Abstract
The quickly changing healthcare environment has forced many healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, to justify the necessity of their roles in the provision of quality patient care. Pharmaceutical literature has strongly advocated the need for pharmacists to expand their roles into more interactive positions with physicians and other providers. The reasons are not only to increase their level of involvement in patient care, but also to educate professionals to the pharmacist's expertise and capabilities in pharmacotherapeutic treatment of patients. Hepler and Strand1 have written about the value and benefits of including pharmaceutical care planning programs and cognitive services into the daily routines of pharmacists in all settings. This article will explain how a community pharmacy conducted a pilot study to develop and implement its own formalized pharmaceutical care planning program for the treatment of patients with acute and chronic pain.
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