Lecture 1-Justification of the Value of Clinical Pharmacy Services and Clinical Indicators Measurements-Introductory Remarks from a Traveler on a 40-Year Wayfaring Journey with Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Care.

Richard Parrish,Lita Chew

doi:10.3390/pharmacy6030056

Abstract

Without question, health care delivery, and clinical pharmacy’s purpose in it, is changing rapidly all over the world. Pharmacy’s place in the new health care environment is ensured only to the extent that the purpose of pharmaceutical care is understood and transmitted to the global structures of these developing organizational patterns and paradigm shifts. While the current trend toward commodification of illness and treatment seems to be driving efforts to consolidate the economic factors of pharmaceutical distribution, a new type of practice—patient-driven health care—has continued to shape the interactions of pharmacists and patients all over the world. A thorough understanding of the above factors involved in pharmacy’s history, present, and future are necessary for clinical practice preparation, as well as for value justification. How clinical pharmacy will succeed in this kind of social and economic milieu is precisely why this series of lectures and roundtables will help us embrace many of the vexing issues that clinical pharmacy administrators and practitioners face in daily practice.

Highlights

Without question, health care delivery, and clinical pharmacy’s purpose in it, is changing rapidly all over the world
While the current trend toward commodification of illness and treatment seems to be driving efforts to consolidate the economic factors of pharmaceutical distribution, a new type of practice—patient-driven health care—has continued to shape the interactions of pharmacists and patients all over the world
Prudent benefit managers understand the gap between merely receiving discount pharmaceuticals and the required knowledge and intelligence about medication-use, and are incorporating into their plans a role for drug therapy problem solvers

Summary

Introduction

Health care delivery, and clinical pharmacy’s purpose in it, is changing rapidly all over the world. The incidence and prevalence of corporate mergers and acquisitions make the determination of ownership of the factors for producing health care very difficult. Pharmacy practice has been a part of, as well as felt, the impact of vertical and horizontal integration. Hospital pharmacies have become health system focused. New types of prescribers—nurse practitioners, physician assistants, optometrists, physical therapists, and, yes, clinical pharmacists—are past the point of pilot studies in many areas of the world. My recent practice on the visceral surgery unit of a large tertiary care hospital in inner city Edmonton, Alberta, is one personal example where clinical pharmacists are practicing on a scope consistent with the general practice of medicine

Clinical Pharmacy’s Strengths in the Care Setting

Findings

The Evolution of Patient-Driven Pharmacist Care