Tag: clinical pharmacist

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Missing from the HealthCare Team

Clinical Pharmacist should be part of every health care team. Missing from the Health Care Team is the Clinical Pharmacist.  

Ambulatory Clinical Pharmacist Provide Pharmacotherapy for several different chronic diseases.  Ambulatory Care pharmacist can also improve quality measures and drive cost down by addressing non-adherence.  Clinical Pharmacist can offer a lot to different settings such as emergency, hospital critical care, etc.

As this TED Talk from 2015 shows, Pharmacist are the future of healthcare. Finding clinical pharmacist in different settings in ambulatory care should not be surprising.  What is not similar is the involvement and the services provided.  Ambulatory Care or Pharmacotherapy has come a long way but still has a long way to go. Overall Clinical pharmacist should be considered an integral part of the healthcare team. 

As I mentioned in a previous blog, many people still don’t really understand what an ambulatory clinical pharmacist does or what is pharmacotherapy. It is my belief that every clinic should have a pharmacist to help with medications problems and management of chronic diseases.  Clinical pharmacist overall can help make sure that medication therapy is optimized, that patients get the best outcome and educate the patient.

Pharmacist graduate with a Doctor degree or PharmD, Pharmacist are very knowledgeable and can offer a  great deal to the patient care. Pharmacist work to improve disease states such as diabetes, hypertension or cholesterol. Pharmacist can do smoke cessation, asthma and COPD management. Pharmacist can manage anticoagulation (blood Thinners), polypharmacy and education.

Ambulatory Care Pharmacist:

Clinical pharmacist in the Emergency room:

Clinical pharmacist in critical care:

There are also Oncologist Clinical Pharmacists, pediatric Clinical Pharmacists, transplant clinical Pharmacists, endocrinology, psychiatry and many more.

As an ambulatory care pharmacist, I see all the opportunities where a clinical pharmacist can make a difference. Pain management clinical pharmacists are in high demand given the current opioid addiction crisis.   Consultant or geriatric Clinical pharmacist will be in high demand given the growing number of elders. Clinical pharmacist work in specialty clinics such as weight management, heart failure, osteoporosis and oncology.

Residency is highly recommended if Clinical Pharmacy is something you want to do. Look for a Mentor, someone who can help you with your career and make sure to develop a career plan.

Also keep in mind that there has been a lot of talk about Pharmacy being overly saturated and having a hard time finding a job. Personally, I think that the potential for pharmacist to be in more places other than traditional inpatient hospital, community or industry jobs; are out there. As Pharmacist continue to show the benefits of having pharmacists as part of the health care team, new areas where pharmacist can be involved in will grow. I believe that the future of pharmacy will be involved more of the cognitive side or knowledge rather than dispensing.

Even the retail or community pharmacies are getting more involved with MTM and providing clinical pharmacotherapy in a consultant way to private Doctor’s offices. Specialty pharmacist are providing a great deal of education, monitoring and managing disease states like Hepatitis.

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What is an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist

An ambulatory care Pharmacist is an integral member of the healthcare team. Ambulatory Care Pharmacists are clinical Pharmacists, medication experts who partner with patients to help improve the patients’ health. Ambulatory Care Pharmacist acts as a patient advocate, the medication therapy management, promotes wellness, helps educate, helps patients self-manage their chronic disease.

What does ambulatory mean?

Ambulatory care is provided in settings such as dialysis clinics, ambulatory surgical centers, hospital outpatient departments, and the offices of physicians and other health professionals.

Ambulatory Care Pharmacists can be your Community or retail Pharmacist, they can also provide the same kinds of services often refer as Medication Therapy Management.

What is Ambulatory Care Pharmacy?

The following statement was developed by a joint task force of the American Pharmacists
Association (APhA), the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), and the
American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP):
Ambulatory care pharmacy practice is the provision of integrated, accessible health care services by pharmacists who are accountable for addressing medication needs, developing sustained partnerships with patients, and practicing in the context of family and community. This is accomplished through direct patient care and medication management for ambulatory patients, long-term relationships, coordination of care, patient advocacy, wellness, and health promotion, triage and referral, and patient education and self-management. The ambulatory care pharmacists may work in both an institutional and community-based clinic involved in the direct care of a diverse patient population.

Do you know what an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist is?

Most people do not know what an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist does, making it hard when you want to help patients. Most patients do not take advantage of the services we provide because they do not know about them.

When I’m asked what do I do? I tell people that I am an ambulatory Clinical Care Pharmacist, they don’t know what I do. Often in the clinic, patients will refer to me as a Nurse and I find myself telling them that I am a Pharmacist. At other times people will ask if I see only patients like them or do I see other patients with different kinds of illnesses.

It is hard when even my family doesn’t really know what I do, how can I expect others to know. While some of the definitions and the places where we work are different than the local Pharmacy, Pharmacists are providing some of the same services they have always provided with a more focus on services. Pharmacy is a profession rich in history, it is in the last 40-50 years that pharmacy became known solely as a dispenser of medications.

Services Provided by ambulatory Care Pharmacist

  • Improving clinical and economic outcomes
  • Optimizing safe medication use
  • Optimizing diabetes care
  • Optimizing asthma care
  • Optimizing COPD
  • Optimizing cardiovascular disease care
  • Optimizing renal disease care
  • Optimizing preventive care
  • Implementing precision therapeutics
  • Expanding medication therapy management
  • And many more areas

As an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist is my goal to partner with the patient to provide patient center care by managing the patient medication therapy, being a patient advocate, providing health education, guide self-management of chronic diseases, and promote health wellness.