Purpose: Access to care is a critical issue facing healthcare and affects patients living in rural and underserved areas more significantly. This led the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to launch a project that leveraged the expertise of the clinical pharmacy specialist (CPS) provider, embedding 180 CPS providers into primary care, mental health, and pain management across the nation.
Methods: This multidimensional project resulted in hiring 111 CPS providers in primary care, 40 CPS providers in mental health, and 35 CPS providers in pain management to serve rural veterans' needs.
In a recent IJHPR article, Schwartzberg and colleagues report on clinical and other specialty services offered by pharmacists in the community in Israel and in the international arena. The article covers examples of activities recently introduced due to legislative changes which expanded the pharmacist's scope of practice, along with obstacles that are serving to slow broader expansion and availability of these services. This commentary details the success of clinical pharmacy services being provided by the United States Veterans Health Administration, and offers a framework of elements that support clinical pharmacy practice expansion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To increase access to hepatitis C virus (HCV) care and cure by deploying clinical pharmacy specialist (CPS) providers across the largest integrated health care system in the United States.
Setting: National integrated health care system.
Practice Description: In late 2016, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pharmacy Benefits Management Clinical Pharmacy Practice Office (CPPO) partnered with the VA HIV, Hepatitis, and Related Conditions Program with the central priority of expanding veteran access to novel HCV treatments and timely cure to ultimately prevent morbidity and mortality associated with HCV disease progression.
The majority of clinical pharmacy specialists are using global scopes of practice, which allow more autonomy to provide direct patient care and comprehensive medication management services to home-based primary care veterans.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Health Syst Pharm
June 2018
Purpose: The methods and processes utilized to deploy the Pharmacists Achieve Results with Medications Documentation (PhARMD) Project intervention template across the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States are described.
Summary: The PhARMD Project team at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) designed, developed, and deployed a standardized template within VA's electronic health record (EHR) that allows the clinical pharmacy specialist (CPS) to efficiently document select interventions made during patient care encounters that specifically contribute to the overall care provided and patient outcomes. The template is completed by the CPSs as part of progress note documentation within the EHR.
Purpose: The development of an electronic tool to quantify and characterize the interventions made by clinical pharmacy specialists (CPSs) in a primary care setting is described.
Summary: An electronic clinical tool was developed to document the clinical pharmacy interventions made by CPSs at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. The tool, embedded into the electronic medical record, utilizes a novel reminder dialogue to complete pharmacotherapy visit encounters and allows CPSs to document interventions made during patient care visits.
Am J Health Syst Pharm
November 2010
Purpose: The development, implementation, and evaluation of a protected peer-review process for clinical pharmacists with advanced scopes of practice are described.
Summary: A protected practice evaluation committee (PPEC) was created at a Veterans Affairs medical center to formulate policies and procedures for conducting peer reviews. The committee comprises six clinical pharmacists, none of whom hold a supervisory position, and assigns appropriate peers to review and rate clinical pharmacists' cases based on PPEC-developed performance measures.