Characterizing perceptions of an abbreviated ISMP Medication Safety Self Assessment for community pharmacies

This study sought to characterize users' perceptions of, and identify the average time needed to complete a newly abbreviated version of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Medication Safety Self Assessment for Community and Ambulatory Pharmacy (MSSA-CAP).

This study took place within a large, national, nonprofit, faith-based health system. An abbreviated version of ISMP's MSSA-CAP was developed through an iterative process by researchers and the health system's medication safety officers (MSOs, i.e., the assessment tool's 'users'). Retained items included those with nonoverlapping (1) bolded or keywords; (2) "quick asks," answerable without external information; or (3) were relevant to community pharmacy practice (i.e., nonambulatory care-specific). During site visits, MSOs assessed the organization's community pharmacies with the abbreviated tool. Users completed pre- and post-visit surveys asking their perceptions of and time spent using the full and abbreviated versions of the MSSA-CAP. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Sixty of the original MSSA-CAP's 216 items were retained. Between August to December 2019, six MSO users assessed 59 community pharmacies across 10 states with the abbreviated assessment tool. On the average, users reported needing 86.1 ± 35.4 minutes to complete the abbreviated assessment. Sixty-seven percent of users agreed or strongly agreed that the abbreviated assessment was of a good length, compared with only 17% for the original full assessment. Collectively, assessed community pharmacies scored highest on MSSA-CAP items related to Physical Environment and Prescription Labels, and lowest on Hard Stops and Proactive Risk Assessments.

Streamlining items in medication safety assessment tools may be useful in overcoming time barriers to implementation in community pharmacies.