Integrating a Clinical Pharmacist into a Multidisciplinary Pain Center: Feedback and Perspectives

Abstract

Background:In January 2017, two clinical pharmacists joined our institution’s multidisciplinary pain center care team. They help optimize management of chronic pain patients. The purpose of this study is to present and discuss an innovative model of clinical pharmacy development in France.Method:A retrospective study for the period January 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019 was conducted.The care team evaluated the clinical pharmacy service using a satisfaction questionnaire.The outcome measures were the type of activities, number of interventions and healthcare team satisfaction.Results:During this period, the clinical pharmacists intervened 1839 times. Conventional clinical pharmacy activities do not represent the majority of solicitations, which shows the advantage of both adapting the activities deployed to the expectations of care teams and expanding care packages to those needs.Pharmaceutical advice was the main activity, mostly given to physicians (55%) and patients (35%).They consisted in contributing to the choice of drug strategy, explaining the treatment, adjusting a dosage, and improving relations between hospital and community caregivers.The feedback forms showed that caregivers believe that clinical pharmacy has positive impacts on patient care and healthcare team quality of life. Conclusion:The numerous requests for clinical pharmacist interventions show the care team’s significant interest in this new activity. Clinical pharmacy has shown its added value in patient quality of care and helps optimize the patient's care pathway by decompartmentalizing hospital and community medicine.This clinical pharmacy development model is innovative in France, as pharmacists are full members of the care team. Specific activities were set up progressively according to the care team’s needs. Caregivers’ expectations and requests made in clinical pharmacy progressed over time to more specialized activities. Assessment of team satisfaction showed that this model was very well accepted by caregivers and highlights the relevance of adapting and specializing clinical pharmacy development to the care team’s needs.