Abstract
Background Despite the importance placed on the concept of the multidisciplinary team in relation to intermediate care (IC), little is known about community pharmacists’ (CPs) involvement. Objective To determine CPs’ awareness of and involvement with IC services, perceptions of the transfer of patients’ medication information between healthcare settings and views of the development of a CP–IC service. Setting Community pharmacies in Northern Ireland. Methods A postal questionnaire, informed by previous qualitative work was developed and piloted. Main outcome measure CPs’ awareness of and involvement with IC. Results The response rate was 35.3 % (190/539). Under half (47.4 %) of CPs ‘agreed/strongly agreed’ that they understood the term ‘intermediate care’. Three quarters of respondents were either not involved or unsure if they were involved with providing services to IC. A small minority (1.2 %) of CPs reported that they received communication regarding medication changes made in hospital or IC settings ‘all of the time’. Only 9.5 and 0.5 % of respondents ‘strongly agreed’ that communication from hospital and IC, respectively, was sufficiently detailed. In total, 155 (81.6 %) CPs indicated that they would like to have greater involvement with IC services. ‘Current workload’ was ranked as the most important barrier to service development. Conclusion It was revealed that CPs had little awareness of, or involvement with, IC. Communication of information relating to patients’ medicines between settings was perceived as insufficient, especially between IC and community pharmacy settings. CPs demonstrated willingness to be involved with IC and services aimed at bridging the communication gap between healthcare settings.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11096-016-0377-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Intermediate care (IC) is a care setting that has evolved in response to the ageing population, the increasing pressure faced by acute healthcare services and the resulting needInt J Clin Pharm (2016) 38:1380–1389 for alternatives to hospital-based care
Background Despite the importance placed on the concept of the multidisciplinary team in relation to intermediate care (IC), little is known about community pharmacists’ (CPs) involvement
The information available related to pharmacists working in all sectors, and not solely CPs, who comprised 59 % of those pharmacists registered with the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in 2014
Summary
Intermediate care (IC) is a care setting that has evolved in response to the ageing population, the increasing pressure faced by acute healthcare services and the resulting needInt J Clin Pharm (2016) 38:1380–1389 for alternatives to hospital-based care. Despite the importance placed on the concept of the multidisciplinary team in IC, previous work has highlighted how the pharmacy profession has not been integrated into this care setting [1, 3, 4]. This lack of pharmacy involvement is concerning, given that various aspects of medicines management within the IC setting may be suboptimal [3]. Despite the importance placed on the concept of the multidisciplinary team in relation to intermediate care (IC), little is known about community pharmacists’ (CPs) involvement. Main outcome measure CPs’ awareness of and involvement with IC
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