Objectives
This paper describes the self-evaluation and peer review of the practice of a group of self-selected pharmacist prescribers managing patients with HIV-1 infection in secondary care settings in the UK.
Methods
Pharmacist prescribers who were responsible for managing an episode of care for adult HIV patients within defined clinical settings were invited to participate. The project lead worked with the volunteers to define, pilot and use a data collection tool for prospective data collection.
Results
Four pharmacist prescribers agreed to participate and a tool was developed and used for prospective data collection over 6 months for a total of 95 patient consultations. The pharmacists were providing a number of different models of service delivery as either scheduled or unscheduled appointments, face-to-face or on the telephone. The primary purpose of the consultations ranged from initiation and optimisation of therapy to maintenance of supply of medicines and adherence advice. An attempt was made to look at patient outcomes in terms of viral load, and prescribing error rate was 1.2% of prescribed items.
Conclusions
This evaluation suggests that pharmacist prescribers are able to safely and effectively manage episodes of care for patients with HIV-1 infection. Use of the data collection tool was found to be relatively simple and could be used for routine self-assessment or further study. Limitations include the small size and the self-assessment by practitioners. Further work should focus on an evaluation of the service against the BHIVA Standards 2013 and the patient experience.
Different appointment schedules and drug supply options should be considered for stable HIV patients based on efficiency gains. However, this should be assessed for individual patients to meet their needs, especially around adherence and patient support.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.