Implementing Clinical Pharmacists in Primary Care: Care Team Satisfaction Survey Results

The rising demand on primary care providers encourages innovative use of care extenders, such as primary care pharmacists. Our academic medical center includes 34 multidisciplinary primary care clinics that provide general pediatric and adolescent medicine, internal medicine, and family medicine services. Primary care pharmacy services (PCPS) have grown since 2016 across 13 clinics serving internal and family medicine services. This study evaluated care team member satisfaction and workflow implications with current PCPS and systematically identified priorities for future expanded services.

A 15-question survey was developed and administered through an online platform targeting multidisciplinary care team members. Likert and ranked scale responses were averaged by the electronic survey platform to calculate overall composite scores or weighted averages for each question.

The survey response rate was 24.7%. There was a high level of agreement among care team members about the satisfaction with currently provided PCPS (range 3-5; mean 4.65 ± 0.66). Care team members disagreed with the perception of increased clinical burden from the PCPS (range 1-5; mean 1.82 ± 1.13). The most beneficial components of current PCPS included hypertension medication management and clinical consult activities (composite scores 3.8 and 3.19, respectively). The highest priority future PCPS identified was diabetes medication management (composite score 4.21).

Care team members perceive the most value derived from PCPS when pharmacists are able to independently manage medications as care extenders under collaborative agreements with providers.