Development of an innovative partnership between a health-system department of pharmacy and external community pharmacies

Abstract

Disclaimer In an effort to expedite the publication of articles, AJHP is posting manuscripts online as soon as possible after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and copyedited, but are posted online before technical formatting and author proofing. These manuscripts are not the final version of record and will be replaced with the final article (formatted per AJHP style and proofed by the authors) at a later time. Purpose Our organization implemented a health-system pharmacy/community pharmacy transitions of care (TOC) program, developing a scalable model to improve care transitions from the health system to the community setting for shared patients. Summary In this report, we describe our organization’s experiences in taking a purposeful approach to building and pilot testing a partnership between our department of pharmacy and 14 community pharmacies within a larger statewide network to improve TOC across care settings. We have been successful in partnering with our electronic health record (EHR) vendor to enhance access capabilities to allow for documentation by community pharmacists (external to the organization) to be included in the patient record as a note. The goal of the partnership with community pharmacies is to elevate TOC for patients, identify and resolve medication therapy problems that may occur post discharge and lead to poor outcomes, and improve continuity of care across practice settings. Conclusion Our department of pharmacy has led a successful initiative to promote collaboration with local external community pharmacies. This program has led to innovative advancements in EHR capabilities, promoting transparency in the documentation of pharmacy services and making this documentation visible to all care team members.

Usability Evaluation of a Community Pharmacy Health Information Exchange Interface Prototype

“…medications and resolve more medication therapy related problems [4][5][6][7][8][9]. This leads to improved patient care and decreased hospital admissions [5,7].…”

“…Other HCPs, including community pharmacists in some states, have access to local health-system (EHRs) as "read-only" [4,6,12]. This limited access provides community pharmacists some of the information they need, but also leads to workflow inefficiencies and duplicative documentation [4].…”

“…HIEs facilitate the sharing of patient data amongst multiple healthcare professionals across varying health systems involved in a patient's care. Patients visit multiple health care facilities and collaboration amongst all HCPs involved in a patient's care is of utmost importance for improved patient outcomes [4]. Optimal utilization of HIEs can facilitate better communication amongst all HCPs through easy access to all patient data, including clinical documents, in one place [13][14][15][16].…”

“…Despite the accessibility and variety of services community pharmacists provide to patients, community pharmacists rarely have HIE access [15]. There is a general paucity of literature describing HIE integration for community pharmacies [15], but in the few instances where community pharmacists do have access to HIE, access is traditionally only available via logging into an external platform with an interface not integrated with the pharmacy's existing software [4]. Separate navigation to This article is protected by copyright.…”

“…3 When community pharmacists have access to patient data from other HCPs, they are able to identify and prevent prescription errors, identify more discordant medications and resolve more medication therapy-related problems. [4][5][6][7][8][9] This leads to improved patient care and decreased hospital admissions. 5,7 Roberts et al found when community pharmacists have access to laboratory results, progress notes, medication diagnoses, and allergy information, 39% of medication therapy management consults can be completed without needing to contact other HCPs, increasing the efficiency of health care delivery.…”