HOW THE GUIDE WORKS The guide includes five components that make up the pharmacist patient care process: Collect information, assess information, develop the care plan, implement the care
Steps in the Pharmacist Patient Care Process
plan, and follow up with the patient. The guide discusses each of the components in detail, explaining what they are and walking pharmacies through process changes in four stages. And within each of those stages, the guide helps identify a champion to lead the process change, methods to continuously improve the process, and ways to sustain the process.
1
COLLECT
2
ASSESS
3
DEVELOP
4
IMPLEMENT
5
FOLLOW UP
INFORMATION
Ferreri suggests pharmacies tackle the guide one component at a time. Every pharmacy should start by taking the selfassessment in the guide. The assessment helps the pharmacy team rate the pharmacy on a scale of low, medium, and high for each component of the patient care process. “I would recommend starting with the lowest-rated one, see how well you do for that one for about three to
INFORMATION
four months, and then make improvements and go from there,” she said. During the study, Ferreri found that generally, pharmacies excelled at assessing information and developing a plan but struggled to collect information and follow up with patients. Pharmacies don’t have much control over data collection, Ferreri said, because they don’t have access to a common electronic health record.
CARE PLAN
But pharmacies can more easily improve on their follow up. Pharmacists often get task-focused, moving from one job to the next without looking back, she said. “Follow up is something that we can have a huge impact on in community pharmacies. We have so many touchpoints with our patients that many other healthcare professionals do not. And, I think that was really eye-opening for me. That’s a strength we don’t capitalize on.”
CARE PLAN
Such drastic process changes won’t happen overnight. “I think it’ll probably take months, if not years, to implement the patient care process within community pharmacies,” Ferreri said. But now’s the time to start. “It’s something that’s not regularly incorporated into practice because it’s not tied to reimbursement,” Ferreri said. “Hopefully that will change in the future.” The guide is free to download at pharmacy.unc.edu/
WITH PATIENT
research/centers/cmopp/resources.
ELEMENTS | The business magazine for independent pharmacy | MARCH 2018
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