학술논문

Primary care pharmacy technicians: Effect on pharmacist workload and patient access to clinical pharmacy services.
Document Type
Article
Source
American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy. 2020 Supplement, Vol. 77, pS93-S99. 7p. 1 Diagram, 2 Charts.
Subject
*ACADEMIC medical centers
*OUTPATIENT medical care
*BLOOD pressure measurement
*COUNSELING
*HEALTH services accessibility
*HEART rate monitoring
*HOSPITAL pharmacies
*OUTPATIENT services in hospitals
*MEDICAL appointments
*NURSING records
*PRIMARY health care
*EMPLOYEES' workload
*ELECTRONIC health records
*MEDICATION reconciliation
Language
ISSN
1079-2082
Abstract
Purpose Improve patient access to clinical pharmacy services and decrease pharmacist technical task workload in primary care (PC) clinics. Summary Due to concerns with the amount of technical tasks performed by University of Wisconsin Health PC clinical pharmacists negatively impacting their capacity to care for patients and perform clinical tasks, the pharmacy department piloted a new PC pharmacy technician role that involved completion of technical tasks previously performed by PC pharmacists. PC pharmacist daily technical and clinical activities were identified through shadowing and quantified by a 4-week period of work sampling. A PC pharmacist workgroup determined the technical tasks that would be appropriate for a pharmacy technician to complete and developed the technician workflows. A PC pharmacy technician was implemented during a 3-week pilot, when pharmacist daily technical and clinical activities were quantified through work sampling. Following implementation, a 52.7% (P < 0.001) relative reduction and a 10.2% (P < 0.001) relative increase in pharmacist technical and clinical activities, respectively, were identified. Additionally, a 10% relative increase from the previous 3-month average was observed in the PC pharmacist rolling patient panel size during the pilot period, correlating with an increase of patient access to pharmacist clinical services. Conclusion Up to 17% of PC pharmacist daily activities are technical tasks. Leveraging pharmacy technicians to support pharmacists with completion of these tasks increases patient access to clinical pharmacy services but requires additional staff resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]