A medication therapy management residency rotation adjusts to coronavirus disease 2019 constraints

The purpose of this commentary is to describe the Johns Hopkins Home Care Group’s (JHHCG) Community-based Pharmacy Residency Medication Therapy Management (MTM) rotation, summarize adjustments made to the rotation after the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, describe key learnings from the adjustments, and provide a call to action for other residency programs seeking to improve their rotations amidst pandemic restrictions. MTM clinical pharmacists at JHHCG collaborate with patients to identify barriers to adherence, review medications, and develop plans for improvement. Through improved medication adherence, the goals for this program are to reduce adverse effects, patient cost, and medical visits or hospital admissions. Central to this practice is the belief that strong patient relationships are necessary to uncover the root cause of medication nonadherence. In Postgraduate Year-1 (PGY-1) community-based pharmacy residency training, new pharmacists learn the value of building relationships with patients and working through complex problems during this clinical experience. By assisting patients with complex medical conditions and social situations, new pharmacists gain skills in patient care, pharmacy operations, and medication access challenges. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced the discontinuation of face-to-face interactions in this setting, rotation experiences for residents were adapted with the goal of continuing high-impact patient interactions and keeping everyone involved safe. Although considerable changes were made to the MTM rotation because of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents were still able to provide meaningful clinical care telephonically and continued to learn valuable patient care skills. Most importantly, high quality care was still delivered to the patients despite considerable challenges. The major challenge for the residents’ clinical experiences as a result of the adjustments has been finding an impactful volume of complex patients to enhance their skills. Other residency programs are encouraged to consider three recommendations to improve their rotations moving forward.