Objectives: To describe the acceptance and refusal rates of travel-related vaccine and medication recommendations in a pharmacist-run travel health clinic, to evaluate the change in patient understanding of travel-related issues, to determine patient satisfaction with this clinic, and to determine factors influencing both patient acceptance and satisfaction.
Setting: Southern California (Claremont) between July 2007 and October 2008.
Practice description: Hendricks Pharmacy is an independently owned community pharmacy that is part of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy Provider Network. The pharmacy offers a range of services including home delivery, compounding, and blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol screenings.
Practice innovation: Comprehensive pharmacist-run travel health clinic.
Main outcome measures: Patient acceptance and refusal rates of pharmacist-made recommendations, changes in patient understanding of travel-related issues resulting from pharmacist counseling, and patient satisfaction with this travel health clinic.
Results: In a sample of 283 patients, overall patient acceptance of pharmacist-made recommendations was 84.7%. The primary reason for patient refusal of a recommendation was self-perceived low risk for infection. A subsample of patients (n = 82) completing a patient satisfaction survey found that 96% were satisfied with their overall visit. Patient satisfaction with the clinic and pharmacist services was correlated with overall patient acceptance.
Conclusions: The high rate of patient acceptance and satisfaction with this clinic supports adoption of pharmacists as nontraditional providers of travel health services.