Pharmaceutical care

Pharmaceutical care is a practice in which the practitioner takes responsibility for a patient's drug-related needs, and is held accountable for this commitment. In the course of this practice, responsible drug therapy is provided for the purpose of achieving positive patient outcomes.

Pharmaceutical care signifies a shift of practice in pharmacy from being drug product-oriented to the one that is patient-oriented to achieve definite outcomes that improves patients’ quality of life. In order to achieve pharmaceutical care, pharmacists have to assume the role of caregiver, communicator, decision-maker, teacher, researcher, life-long learner, leader, and manager, which will help him to provide individualized care. As the patients visit community pharmacists more often, they can play a major role in providing individual care to the patients especially in the management of chronic no communicable diseases. Community pharmacists have to upgrade their expertise in drug product orientation to that of clinical orientation to provide patient oriented care.

The scope of pharmacy practice includes more traditional roles such as compounding and dispensing of medications, and it also includes more modern services related to health care, including clinical services, reviewing medications for safety and efficacy, and providing drug information. Pharmacists, therefore, are the experts on drug therapy and are the primary health professionals who optimize the use of medication for the benefit of the patients.

Care plan summary

Create comprehensive patient database.

1. Assess for actual and potential drug-related problems.
2. Establish therapeutic goals.

Specify monitoring parameters with end points and frequency.

Document the patient's progress towards therapeutic goals.

The goal of Pharmaceutical Care is to optimize the patient's health-related quality of life, and achieve positive clinical outcomes, within realistic economic expenditures.

Since the emergence of modern clinical pharmacy, ambulatory care pharmacy practice has emerged as a unique pharmacy practice setting. Ambulatory care pharmacy is based primarily on pharmacotherapy services that a pharmacist provides in a clinic. Pharmacists in this setting often do not dispense drugs, but rather see patient’s in-office visits to manage chronic disease states.

In the U.S. federal health care system ambulatory care pharmacists are given full independent prescribing authority. In some states such North Carolina and New Mexico these pharmacist clinicians are given collaborative prescriptive and diagnostic authority. In 2011 the board of Pharmaceutical Specialties approved ambulatory care pharmacy practice as a separate board certification. The official designation for pharmacists who pass the ambulatory care pharmacy specialty certification exam will be Board Certified Ambulatory Care Pharmacist and these pharmacists will carry the initials BCACP.

Submit manuscript at http://www.longdom.org/submissions/pharmaceutical-care-health-systems.html or send as an e-mail attachment to the Editorial Office at heavymetaldis@peerreviewjournal.com

With kind regards,

Nancy Ella

Editorial Manager

Journal of Pharmaceutical Care & Health Systems