Objective: To describe the effect of integrating a pharmacist into the general practice team on the timeliness and completion of pharmacist-conducted medication reviews.
Method: A pharmacist was integrated into an Australian inner-city suburb general practice medical centre to provide medication reviews for practice patients. A retrospective analysis of medication reviews with two time periods was conducted: pre-integration of the practice pharmacist and post-integration of the practice pharmacist. In an effort to obtain a measure of external validity the data were compared to data from the Division of General Practice in which the medical centre is located.
Key findings: There were 70 patients referred for medication review in the pre-integration phase and 314 patients referred in the post-integration phase. The time to complete the medication review process was significantly reduced from a median of 56 days to 20 days with a practice pharmacist. Prior to having a practice pharmacist 52% of patients did not have the service billed by the general practitioner, which was reduced to 6% during the post-integration phase.
Conclusion: The results from this trial show that the integration of a pharmacist into the general practice team was associated with an increase in the timeliness and completion rate of medication reviews.
© 2012 The Authors. IJPP © 2012 Royal Pharmaceutical Society.