5th Annual Midwest Medication Safety Symposium: The 5^th Annual Midwest Medication Safety Symposium is an interdisciplinary event created to provide an opportunity for health care providers to learn new medication safety strategies. Each presentation focuses on improving medication safety practices and patient outcomes through education of pharmacists and interprofessional health care teams. Sponsored by University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, the St. Louis Area Medication Safety Collaborative (SLAMS), and the Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety (ICPS), pharmacists can earn 4.75 contact hours of knowledge-based CE credit, and Pharmacy Technicians can earn 1.5 contact hours of knowledge-based CE credit at the completion of this home study event.

• Pharmacists, to learn more about this event and to register, please click here>>>
• Pharmacy Technicians, to learn more about this event and to register, please click here>>>

Expanded Role of Rivaroxaban in Patients with Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease: Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) are more likely to have cardiovascular (CV) disease and an increased thrombotic risk; therefore, aggressive management to prevent CV events is crucial. Join Dr. Ashley Lopez for a 45-minute presentation as she addresses emerging evidence on the potential use of dual pathway antithrombotic therapy with aspirin in combination with reduced-dose anticoagulant and stratify the clinical benefit in patients with diabetes mellitus and coronary artery disease.

The Utilization of Medications that Augment the Nitric Oxide Pathway in Heart Failure Patients: Join Dr. Brooke Jacobson as she examine the role of medications that augment the nitric oxide pathway in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. This presentation will begin by describing the background, etiology, and prevalence of heart failure followed by the pathophysiology. The pathophysiology in this presentation will specifically cover how the nitric oxide pathway is altered in patients with heart failure. Current guideline recommendations for optimizing heart failure medications will be reviewed. The presentation will then look at literature available for the nitric oxide augmenting agents. The trials that study the effectiveness of hydralazine/isosorbide (V-HeFT trials and the A-HeFT trial) will be reviewed and analyzed as well as the VICTORIA trial. The VICTORIA trial evaluates the efficacy of the newest agent in this drug class- vericiguat. The presentation will conclude with an evaluation of how these agents should be used in current practice. A treatment algorithm will be included to guide the decision on who should receive these agents.

A Closer Look at Episodic Migraine Prevention: Join Dr. Nicole Short for this 45-minute presentation where she discusses the characteristics of episodic migraine followed by an explanation of the mechanism of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) antagonists. An overview of current American Academy of Neurology recommendations and the European Headache Federation guidance on CGRP antagonists for episodic migraine prevention will be discussed. A literature review over the critical trials of injectable CGRP antagonists along with a trial of the first-line agent, topiramate will be presented. The findings of these trials will be compared and contrasted in order to help define the role and place in therapy for CGRP antagonists.