How a State Measures Up: Ambulatory Care Pharmacists' Perception of Practice Management Systems for Comprehensive Medication Management in Utah.

Kyle Turner,Bradly Winter,Nicholas Cox,Jeff Olson,Benjamin Berrett,Alan Abbinanti

doi:10.3390/pharmacy8030136

Kyle Turner, Bradly Winter + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy8030136

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Abstract

Comprehensive medication management (CMM) is a patient-centered standard of care that ensures a patient’s medications are optimized. The CMM Practice Management Assessment Tool (PMAT) is a tool to assess areas of CMM practice management. The purpose of this project was to assess the state of CMM practice management based on clinical pharmacist perception for two health systems in the state of Utah, and to identify areas of excellence and/or improvement utilizing a novel method for PMAT analysis. The PMAT was distributed to all primary care-focused ambulatory care pharmacists employed by University of Utah Health (U of U Health) and Intermountain Healthcare (Intermountain). Ordinal responses were assigned to three possible categories of CMM support (High, Indifferent, and Low). Ten surveys were completed from U of U Health, and nine were completed from Intermountain. Thirty-two of the 86 survey questions resulted in a high level of support, and 25 questions resulted in a low level of support from the majority of respondents. Statistically significant differences between the institutions were found for 18 questions. The utilization of the PMAT within two Utah health systems highlighted areas of excellence and improvement and demonstrates a unique method for analysis of PMAT results.

Highlights

Comprehensive Medication Manage (CMM) is a patient-centered care process that ensures each patient’s medications are individually assessed to determine that each medication is indicated for a particular condition, is effective for the medical condition and achieving defined goals, is safe given the comorbidities and other medications being taken, and that the patient is able to take the medication as intended and adhere to the prescribed regimen [1,2]
CMM consists of three core elements: philosophy of practice, patient care process, and practice management system [1,2]
To aid the implementation of CMM, the Utah Alliance of Ambulatory Pharmacists (UAAP) was created as a practice advancement and advocacy learning collaborative to represent the voice of pharmacists in ambulatory care across the state

Summary

Introduction

Comprehensive Medication Manage (CMM) is a patient-centered care process that ensures each patient’s medications are individually assessed to determine that each medication is indicated for a particular condition, is effective for the medical condition and achieving defined goals, is safe given the comorbidities and other medications being taken, and that the patient is able to take the medication as intended and adhere to the prescribed regimen [1,2]. To aid the implementation of CMM, the Utah Alliance of Ambulatory Pharmacists (UAAP) was created as a practice advancement and advocacy learning collaborative to represent the voice of pharmacists in ambulatory care across the state. Utilizing the knowledge and relationships in UAAP, the two institutions partnered to improve their practice management systems in hopes of learning from one another and disseminating that learning to other members of UAAP. Inherent in this collaborative effort was the ultimate goal of practice management improvement within each organization, to gain the resources and essential elements of CMM needed to advance practice within the state

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