Abstract
Objective: For patients with chronic diseases requiring long-term use of medications who are quarantined at home, the management of medication therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic is a problem that pharmacists urgently need to discuss and solve. The study aims to establish and launch a telepharmacy framework to implement pharmaceutical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: To establish a remote pharmacy service model based on a medication consultation service platform under the official account of the “Beijing Pharmacists Association” on the social software WeChat app, obtain the medication consultation records from February 28 to April 27, 2020, during the worst period of the epidemic in China, and to perform a statistical analysis of the information about the patients seeking consultation, consultation process, content and follow-up results. Results: The medication consultation service system and telepharmacy service model based on social software were established in February 2020. The “Cloud Pharmacy Care” platform had 1,432 views and 66 followers and completed 39 counseling cases in 2 months. Counseling was available for patients of all ages. Of the 39 cases, 82.05% of patients were young and middle-aged. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-term medication usage problems of patients with chronic disease were effectively addressed using “Cloud Pharmacy Care”. In the consultation, 35 cases (89.7%) were related to the use of medicines or health products, and 4 cases (10.3%) involved disease state management and the use of supplements. The top five drug-related issues included the selection of medications, the dosage and usage of drugs, medications for special populations, medication therapy management of chronic diseases, and adverse drug reactions. All consultations were completed within 4 h, with a positive review rate of 97.4%. Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, a remote pharmacy service “Cloud Pharmacy Care” based on the social software WeChat app was quickly constructed and applied to solve the medication-related problems of patients and the public during home quarantining. The significance of the study lies in the timely and interactive consultation model helps to carry out medication therapy management for chronically ill patients and improves patients’ medication compliance, improves medical quality, and plays a positive role in promoting the popularization of safe medication knowledge.
Highlights
In December 2019, a cluster of cases of acute respiratory illness caused by respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were detected and spread rapidly worldwide (Chen et al, 2020; Li et al, 2020; Zhu et al, 2020)
Different from the telepharmacy provided by a traditional pharmacy, clinic, or medical institution, such as support to clinical services, remote education and handling of “special pharmacies” on medication dispensing safety, and prescription and reconciliation of drug therapies (Baldoni et al, 2019; Le et al, 2020; Pathak et al, 2020; Zhou et al, 2020), this study describes and analyses the framework, the results, and effects of internetbased remote pharmacy services supported by multidisciplinary professional pharmacists with medication therapy management (MTM) certification quickly response to the COVID-19 epidemic, with social software on smartphones for patients’ medication management and remote education
The Beijing Pharmacists Association (BPA) screened 27 pharmacists with rich clinical experience and MTM qualifications who work in the tertiary hospitals of the Beijing and Tianjin region quickly establish the voluntary team of “Cloud Pharmacy Care”, providing online free medication consultations
Summary
In December 2019, a cluster of cases of acute respiratory illness caused by respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were detected and spread rapidly worldwide (Chen et al, 2020; Li et al, 2020; Zhu et al, 2020). Numerous non-emergency outpatient departments in Chinese hospitals were closed, causing most offline clinics to be unavailable to the public While this crisis has presented the medical care delivery system with unparalleled challenges, COVID-19 has catalyzed rapid use of information and communications technology (ICT), such as telemedicine to deliver healthcare at a distance, offers an affordable, effective, and attractive option. Telemedicine including counseling, supervision, training, and psychoeducation in response to the pandemic, has been promoted and scaled up to reduce the risk of transmission (Li et al, 2021) Within this umbrella of telemedicine falls telepharmacy, the provision of pharmacist care by registered pharmacists and pharmacies through the use of telecommunications to patients located at a distance (Alexander et al, 2017; Win, 2017). Others are diagnostic and disease prevention services, therapeutic drug monitoring, and assessment of clinical outcomes (Hedima and Okoro, 2021)
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