Including the Reason for Use on Prescriptions Sent to Pharmacists: Scoping Review

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Pharmacy Practice
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Pharmacists in North America are legally obligated to ensure medication appropriateness.
• Patient reason for use is not a mandatory component of legal prescriptions.
• While benefits of including reason for use are known, it's not standard practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize existing research on the impact of including prescription reason for use on pharmacists.
• To identify how this information influences pharmacist roles and patient care.

Main Methods:

• An interdisciplinary scoping review was conducted.
• Searched health care, informatics, and engineering literature.
• Databases included PubMed, IEEE, ACM, IPA, and EMBASE (Dec 2018-Jan 2019).

Main Results:

• Nine papers met inclusion criteria from 3912 identified articles.
• Inclusion of reason for use aids error detection, reduces prescriber contact, supports counseling, and enhances patient safety.
• Barriers include prescriber concerns about workflow and patient privacy.

Conclusions:

• Consensus indicates that adding reason for use benefits patient safety and pharmacist effectiveness.
• More research is required to determine optimal methods for providing this information.
• Future studies should employ implementation science for better prescriber adoption.