General Practitioners and Community Pharmacists’ Collaboration in Primary Care: Small Steps for a Major Change

Abstract

Background: Healthcare authorities worldwide search for ways to develop integrated care and interprofessional collaboration. In Belgium, Medical-Pharmaceutical Concertation (MPC) was introduced as a format to promote constructive dialogues between GPs and community pharmacists (CPs) with a focus on pharmacotherapy. Objective: To evaluate the implementation of MPC from the perspective of healthcare authorities and GPs/CPs. Methods: Mixed-methods approach, including semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and service users, observations of MPC meetings and surveys in GPs/CPs. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were analyzed inductively. Results: The implementation of MPC took a slow start. Parties involved had divergent views on the goals of the MPC: stakeholders focused on measurable results, while service users aimed on improving interprofessional communication. Additionally, service users felt that the lack of local structures hindered consensus building and implementation of agreements in daily practice. Support from professional associations was considered indispensable for the implementation of MPC. In order to organize this efficiently, the establishment of an independent institution, coordinating the MPC initiative, was highly recommended. Conclusion: The study confirms that a thorough context assessment prior to implementation of a complex project is needed and that a step-wise approach should be respected to achieve effective interprofessional relationships.

General practitioners-community pharmacists pharmacotherapy discussion groups: Analysis of their implementation through a series of case studies

“…Although financial planning allocated a budget to support 800 “local projects” per year until the end of 2018, only 386 have been established since 2015. 9 MPCs implementation encounters different dynamics between the French and Dutch-speaking parts of the country. In fact, MPCs are implemented more in the Dutch-speaking part, where 322 “local projects” have been recorded since 2015, 48 in the French-speaking part, and 16 in the Brussels area.…”

“…An initial literature review identified Belgium, 9 the Netherlands, 6 , 11 , 16 Scotland, 17 Sweden, 18 Switzerland, 8 , 13 , 19 and New Zealand 10 as countries in which PPPDGs existed or appeared to exist in various forms. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland were chosen for comparison of PPPDG implementation based on their use of recognized and structured practice models that have been subjected to evaluation and scientific publications.…”

“…In contrast to certain types of collaboration, such as medication reviews for the management of a given patient, this interprofessional practice aims to improve the overall pharmacotherapy practice among these professionals. 6 , 8 , 9 , 10. In this article, this interprofessional practice will be referred to as “Physicians-Pharmacists Pharmacotherapy Discussion Group” (PPPDG).…”

“…Given their organization of care and health policy priorities, different countries have implemented PPPDGs using specific models. Although the implementation of some of these national models has been published in small numbers, 9 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 no study has attempted to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the PPPDGs.…”

Interpretative phenomenological analysis of the collaboration among healthcare professionals in the nursing home setting

“…Regarding interprofessional collaboration models, Belgium has introduced some initiatives, but they have not yet been widely implemented. 16 …”