Name: Robert "Bob" Gold

Address: St. Mary’s Medical Center, 3700 Washington Avenue, Evansville, IN 47714

Phone #: (812) 485-4815

FAX #: (812) 485-4819

Pharmacist Bob Gold is an innovative practitioner who oversees a smoking cessation program at St. Mary’s Medical Center. The program is working on an $80,000 grant from the Community Health Foundation, including the American Cancer Society, Southwestern Indiana Pharmacy Association, ASSIST, and McNeil. Smoking cessation classes were previously attempted by St. Mary’s Medical Center with a poor response. The current program offers free Nicotrolâ patches, in addition to the smoking cessation classes, for the patients. Now over 1,000 patients have signed up for the program. Since the program is relatively new, at the time I spoke with Mr. Gold, 450 patients had been able to attend the classes.

The smokers first go to a class given by the American Cancer Society. After this first class, each patient goes to a session with one of the pharmacist smoking cessation counselors. The patient then receives three more classes for free, as well as receiving the patches for free. The pharmacists call patients at home after a month to see if they have been able to stop smoking. At this point 40% of the participating patients have stopped smoking. An interesting aspect of this program is that the patients evaluate the pharmacists.

Payor: Community Health Foundation

Reimbursement rate: $20 per session with the pharmacist

Is documentation required? No, because reimbursement by insurance companies is not involved. The program is funded by the grant

Specialized training required? Yes. The pharmacists were trained by the American Cancer Society to be Smoking Cessation Counselors.

Software/instrumentation required? A program called Database Tracker is used by the organization.

Additional information: In addition to managing the smoking cessation program, Mr. Gold was given an innovative practice grant by the APhA to work on his idea of developing a Psion palm top computer that doses vancomycin and aminoglycosides. The computer will also do acid/base analysis and will duplicate a whole medical chart for use by doctors, pharmacists, and nurses. The computer is now in the "proofing stage", and he expects it to be available in six months. Mr. Gold hopes to sell the computer through APhA, and he may call it the "Pocket Professor".

Interviewed by: Mary Jo Miller