Describing the delivery of clinical pharmacy services via telehealth: A systematic review

Abstract

AbstractIntroductionTelehealth offers a promising opportunity for the delivery of clinical pharmacy services by increasing the accessibility of health care, extending the reach of clinical services, and allowing pharmacists to engage with patients who might otherwise be overlooked. The objectives of the project were to discover effective strategies for the delivery of clinical pharmacy services via telehealth and to identify core components of comprehensive medication management (CMM) that are deliverable via telehealth.MethodsA systematic literature review was performed by searching four databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature [CINAHL], PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) for relevant citations using keywords and subject headings relating to telemedicine, clinical pharmacy services, and health conditions. Studies were eligible for inclusion in the review if the interventions they describe involved telehealth technologies and pharmacist care. Blind screening of abstracts and full‐text review was completed by six researchers divided into teams of two. Any discrepancies were resolved by the corresponding author.ResultsFifty‐nine studies met the inclusion criteria, most (n = 53) of which were conducted in the U.S. Five studies (8.5%) reported pharmacist training as an implementation strategy. The telehealth technologies most regularly utilized were telephone‐based interventions (n = 45), videoconferences (n = 13), and web‐based (n = 4) interventions, with five studies using a combination of technologies. Most studies focused on hypertension (n = 22), diabetes (n = 20), or lipid‐related (n = 14) disease state management. Eighteen studies qualified as CMM (n = 18), with most involving all five essential CMM functions.ConclusionThis systematic review study highlights opportunities for pharmacists to deliver clinical pharmacy services using telehealth. The majority of clinical pharmacy services described in the accessed literature was provided via telephone and focused on targeted monitoring of disease states. While studies reporting the use of CMM interventions were limited, there is an opportunity to increase the application of CMM principles as healthcare systems transition to providing more telehealth services.