Evaluation of a guided continuous quality improvement program in community pharmacies

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice and Management
• Patient Safety and Quality Improvement
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• A strong patient safety culture is crucial for safe medication use in community pharmacies.
• Assessing the impact of continuous quality improvement (CQI) programs on safety culture and event reporting is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate changes in patient safety culture attitudes and quality-related event (QRE) reporting frequency.
• To assess the impact of a guided continuous quality improvement (CQI) program implementation in U.S. community pharmacies.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-one community pharmacies were randomized into intervention (guided CQI) and control (partial CQI) groups.
• Retrospective pre-post safety culture questionnaires and QRE reporting were used.
• Rasch analysis, paired t-tests, and repeated measures ANCOVA were employed for data analysis.

Main Results:

• The intervention group showed statistically significant improvements in six patient safety culture domains.
• No significant difference in overall QRE reporting rates was observed between groups.
• The intervention group reported differences in QRE types and detection points within the workflow.

Conclusions:

• Guided implementation of a CQI program effectively enhanced self-reported patient safety culture attitudes among pharmacy staff.
• CQI programs may influence how staff perceive and report safety events, even without increasing overall reporting frequency.