Pharmacists can be an essential bridge between patients and their doctors
It used to be that doctors only communicated with pharmacists through nearly illegible notes on a page ripped from a prescription pad. These days, however, their communication is broader and deeper, with the pharmacist increasingly recognized as a physician’s partner and patient advocate.
“The value of the pharmacist as an important health care professional is being recognized more and more,” says Dr. Ashkar, PharmD, associate chief of ambulatory pharmacy for UCLA Health. “It’s always been really valued in the inpatient acute care setting because pharmacists work side by side with the provider. But now specifically on the ambulatory side, within the community, pharmacists are very accessible to the patient, enhancing their access to care through collaborating with the providers.”
How pharmacists advocate for patients: The work pharmacists do to support patients ranges from explaining how to take medications to finding lower-cost options to looking for red flags and potential drug interactions.
Too often, a big percentage of the readmissions to the hospital are due to patients not understanding how to take their medications.
Patients are also less likely to continue their medications when they are expensive. For complex medical procedures, such as oncology or organ transplants, monthly medication costs can exceed $20,000, which can leave a patient with more than $1,000 in copays. This is more than many patients can manage. It’s proven that a patient is at risk of medication noncompliance if a prescription costs anything more than $150. Pharmacists often work with prescribing physicians to find alternative medications that may be cheaper but equally effective.
Pharmacists are tasked with ensuring that a patient’s prescription is appropriate for their condition, that it doesn’t interact with other medications they are taking, and it doesn’t raise any safety red flags. A pharmacist’s job is to notice if a patient is getting prescriptions from multiple physicians, particularly if different providers are prescribing the same medications. Pharmacists are also on the lookout for “pill mills” and potential drug diversion. There are ‘bad-actor’ providers known to prescribe—for profit, drugs patients want, or who tend to prescribe the same few medications—often addictive substances—for every patient they see. Pharmacists in the retail setting are responsible for not dispensing addictive medications originating from pill mills.
“Pharmacists are the last defense for the patient,” Dr. Ashkar notes. “If a prescription was prescribed wrong—whether it was in the hospital or not—the pharmacist is the last person who’s going to check the prescription before the patient starts taking it.”
If a pharmacist spots an inconsistency or has a question, they generally reach out directly to the physician. This may happen instantly through a patient’s electronic medical record, or with external retail pharmacies, it happens with a phone call.
How pharmacists support physicians: Pharmacists not only help physicians by educating about drugs and serving as a second pair of eyes on prescriptions, but they are also increasingly helping to lighten doctors’ loads by approving refills and in some States, even writing prescriptions for certain medications such as contraceptives and smoking cessation drugs.
Pharmacists help to alleviate provider burnout. Pharmacists are now being recognized as health care professionals who are really trusted. And they can take on some of the clinical work that the provider doesn’t have to. This helps the provider focus on the patient. For example, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacists became frontline vaccinators against the virus, further expanding access for patients.
That accessibility, both in the hospital and at retail pharmacies, makes the pharmacist a valuable liaison for patients. Often they’re on the front lines, and the pharmacist is the person the patient feels truly comfortable talking to.
Source: Ghada Ashkar, PharmD, associate chief of ambulatory pharmacy for UCLA Health. https://www.uclahealth.org/news/pharmacist-connection?
