Identification and Characterization of Workflow Models for Medication Therapy Management in Community Pharmacies.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice
• Health Services Research
• Workflow Analysis

Background:

• Community pharmacists face challenges integrating medication therapy management (MTM) services alongside dispensing and other pharmacy operations.
• Current approaches to MTM service integration lack a standardized model, leading to varied implementation strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and characterize medication therapy management (MTM) workflow models within community pharmacies.
• To understand how MTM activities are integrated or delegated within existing pharmacy workflows.

Main Methods:

• Conducted thirteen semi-structured interviews with community pharmacists from a large pharmacy chain.
• Utilized an inductive qualitative approach for thematic analysis of transcribed interviews.
• Focused on a specific geographic area to characterize workflow models.

Main Results:

• Limited integration of MTM tasks into the dispensing workflow was observed.
• Three primary strategies for delegating MTM activities were identified: shared teamwork, delegated teamwork, and single delegation.
• Patient interviews during medication pickup represented the most common MTM task integrated into the workflow; most other MTM tasks occurred outside the primary workflow.

Conclusions:

• Community pharmacy MTM workflows are characterized by distinct delegation strategies rather than deep integration into dispensing.
• Further research is needed to define and test implementation strategies for these identified workflow models.
• The findings provide a foundation for developing and evaluating MTM service delivery models in community pharmacy settings.