Walgreens is taking a unique approach to solving the pharmacist shortage: creating the Walgreens Deans Advisory Council to boost the number of students enrolling in pharmacy schools and execute on other goals plaguing the industry, the retail pharmacy giant announced on February 5.

The council will consist of company executives and deans from 17 pharmacy schools and will meet quarterly to discuss attraction and retention strategies, according to Walgreens. The first meeting is slated for early March.

Rick Gates, SVP and chief pharmacy officer at Walgreens, told Healthcare Brew that the council—which includes deans from around the US to make sure there is a “range of views and opinions”—plans to publicly disclose the goals it sets during meetings and give periodic updates on progress made.

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

Finding the correct test codes can feel like solving a puzzle—even for seasoned healthcare pros. And all those challenges you face to figure out what test to order make it harder to deliver quality patient care.

This is where the Lab Ordering Guide (LOG) comes in. The LOG is a tool that helps you search for allergy test codes with confidence. It features:

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Find allergy profile test codes and access concise information on how to interpret ImmunoCAP™ Specific IgE test results—as well as potential clinical implications to aid in your diagnosis and patient management plan.

Order with ease.

Forget looking to economists to get a sense of how the economy is doing—just look at Botox sales.

Bracing for tightened consumer spending amid recession fears, pharmaceutical giant AbbVie projected fewer people would shell out cash for Botox and lowered its guidance for its aesthetics portfolio by $600 million in 2023. The economy didn’t boom last year, but there was no recession, and most economists don’t think one is likely to hit this year, either.

AbbVie’s 2023 Botox revenue reflects that trend: Sales didn’t soar in 2023, but they didn’t decline either, according to earnings released this month.

AbbVie reported $1.7 billion in US Botox Cosmetic sales in 2023, a 1% increase over 2022. Sales picked up by the end of the year, with the company reporting $453 million in US sales for Q4 2023, a 7.3% increase over Q4 2022.

Keep reading here.—MA

More than eight in 10 nurses saw or experienced workplace violence in the last year, a new National Nurses United (NNU) survey found.

The survey, which polled 914 nurses, also indicated that nearly half of respondents thought that violence has worsened in healthcare facilities in the previous year—an increase from a March 2021 NNU survey that found only 21.9% of respondents thought violence was increasing.

“I have been punched, slapped, spat on, hit, kicked, and bitten,” one Illinois nurse reported.

Another nurse working in Florida said that violent episodes are commonplace and “getting worse.”

Keep reading here.—WP

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Will at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Will for his number on Signal.

Stat: The rate of pickleball-related bone fractures increased 200% over the last two decades, according to a new analysis. (NBC News)

Quote: “Hospitals have a lot of money at stake and will fight this hard. Hospitals feel if they lose here, down the road there will be more substantial steps.”—Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, on hospitals fighting against site-neutral payments (NPR/KFF Health News)

Read: Last fall, NYU Langone Health removed two doctors from their positions over online posts about the Israel-Hamas war. One appears to have been reinstated, and the other is suing the health system. (the New York Times)

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