Introduction: The ambulatory care pharmacy practice in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is a fairly new but evolving specialty that has provided patient‐centered care in various clinics over the past 20 years. It mainly resembles the United States in its structure and provides its services to patients mostly free of charge. The Saudi Vision 2030 and the new transformation in its health care system present many opportunities for ambulatory care clinical pharmacists with some expected challenges. Method: This is a review written by a group of experts under the Saudi Society of Clinical Pharmacy umbrella propose a definition and comprehensively review the history of ambulatory care pharmacy practice in KSA, the currently available services, potential future opportunities, and expected challenges. Results: The expert's insight would support the ambulatory care pharmacy practice in KSA, evaluate the need to expand its services, define its role, and suggest set requirements for pharmacists to be eligible to provide ambulatory care pharmacy services. Conclusion: The position statement recommendations may help legislative bodies provide a more explicit explanation of ambulatory care pharmacy services in KSA to build a more robust base structure for such services.
Psoriasis is a common chronic and complex inflammatory skin disease that affects over 125 million people worldwide. Management of psoriasis in daily clinical practice in Saudi Arabia is variable. Local preferences for management differ, which may have a bearing on the treatment selection. Biologic therapy is now a well-established strategy for managing moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. There is a clear need for national consensus statements due to the extended role and high availability of literature on these agents. As a result of an initiative of the Ministry of Health, a multidisciplinary expert panel of dermatologists and pharmacists with practical experience in the clinical management of psoriasis were invited to be part of a work group to update the previous practical guidelines on the biologic treatment of psoriasis published in the Journal of Dermatological Treatment, 2014. The overall aim of this consensus document is to deliver evidence-based recommendations on the use, screening, and monitoring of biologic therapy in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. These recommendations also address the use of biologic therapy in special patient populations. They were developed after rigorous evaluation of existing international guidelines as well as the latest emerging evidence. Updates of the present consensus document will be provided as needed to incorporate new data or agents.
The need for healthcare reform in Saudi Arabia (SA) is mostly related to inadequate primary care services, the inconsistent quality of services, and the high demand for workforce capacity and capabilities. Therefore, the proposed healthcare transformation plan is part of the country’s overall transformation plan of Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to prevent morbidity and mortality associated with non-communicable diseases (NCD), communicable diseases, and avoidable injuries. Clinical pharmacists in internal medicine (IM) play an integral role in managing and preventing NCDs and communicable diseases. Most of the leading causes of mortality in SA can be prevented or managed with medications, and highly skilled pharmacist in medication therapy management. To improve the quality of health and well-being of the Saudi population, there is a need for a much larger number of well-trained IM clinical pharmacists in the public and private sectors. This opinion paper by the IM Pharmacy Specialty Network (PSN) of the Saudi Society of Clinical Pharmacy (SCCP) presents the current status of the IM pharmacy workforce in SA and provide initial phase recommendations to help develop the IM pharmacy workforce to serve the needs of the Saudi people. However, to meet the goals of Saudi Vision 2030, all healthcare systems need to work collaboratively with other stakeholders such as MOH, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, and SCFHS to prepare a highly skilled and effective Saudi healthcare workforce to meet the high demands of reforming the healthcare system.
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