The Philosophy of Practice for Comprehensive Medication Management: Evaluating its Meaning and Application by Practitioners

Abstract

Objective

Philosophy of practice is the foundation to any patient care practice as it provides a set of professional values and beliefs that guide actions and decisions in practice. Study objectives were to understand how pharmacists providing comprehensive medication management (CMM) describe their philosophy of practice and compare how participants' philosophies align with predefined tenets of a CMM philosophy of practice.

Methods

An instrument with closed and open-ended items was developed and administered online to the lead pharmacist at 36 clinics participating in a large CMM study. Participants were asked to describe their philosophy of practice, rate how well their current practice activities align with five predefined CMM philosophy of practice tenets, provide examples of how they carry out each tenet, and how they could improve. Responses were coded and descriptive analysis was used to calculate participants' practice alignment to the five philosophy of practice tenets.

Results

Thirty pharmacists completed the instrument. Twelve codes emerged that participants used to describe their philosophy of practice. These codes were mapped to five predefined tenets of a philosophy of practice. Only 3 (10%) participants included all five tenets in their philosophy of practice, 8 (26.7%) included four, 8 (26.7%) included three, 6 (20%) included two, and 5 (16.7%) included one tenet. Overall, participants rated their alignment with the five tenets highly. "Embracing a patient-centered approach" received the highest mean score of 9.17/10, while "Meeting a societal need" had the lowest mean score of 8.37/10.

Conclusion

There was significant variability in how participants described their philosophy of practice. CMM requires a single and consistently applied philosophy of practice in order to guide practice and the role of the practitioner. We propose five core tenets that resulted from this assessment to be embraced by pharmacists providing CMM and included in their philosophy of practice.

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from # All Medicine by Alexandros G. Sfakianakis via alkiviadis.1961 on Inoreader http://ift.tt/2AguNDc