Implementing Transitions of Care Services in a Primary Care Clinic: Role of the Pharmacist

Abstract

Introduction Pharmacists in primary care clinics improve medication adherence and reduce medication errors but these require further investigation to determine its potential impact on health care readmission rates. Methods: This review assessed the addition of a clinical pharmacist to the primary care provider’s transitions of care appointment. The primary outcome of this review was the change in acute health care encounters (hospital readmissions and/or Emergency Department visits) in the 6-month period before to the 6 months following initial clinical pharmacist intervention. Each patient served as their own control. Secondary outcomes included the number and types of pharmacist interventions, percentage of pharmacist recommendations accepted, number and categories of drug-related problems (DRPs), nonadherence reasons, 30-day hospital readmission rate, 30-day Emergency Department (ED) rate, time to first hospital readmission, time to first ED readmission, and preventable readmission rate. Results: The total number of combined acute health care encounters in 6 months decreased by 15% from 280 at baseline to 238 after pharmacist intervention (P = .087) for the 206 patients included in the final analysis. The 30-day hospital readmission rate was 9.7% and the median time between first hospital readmission was 54.5 days (IQR 63.5). We identified a total number of 310 DRPs with a mean of 1.5 DRPs (SD 1.3) identified per patient. The providers accepted 88% of the pharmacists’ recommendations. Conclusions: Clinical pharmacists embedded in a primary care setting demonstrated improved patient care during transitions of care by identifying and resolving drug-related problems, with a trend in decreasing acute health care utilization.