Survey of California Pharmacists\u27 Awareness of and Readiness for the New Authorities Granted by SB 493: A Pilot Study

The recent passing of Senate Bill (SB) 493 – effective on January 1, 2014 – addresses a primary care provider shortage in California by declaring pharmacists as health care providers and authorizing new roles for them in patient care. The aims of this pilot study were to examine California registered pharmacists’ awareness and knowledge of the expanded authorities granted by SB 493 as well as to assess their perception of their own readiness to exercise these new authorities. A cross-sectional, observational study was designed, and a 40-question survey was administered electronically through Qualtrics to adjunct faculty, clinical faculty, and alumni of Touro University California College of Pharmacy. All participants were aware of this new legislation. Through their responses to Likert-scale questions, pharmacists’ self-perceived readiness for each new authority was discovered. A Kruskal-Wallis test revealed no statistically significant difference among the three subgroups’ self-perceived readiness to exercise most of the new authorities, except initiating and administering vaccinations independently to those older than three years old without a physician’s collaborative practice protocol (p = 0.0123). The lower degree of self-perceived readiness to provide immunizations independently reported by adjunct faculty might have been due to not being certified as immunizers, reflecting the need to be educated on administration of vaccinations

Novel Systemic Therapies for Advanced Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer

BACKGROUND: Several novel drugs have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the past 5 years for the treatment of patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Despite new treatments, lung cancer remains a major cause of cancer-related death in the United States. OBJECTIVE: To review the treatment of patients with advanced NSCLC, with a focus on drugs that were recently approved by the FDA for this patient population. DISCUSSION: Platinum-based regimens remain the first-line treatment for patients with advanced NSCLC that is not associated with driver mutations. The recent drugs approved by the FDA in the past 5 years for NSCLC include afatinib, alectinib, ceritinib, crizotinib, erlotinib, gefitinib, necitumumab, nivolumab, osimertinib, pembrolizumab, and ramucirumab. Several of these agents have been found to increase overall survival in the first- and second-line settings. These medications also have different toxicity profiles compared with the traditional cytotoxic drugs used in the treatment of NSCLC. This article highlights the outcomes associated with these novel therapies in the treatment of patients with NSCLC. CONCLUSION: The novel therapies introduced into the market in the past 5 years have significantly improved outcomes for patients with advanced NSCLC