Impact and Feasibility of Implementing a Systematic Approach for Medication Therapy Management in the Community Pharmacy Setting: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Objective:

To determine how implementing a systematic medication therapy management (MTM) process impacted MTM completion rates.

Methods:

This process improvement pilot included 4 grocery store-based community pharmacy sites. Site staff were trained on a systematic process to integrate OutcomesMTM opportunities into pharmacy workflow. Technicians prepared MTM paperwork, including a standardized comprehensive medication review (CMR) worksheet, which pharmacists used to deliver the service at the counsel window. The primary outcome was the change in CMR completion rate from pre- to post implementation, with each site serving as its own control. Secondary outcomes were change in targeted intervention program (TIP) completion rate and survey results assessing barriers and feasibility.

Results:

The mean CMR completion rate improved from 2.7% ± 5.4% to 23.2% ± 7.7% (P < .10). The mean TIP completion rate improved from 3.4% ± 4.2% to 24.9% ± 19.2% (P < 0.10) pre- to post-implementation. Survey results indicated that pharmacists were satisfied with this; the most significant barriers were time spent contacting prescribers, documentation, and claim submission.

Conclusion:

Implementing this systematic approach to providing MTM into the pharmacy workflow may lead to an improvement in CMR completion rate. However, the sample size is small, and the results and process may not be generalizable to other sites.

Keywords

medication therapy management community pharmacy OutcomesMTM CMR process improvement

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