Systematic review of medication synchronization in community pharmacy practice.

Background: Medication non-adherence costs more than 100 billion dollars in avoidable hospitalizations yearly. As a result, community pharmacies have implemented medication synchronization programs to improve adherence. One function of most medication synchronization programs is the alignment of all of a patient's medications to refill on a single date. While aligning refills is a standard aspect of most programs, other features vary making it difficult to identify which program components lead to improved adherence.

Objective: To review available literature and identify core components of medication synchronization and associated implementation techniques in community pharmacy.

Methods: A systematic review was performed by searching electronic databases for studies, reviews, and other sources for grey literature discussing medication synchronization in community pharmacy settings. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they documented the operation of medication synchronization program in a community pharmacy. A framework analysis identified common themes present in the literature.

Results: Twenty-six studies met criteria for final inclusion in this review. The majority of studies were retrospective cohorts, commentaries, and implementation guides. A wide variety of core components were included as part of medication synchronization program descriptions in the available literature. Several core components were identified as consistent throughout most of the published literature. These components were the identification and enrollment of patients, inclusion of a medication review and patient assessment, the alignment of refills, a formal process for preparation of medications, and the delivery of medications and other services.

Conclusions: This review identified several common themes of medication synchronization in the literature, which could help standardize medication synchronization within community pharmacy and facilitate future research. Themes found in this review provide the foundation upon which a consensus definition of medication synchronization can be built.