4 minute read
PHARMACIST AND CLINIC COLLABORATION
from CCC-0722
by ensembleiq
The current burden on patients and providers in the United States is overwhelming. Each day brings more news of clinician burnout, provider shortages, and declining reimbursements. The health and wellness of patients also demands a close look. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, per capita health spending in 2020 rose dramatically above its already high levels while health utilization comparatively plummeted.1
These metrics tell a story of a primary-care system that cannot, under strain, meet the needs of its participants. While the pandemic surely exacerbated these weaknesses, realistically, they have been growing in scope and severity for years. Health innovators have long talked about the necessity of better continuity and connection in delivery systems. But technologies to date have fallen short of the mark, and strategies for more inclusive approaches have yet to bridge the gaps between health professionals and their clinical colleagues, and between health professionals and patients.
Pharmacist and Clinic Collaboration
With the influence of the pandemic and increasingly insistent calls for primary-care systems to evolve, there are distinct opportunities for pharmacists to connect with nurse practitioners and physician assistants who practice in convenient care clinics. The successes and lessons learned from the growth of the clinic industry and related support of its primary clinicians can offer best practices for how to continue to evolve and optimize primary-care accessibility.
GUEST COLUMN BY MIKE CLARK, POLICY DIRECTOR, CCA
In the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions’ report, “The Pharmacist of the Future: Unlocking the Profession’s Potential to Improve Care,” the authors identified opportunities for pharmacists to be more systematically involved in multiple areas, including primary care, specialty care, digital health, and population-health analytics.2 They wrote: “If more pharmacists were to operate to the full potential of their professional education and skill sets, they could play an important role in elevating the wellbeing of health care consumers.”
To date, such innovative practice models have not been widely explored or adopted. The positive interpretation of that lag is that savvy providers will be proactive about integrating pharmacy into their delivery models, capitalizing on the clinical, operational, and financial benefits.
A report prepared by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, with support from Express Scripts Pharmacy, offers complementary conclusions to the cited Deloitte research, including the following statements:3 • “[P]harmacists are trusted to fill more direct patient care gaps, with 77.3% of patient respondents agreeing that the pharmacist is an integral member of the care team.” • “83.7% of providers whose practice was part of a value-based payment model agreed that pharmacists should be regularly included in multidisciplinary teams that collaborate on patient care.” When convenient care clinics began to proliferate, they were based on the premise that primary care could be delivered with quality, convenience, and easy access. Adding pharmacist collaboration into that equation further elevates the patient-provider experience. Clinical services that are appropriately coordinated contribute to better health outcomes and reduced costs. Facilitating connected care teams is good for patients, providers, and the health-care system. Settings like retail pharmacies can be ideally suited to promote team-based, patient-centric, digitally enhanced health-care delivery.
Digital Platforms
Emerging digital platforms are equipped to begin to bring providers and patients together and provide accessible, actionable health information. Enabling clinical teams to coordinate across those platforms further solidifies efforts to establish continuity of care.
For instance, consider that, as assessed from 2015 to 2018, about 24% of Americans used three or more prescription medications within 30 days of the survey.4 These medications may or may not originate with the same prescribing provider. They are presumably likely to have been filled at the same pharmacy, assuming some level of geographic consistency. Factor in periodic illnesses or the need for immunizations or over-the-counter interventions.
When that patient visits a convenient care clinic, having a shared clinical relationship from the physician to the nurse practitioner to the pharmacist helps diminish the chance for inappropriate medication interactions, and it smooths the way for patient education about medication adherence or lifestyle modifications. In short, creating pathways for efficient, patient-focused communication between health-care professionals can correlate with better patient outcomes and streamlined care.
Creative, Cooperative Care
The constituents of the convenient care industry, who have consistently shown their interest in cooperative, creative problem-solving, are well-positioned to advocate for this level of collaborative health-care delivery. The components are already in place. Patients use and trust retail pharmacies for a range of functions. These centralized, community-based locations offer accessibility in both rural and urban environments. Implementing systems that generate multi-directional communication by, with, and through these qualified healthcare professionals may prove advantageous for all involved. C
