The role of Design Science Research Methodology in developing pharmacy eHealth services

The increasing focus on efficiency of care has prompted health systems to look for innovative solutions that yield maximum value for care. Integration of care and eHealth are seen as the most promising solutions in the high technological environment of the coming decades. Pharmacy services have been developed to a point where the face of community pharmacy has changed dramatically. Thus, service design and implementation has become an area of increased attention by Pharmacy practice researchers, and the arrival of eHealth concepts to Pharmacy is driving the need to find alternative ways to design new services. Moreover, known barriers and challenges remain when securing integration of pharmacy services with the health systems. In this paper, Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM), a user-centered alternative methodology to the design, development and implementation of health services, especially eHealth services, is presented. This alternative, originally from the Information Sciences field, has been adopted as a service design methodology in diverse settings, including health care. Here, case studies are used to explain how a DSRM process should be conducted in a health care setting, illustrating what methods to choose in each step of the process. Finally, the advantages of DSRM compared to other user-centered methodologies for service design are presented, hopefully prompting the discussion on the use of DSRM for the study of the implementation and sustainability of pharmacy services.