Pharmacutical care/healthcare - Essay Example

Pharmacutical care/ healthcare Anna Fihar Nowadays pharmacists are widely integrated into the primary health care teams in the North America and United Kingdom. The role of pharmacists in this integration is quite important as they provide appropriate drug information and education for other health care team members and help to improve medication use between patients. But there are some barriers that prevent integration of pharmacists into primary care teams such as unclear pharmacist’s responsibilities, non-acquaintance with the role of other team members, dependence on other members in the integration, improper pharmacist`s support and training.

All mentioned barriers can be easily prevented and help to make pharmacist’s collaboration successful and useful if they will be better prepared. ( Derek Jorgenson,2013.)I would like to analyze the pharmacist’s integration role from the perspective of physicians and nurses. Physicians are quite important members of health care teams. They play a critical role in the healthcare systems as they maintain and improve patient’s health through precise diagnostics and treatment. They receive a long-term education that includes undergraduate education, medical school and graduated medical education.

Research of physicians-pharmacists collaboration showed that both members of the health care system realized that the successful collaborative practice is quite necessary and useful for further optimization of medical treatment. Physicians want to collaborate to approve insurance for patients, while pharmacists want to provide medical support for patients in case of drug-related problems. Physicians usually collaborate with pharmacists with the purpose of improving patient’s adherences (62.5%), dispensing prescriptions (62.5%), counseling of patients (53.1%), assisting patients in selecting of unprescription medication (50%) and assisting in medication insurance (46.9%).Physicians collaborate with pharmacists to facilitate insurance coverage (66%), to provide instructions in medication therapy and improve adherence (53%), to support patients with medication recommendations (45%), to prescribe drug therapy for patients (37%).

Physicians want further collaboration to optimize medication adherence and management of drug side effects.( Deborah V. Kelly,2013)Nurses also play important role in the health care system as they support patients during treatment and help to improve their health. Education needed to become a nurse is undergraduate education and four year bachelor`s degree in nursing or associated degree in nursing that lasts 2-3 years for registered nurses. Nurses are fully trained in patient care. Nurses in collaboration with pharmacist`s have responsibility for medication safety.

Nurses usually receive assistance from pharmacists in medication instructions, safety and use to provide appropriate health care for patients and meet their individual needs. Observed that nurses usually does not receive medications on time while pharmacists express dissatisfaction about the order`s absence. Therefore, this area of nurses-pharmacists collaboration needs improvement. (Roxana Gonzalez,2009)Technological advancement is not enough to guarantee medications safety for patients. Only active and successful collaboration of healthcare professionals and pharmacists can lead to better patients care and treatment.

For successful integration, pharmacists should define the priorities and needs of health care system members and patients; develop a description of their job for better understanding of pharmacist role; they have to be familiar with the other members of the health care team and maintain highly professional relationships with them; they have to be highly educated to provide appropriate medication instructions and information. Therefore, pharmacists play important and indispensable role in the interprofessional collaboration and this was approved both by physicians and nurses, as I described above.

( Makowsky MJ,2009)REFERENCES:1. Deborah V. Kelly,2013. Pharmacist and physician views on collaborative practice.[Online]. Available at:< http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734911/#!po=40.6250>.2. Derek Jorgenson,2013. Guidelines for pharmacists integrating into primary care teams. [Online]. Available at:.3. Roxana Gonzalez,2009. Nurse/Pharmacist Collaboration.[Online]. Available at:.4. Makowsky MJ,2009. Collaboration between pharmacists, physicians and nurse practitioners: a qualitative investigation of working relationships in the inpatient medical setting.[Online]. Available at:< http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19234987>.