Feasibility of a collaborative pharmacist prescribing model for patients with chronic disease(s) attending Australian general practices: a preliminary study.

Background: Pharmacists working in general practices provide medication reviews with recommendations to general practitioners (GPs) to optimise medications. We describe a model where the pharmacist is empowered with increased responsibility to implement agreed recommendations through collaborative prescribing.

Aim: To assess a collaborative pharmacist prescribing model incorporating increased pharmacist responsibility, for patients with chronic diseases in general practice.

Method: This was a pre-test-post-test quasi experimental pilot study using a pharmacist embedded in three Australian general practices. A pharmaceutical care plan was developed with patients and their GP to identify drug related problems (DRPs). The pharmacist discussed recommendations to manage DRPs with the GP and implemented recommendations agreed by the GP and patient over the six-month study period. Outcome measures included acceptance and implementation rate of recommendations made by the pharmacist.

Results: The pharmacist made 135 recommendations to optimise medicine use of which 126 (93.3%) were accepted by the GP. There were 105 (83.3%) implemented by the end of the study of which the pharmacist implemented 62 (49.3%).

Conclusion: Compared to other Australian studies using a general practice pharmacist model, this study suggested increased pharmacist responsibility through collaborative prescribing led to high acceptance and implementation rates of recommendations to manage DRPs.