Development of a community-focused emergency response tool for medication-related preparedness

Pharmacists are among the first health care providers to respond after a disaster. They serve a vital role through mass medication dispensing or vaccination and triaging the medication needs of the community. Their role during the COVID-19 pandemic and other disasters have highlighted a need to engage pharmacists in local emergency preparation and community planning efforts.

The objective of this project was to develop an expert-informed medication-related emergency response readiness tool for community-based pharmacists.

Pharmacists with expertise in the different phases of disaster management informed revisions of an existing emergency response readiness checklist for short-term humanitarian response. The checklist was chosen to adapt because it focuses on pharmacist medication expertise while guiding users through all phases of the disaster management cycle. A variation of nominal group technique was used to gather expert feedback on the checklist and gain consensus on the adapted tool.

The expert panel included 9 pharmacists with collective experience in over 50 emergencies in more than 20 countries. The panel recommended adapting the checklist to a comprehensive tool format to represent the continuousness of disaster management cycle. The panel recommended keeping the tool line items focused on medication access and prompting pharmacists to think about how they can use their medication expertise to ensure equitable access to care during and after an emergency. Most revisions were in the prevention and preparedness phases of the tool and build up capacity for a local response effort through community partnerships.

To our knowledge, this emergency response readiness tool is the first to guide community-based pharmacists through the critical steps required for disaster and emergency medication-related preparation. Medication-related disaster management requires a multiple-step process that is ongoing as the needs of communities change over time.