Development, Pilot, and Evaluation of a Qualitative Documentation Tool for Pharmacists to Share High Impact Patient...

Background: Community pharmacists are often the most accessible member of the healthcare team to many patients and can play a key role in managing their chronic conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, through enhanced pharmacy services. Despite their accessibility, pharmacy services are often underutilized due, in part, to a lack of adequate reimbursement models that comprehensively encapsulate all elements of those pharmacy services. While routine documentation of services does collect certain qualitative data, they do not always indicate the nuance of the full scope of services with resulting robust impact and value of those services for the patient and healthcare system. Objective: To develop and pilot an online reporting tool for pharmacist documentation of high impact patient intervention "stories" that includes the nuances of care provision processes in outpatient pharmacy settings that promote positive outcomes. Methods: An online Patient Stories Reporting Tool (PRST) was developed to allow outpatient pharmacists to document details on distinct direct patient care encounters, or "stories", that they felt showcased their value. Documentation through PSRT included limited quantitative data and qualitative data with a focus on a free response narrative for the "story". In a pilot, the PSRT was distributed to 18 pharmacists across 16 practice sites from one partnering pharmacy organization. Qualitative data, the focus of the included analysis, was collected, assessed by project team members, and organized by intervention types. Results: Forty-seven stories involving 17 pharmacists across 13 practice sites from August 2021 to March 2023 were reported. Three types of key intervention stories were identified including General Patient Education (7 stories), Medication Optimization (20 stories), and Cost Reduction (20 stories). Given the nature and scope of this initial pilot, one story for each of the three most prevalent intervention types was identified as exemplifying the types of stories the tool can collect and are subsequently discussed in detail. Conclusions: The three selected stories help to characterize the services pharmacists provide, the critical components of pharmacist-patient interactions, and the value of sharing these stories utilizing tools such as the PSRT. Through these stories, the PSRT also begins to record the nuances of pharmacist interventions and the impact they can make in a patient's healthcare journey. Potential applications of the tool are multivarious including supporting improvements in the perception of pharmacists' roles on the healthcare team and justifying expansion of reimbursement models.