Pharmacists' Role in Chronic Disease Management from Physicians' Perspective

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this research was to gather physicians' perception of pharmacists providing chronic disease management and identify trends in physicians' characteristics that could potentially impact their comfort level collaborating with pharmacists. METHOD: Physicians practicing in the outpatient setting in the state of Washington were invited to participate in a voluntary, anonymous survey. Physicians practicing in a large multidisciplinary outpatient clinic in the Southwest Washington and Seattle areas were included. For Likert scale questions, median values were reported. Physicians' characteristics were also correlated with their willingness to collaborate with pharmacists in the provision of clinical services. RESULTS: Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics to summarize the data collected to determine which pharmacist provided clinical services physicians would like to collaborate on. Physicians were most comfortable with pharmacists reviewing patients' medications followed by pharmacist provision of disease state education and least comfortable with pharmacists initiating therapy. Physicians that have worked with pharmacists in the past were more likely to collaborate with pharmacists compared to physicians that have never worked with a pharmacist. Furthermore, pharmacists' ability to bill patients' medical insurance did not influence physicians' likelihood to collaborate with pharmacists. CONCLUSION: This information will be used to aid in the determination of future directions for the implementation of additional clinical services within the community pharmacy setting. Additionally, it is anticipated that pharmacists will be able to utilize this information to initiate conversations with physicians in an effort to collaborate on new pharmacist provided clinical services as well as improve patient outcomes by increasing access to healthcare providers, including pharmacists.