BackgroundThe positive impact of global health activities by volunteers from the United States in low-and middle-income countries has been recognized. Most existing global health partnerships evaluate what knowledge, ideas, and activities the US institution transferred to the low- or middle-income country. However, what this fails to capture are what kinds of change happen to US-based partners due to engagement in global health partnerships, both at the individual and institutional levels. “Reverse innovation” is the term that is used in global health literature to describe this type of impact. The objectives of this study were to identify what kinds of impact global partnerships have on health volunteers from developed countries, advance this emerging body of knowledge, and improve understanding of methods and indicators for assessing reverse innovation.MethodsThe study population consisted of 80 US, Canada, and South Africa-based health care professionals who volunteered at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital in Ethiopia. Surveys were web-based and included multiple choice and open-ended questions to assess global health competencies. The data were analyzed using IBRM SPSS® version 21 for quantitative analysis; the open-ended responses were coded using constant comparative analysis to identify themes.ResultsOf the 80 volunteers, 63 responded (79 percent response rate). Fifty-two percent of the respondents were male, and over 60 percent were 40 years of age and older. Eighty-three percent reported they accomplished their trip objectives, 95 percent would participate in future activities and 96 percent would recommend participation to other colleagues. Eighty-nine percent reported personal impact and 73 percent reported change on their professional development. Previous global health experience, multiple prior trips, and the desire for career advancement were associated with positive impact on professional development.ConclusionProfessionally and personally meaningful learning happens often during global health outreach. Understanding this impact has important policy, economic, and programmatic implications. With the aid of improved monitoring and evaluation frameworks, the simple act of attempting to measure “reverse innovation” may represent a shift in how global health partnerships are perceived, drawing attention to the two-way learning and benefits that occur and improving effectiveness in global health partnership spending.

Understanding the safety culture of community pharmacies can help identify areas of strength and those that require improvement. Improvement efforts that focus on staffing, work pressure, and pace in community pharmacies may lead to better safety culture.

Background Older adults are the largest consumers of over the counter (OTC) medications. Of the older adults who are at risk of a major adverse drug event, more than 50% of these events involve an OTC medication. Objective To explore how older adults select and hypothetically use OTC medications and if the selected medications would be considered safe for use. Methods Walking interviews were conducted with 20 community-dwelling older adults in a community pharmacy. Each participant selected an OTC medication for a hypothetical pain and sleep scenario. Data were analyzed for four types of misuse: drug-drug interaction, drug-disease interaction, drug-age interaction, and excess usage. Results At least one instance of potential misuse was found in 95% of participants. For sleep medications, drug-drug interactions and drug-age interactions were more common, affecting 50% and 65% of participants respectively. The most common type of misuse noted in the pain products selected was that of drug-drug interaction, with a total of 39 occurrences, affecting 60% of the participants. Conclusions OTC misuse is common among older adults, and it is important for older adults to seek out resources, such as a pharmacist, to help them make safe OTC decisions.

Traditional care coordination is primarily facilitated by nurses and nurse practitioners with little formal training in medication management. However, pharmacists are rarely part of the CSHCN care coordination model. As care delivery models for these children evolve, and given the complexity of and numerous transitions of care for these patients, pharmacists can play an integral role to improve unmet needs for prescription medications.

Background The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) developed a hospital patient safety culture survey in 2004, and has adapted this survey to other healthcare settings, such as nursing homes and medical offices, and most recently community pharmacies. However, it is unknown if safety culture dimensions developed in hospital settings can be transferred to community pharmacies. The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Community Pharmacy Survey on Patient Safety Culture. Method The survey was administered to 543 community pharmacists in [state], United States. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the fit of our data with the proposed AHRQ model. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the underlying factor structure. Internal consistency reliabilities were calculated. Results A total of 433 usable surveys were returned (response rate of 80%). Results from the confirmatory factor analysis showed inadequate model fit for the original 36 item, 11-factor structure. Exploratory factor analysis showed that a modified 27 item, 4-factor structure better reflected the underlying safety culture dimensions in community pharmacies. The communication openness factor, with 3 items, dropped in its entirety while 6 items dropped from multiple factors. The remaining 27 items redistributed to form the 4-factor structure: safety related communication, staff training and work environment, organizational response to safety events, and staffing, work pressure and pace. Cronbach's α of 0.95 suggested good internal consistency. Conclusion Dimensions related to safety culture in a community pharmacy environment may differ from those in other healthcare settings such as in hospitals. Our findings suggest that validation studies need to be conducted before applying safety dimensions from other healthcare settings into community pharmacies.