Pharmacy characteristics associated with the provision of medication management services within an integrated care management program.

Objectives: To examine pharmacy operational and personnel characteristics that influence engagement in providing a community pharmacy medication management service within a statewide integrated care management program.

Methods: Before the program launch, all of the pharmacies were surveyed to collect demographic, operational, and personnel characteristics such as weekly prescription volume and number of staff, respectively. Those data were then compared with engagement in the program. Engagement was defined as providing initial comprehensive medication review as part of the medication management service. Three months after program launch, pharmacies were dichotomized as consistently engaged or inconsistently engaged. Data were analyzed with the use of descriptive statistics and chi-square and t tests to test for statistical significance between consistent and inconsistent engagement groups.

Results: A baseline survey was collected for all 123 pharmacies who joined the integrated care management program. After the first 3 months, 50 pharmacies were consistently engaged in the program. Compared with inconsistently engaged pharmacies, consistently engaged pharmacies employed more full-time pharmacists (mean 2.1 vs. 1.8; P = 0.05) and more full-time technicians (mean 4.0 vs. 3.0; P <0.01), allocated more nondispensing hours for pharmacists (88% vs 60%; P <0.01), were more likely to employ a dedicated clinical pharmacist (20% vs 5%; P = 0.013), and hosted more pharmacy residents (78% vs 22%; P = 0.02). Years of pharmacy operation (P = 0.05) and pharmacy store type (P = 0.05) also were significantly associated with level of engagement. Neither prescription volume dispensed per week, number of hours of pharmacist overlap, nor hosting pharmacy students was statistically different between consistent and inconsistent pharmacies.

Conclusion: Engagement in clinical activities in community pharmacy appears to improve with adequate staffing, availability of time for nondispensing activities, and having 1 or more pharmacists dedicated to clinical activities.