings empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely, pretense, deception and lies. Individualism-collectivism and ethical idealism were found to be related, and interpersonal trust was found to be unrelated, to attitudes toward questionable negotiation tactics. Emphasizing the non-US and non-Western European nature of the empirical data collected, the originality of this research further stems from the development of a comprehensive research framework about questionable negotiation tactics in Greece.

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