Evaluation of Team Experience with the Clinical Pharmacist Practitioner Providing Comprehensive Medication Management...

Provider and team burnout in health care has increased.

We sought to evaluate the integration of clinical pharmacist practitioners on drivers of burnout among team members and providers.

This cross-sectional electronic survey was conducted over a 6-month period.

This research was conducted in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). The VHA is the largest integrated health care system in the USA.

The team members surveyed included physicians, advanced practice registered nurses (RN), registered nurses, physician assistants, psychologists, social workers, and clinical dieticians. A category entitled "Other" was also available for selection to encompass other roles to include licensed practical nurses, medical support assistants (e.g., schedulers) and to ensure that all team members would have the opportunity to contribute if they chose to respond.

A total of 3349 team members responded to the National survey. Providers (e.g., MD, advanced practice nurses, and physician assistants) accounted for 40.7% (n = 1364) of respondents. Provider respondents were distributed among 818 (24.4%) physicians, 446 (13.3%) advanced practice nurses, 91 (2.7%) physician assistants, and 9 (0.3%) residents and fellows. Nursing accounted for 35.0% (n = 1173) of respondents. Respondents primarily used their clinical pharmacist practitioner to provide comprehensive medication management. For the 10 survey questions, team members agreed or strongly agreed (88.9%) that the clinical pharmacist practitioner provided a positive effect in four key driver areas of burnout. This was consistently seen regardless of respondent or practice area.

This survey is one of the largest and most extensive teams and provider evaluations of the integration of clinical pharmacists into team-based care conducted. Results revealed clinical pharmacists do impact the four drivers of burnout studied and validate past research. Results of this study can be used as one method to further address the alarming trend of provider and team burnout.