Integrating a pharmacist into the general practice environment: Opinions of pharmacist's, general practitioner's, health care consumer's, and practice manager's

Freeman, Christopher R., Cottrell, N. Neil, Kyle, Greg, Williams, Ian D. and Nissen, Lisa (2012) Integrating a pharmacist into the general practice environment: Opinions of pharmacist's, general practitioner's, health care consumer's, and practice manager's. BMC Health Services Research, 12 229: .


Author Freeman, Christopher R.
Cottrell, N. Neil
Kyle, Greg
Williams, Ian D.
Nissen, Lisa
Title Integrating a pharmacist into the general practice environment: Opinions of pharmacist's, general practitioner's, health care consumer's, and practice manager's
Journal name BMC Health Services Research  (ERA 2012 Listed)    (ERA 2010 Rank B)   Check publisher's open access policy
Publication date 2012-08-01
Sub-type Article
DOI 10.1186/1472-6963-12-229
Volume number 12
Issue number 229
ISSN 1472-6963
Total pages 18
Place of publication London, United Kingdom
Publisher BioMed Central
Collection year 2013
Language eng
Formatted abstract Background

Pharmacists are viewed as highly trained yet underutilised and there is growing support to extend the role of the pharmacist within the primary health care sector. The integration of a pharmacist into a general practice medical centre is not a new concept however is a novel approach in Australia and evidence supporting this role is currently limited. This study aimed to describe the opinions of local stakeholders in South-East Queensland on the integration of a pharmacist into the Australian general practice environment.

Methods

A sample of general practitioners, health care consumers, pharmacists and practice managers in South-East Queensland were invited to participate in focus groups or semi-structured interviews. Seeding questions common to all sessions were used to facilitate discussion. Sessions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Leximancer software was used to qualitatively analyse responses.

Results

A total of 58 participants took part in five focus groups and eighteen semi-structured interviews. Concepts relating to six themes based on the seeding questions were identified. These included positively viewed roles such as medication reviews and prescribing, negatively viewed roles such as dispensing and diagnosing, barriers to pharmacist integration such as medical culture and remuneration, facilitators to pharmacist integration such as remuneration and training, benefits of integration such as access to the patient's medical file, and potential funding models.

Conclusion

These findings and future research may aid the development of a new model of integrated primary health care services involving pharmacist practitioners.
Q-Index Code C1
Q-Index Status Confirmed Code
Institutional Status UQ

 
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Created: Wed, 08 Aug 2012, 13:43:22 EST by Mr Christopher Freeman on behalf of School of Pharmacy