INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES

NEW YORK — Doctors have continued prescribing antibiotics for mild conditions that don't require them despite decades of efforts by government authorities to discourage the practice, according to a new study.

Walgreens reached a 19.1% prescription market share for its fiscal year ended Aug. 31. But that wasn't the story to come out of the Chicagoland retailer's conference call.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores is taking to the airwaves to emphasize the role its members play in disseminating information about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the health insurance exchanges, which officially opened on Tuesday. NACDS president and CEO Steve Anderson appeared on Bloomberg TV's "Surveillance" Tuesday morning to talk about what pharmacies are doing for healthcare delivery.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — A new mobile game app designed by CyberDoctor showed improvements in medication adherence, diet and exercise in diabetes patients, according to a study.

The company said that breakthrough clinical trial results for the game, called PatientPartner," documented for the first time the effectiveness of a story-driven game in changing health behavior and biomarkers. The study was conducted among 100 nonadherence patients at Hershey, Pa.-based Pinnacle Health Systems and presented at the Health2.0 Conference Wednesday in Santa Clara, Calif.

NEW YORK — Thirty-seven percent of shoppers in the United States are shopping omnichannel, compared with 29% around the globe, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by GfK, found that consumers are "freely mingling" in-store visits, online product research and other information sources when making purchases. The extent of omnichannel shopping varies by category and country and appears tied to mobile device penetration. The study was based on 8,400 interviews in 14 countries.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. — Customer satisfaction with retail pharmacies has increased faster than mail-order pharmacies despite the perceived cost competitiveness of the latter, according to a new study.

H-E-B pledged to not reduce employee work hours in an effort to avoid having to cover their healthcare last week. In contrast, other employers have been cutting their employee hours to avoid the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provision that would require healthcare coverage, according to a report published in the San Antonio Express-News. 

Congress is expected to pass the Drug Quality and Security Act, which would subject sterile compounding pharmacies to stronger federal regulations and has attracted support from an independent pharmacy trade group, compared with a previous effort at federal regulations of compounding, Senate Bill 959, which many pharmacists feared would threaten their businesses and patients' access to compounded drugs.