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The Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council (HCPC) will host its 14th annual National Symposium on Patient Compliance May 16–17, continuing its efforts to educate consumers, health professionals, and policymakers on the role that unit-dose packaging can play in improving pharmaceutical compliance. The event will open with a keynote address, “Future Trends in Pharmaceutical Packaging,” from Thani Jambulingam, chair and associate professor, department of pharmaceutical marketing, at Saint Joseph’s University (Philadelphia). The symposium will be held at the Hyatt Regency at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia.

The keynote presentation will present an overview of current trends in pharmaceutical packaging with an emphasis on the growing role that packaging plays in prescription marketing campaigns. In continuing with this theme, there will be a panel discussion on the second day, called “The Future of Pharmaceutical Detailing in the Changing World of Pharmaceutical Marketing.” The panel will include marketing professionals from major pharmaceutical manufacturing firms and other industry experts who will discuss the role that prescription sampling programs can be expected to play in coming years.

Other presentations include “Reducing Medication Errors through Better Pharmaceutical Packaging,” by Michael R. Cohen, president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (Huntington Valley, PA). Cohen will talk about how packaging and labeling strategies can help minimize medication errors, one of the foremost problems in modern healthcare. Patient noncompliance is a related healthcare problem. Colin Armstrong will share some of his research on adherence and compliance in his presentation, “Can Understanding Patient Motivation and Decision-Making Lead to Improved Prescription Packaging?” Armstrong works with the Vanderbilt Dayani Center for Health and Wellness and is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

A panel discussion called “Considerations for Unit Dose in Pharmacy,” will take place on the first day of the event. In this session, speakers from chain drug stores and independent pharmacies will share their views on the role of prescription packaging in the future, including the potential benefits of unit-dose formats. Panelists for this discussion have yet to be announced.

HCPC executive director Peter G. Mayberry will present “Medication Therapy Management Programs Under Medicare Part D: Why Providers Should Be Using Compliance Packaging.” This session will cover a little-known provision included in the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit that may have potential implications for pharmaceutical packaging.

The symposium will also present the 2005 Compliance Package of the Year Awards as well as tabletop exhibits. For more information, visit www.unitdose.org, or call 703/538-4030.