Objective: Pharmacists are ideally positioned to promote optimal use and assess the adherence of prescription medications in patients with chronic diseases. This systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) ascertains the effectiveness of pharmacist interventions to improve blood pressure (BP) control and medication adherence in patients with hypertension. Data Sources: Electronic databases were searched for studies in English published between January 1, 1995, and January 31, 2018. Eligibility criteria included patients with a diagnosis of hypertension tested with RCT where pharmacist-led interventions occurred. The primary outcome was BP control and the secondary outcome was adherence to hypertensive medication. Quality of studies was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. Data Synthesis: Thirty-five studies met the inclusion–exclusion criteria and were included in this study. Major themes included pharmacist-led interventions with medication counseling, patient education, distribution of interventions materials, individualized care plans, and check-in meetings. The vast majority of trials (n = 29) showed statistically significant improvement in BP in the intervention groups at follow-up. Of the 35 studies, most (n = 20) assessed medication adherence; several trials (n = 9) showed statistically significant improvement in medication adherence in patients receiving additional pharmaceutical care services. None of the RCTs was considered to have a high risk of bias. Conclusion: Pharmacist-led interventions improved BP control and medication adherence through education, counseling, or a combination of both. Future research is needed to determine the most effective pharmacists’ interventions in managing hypertension and to assess the cost-effectiveness of these interventions.

For many decades, the healthcare sector has been playing catchup with other industries in terms of innovation, primarily due to the low number of healthcare professionals with innovation and entrepreneurship skills in the workplace. The lack of innovation skills, particularly among pharmacists, may result from the fact that innovation and entrepreneurship training is not an integral part of most pharmacy core curricula. In fact, a limited number of pharmacy schools offer innovation and entrepreneurship courses either as part of a joint MBA/PharmD degree or as a certificate. These programs differ greatly from each other in their curricular content, although their overall goals are to teach future pharmacists the skills required to manage service delivery, oversee budgets, improve efficiency, control costs and continuously achieve quality improvement. The aim of this article is twofold: first, to assess commonalities and differences in curricular content between entrepreneurship and innovation training programs in the USA and, second, to present a set of must-haves for innovation and entrepreneurship curricular content for core curricula in pharmacy.

The commentary elucidates the importance of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) as a theoretical framework to encourage the practice of social distancing in rural areas as the world grappled with the pandemic of COVID-19 outbreak.