TY - JOUR
T1 - Defining and enhancing collaboration between community pharmacists and primary care providers to improve medication safety
AU - White, Annesha
AU - Fulda, Kimberly G.
AU - Blythe, Rachel
AU - Chui, Michelle A.
AU - Reeve, Emily
AU - Young, Richard
AU - Espinoza, Anna
AU - Hendrix, Noah
AU - Xiao, Yan
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper was supported by the Agency for HealthCare Research and Quality under Grant [R18HS027277] and by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant [GNT1195460 to ER]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Introduction: Over 4 billion prescriptions are dispensed each year to patients in the United States, with the number of prescriptions continuing to increase. There is a growing recognition of pharmacists’ potential in improving medication safety in community settings, in collaboration with primary care providers (PCPs). However, the nature of collaboration has not been well defined, and barriers and strategies are not articulated. Area covered: For this narrative review, published studies were retrieved from PubMed between January 2000 and December 2020. Search terms included “patient safety,” “medication safety,” ”collaboration,” “primary care physician,” and “community pharmacy.” Resulting articles were categorized as follows: defining collaboration, types of collaboration, and barriers and solutions to collaboration. Expert opinion: It is important to understand the factors within a community pharmacy setting that limit or facilitate community pharmacists’ participation in medication safety activities. Strategies such as medication review are a common form of collaboration. Barriers to collaboration include misconceptions regarding roles and differences in access to clinical information and community pharmacy practice variability. Future recommendations include increasing training and utilization of pharmacists/PCP teams, increasing community pharmacists’ practice in emerging roles, and expanding the community pharmacist role in transitions of care from the hospital to the community.
AB - Introduction: Over 4 billion prescriptions are dispensed each year to patients in the United States, with the number of prescriptions continuing to increase. There is a growing recognition of pharmacists’ potential in improving medication safety in community settings, in collaboration with primary care providers (PCPs). However, the nature of collaboration has not been well defined, and barriers and strategies are not articulated. Area covered: For this narrative review, published studies were retrieved from PubMed between January 2000 and December 2020. Search terms included “patient safety,” “medication safety,” ”collaboration,” “primary care physician,” and “community pharmacy.” Resulting articles were categorized as follows: defining collaboration, types of collaboration, and barriers and solutions to collaboration. Expert opinion: It is important to understand the factors within a community pharmacy setting that limit or facilitate community pharmacists’ participation in medication safety activities. Strategies such as medication review are a common form of collaboration. Barriers to collaboration include misconceptions regarding roles and differences in access to clinical information and community pharmacy practice variability. Future recommendations include increasing training and utilization of pharmacists/PCP teams, increasing community pharmacists’ practice in emerging roles, and expanding the community pharmacist role in transitions of care from the hospital to the community.
KW - Medication safety
KW - collaboration
KW - community pharmacists
KW - older adults
KW - primary care physicians
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85142517515&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14740338.2022.2147923
DO - 10.1080/14740338.2022.2147923
M3 - Review article
C2 - 36377503
AN - SCOPUS:85142517515
VL - 21
SP - 1357
EP - 1364
JO - Expert Opinion on Drug Safety
JF - Expert Opinion on Drug Safety
SN - 1474-0338
IS - 11
ER -