Impact of pharmacy medicine information service advice on clinician and patient outcomes: an overview

Abstract

Background Pharmacy‐led medicine information (MI) services are available in many countries to support clinicians and patients make decisions on use of medicines. Objectives To establish what impact, if any, pharmacy‐led MI services have on clinician and patient outcomes. Methods All published works indexed in Embase or PubMed, meeting this review's inclusion and exclusion criteria, that wholly or partially attempted to measure the effects of MI advice were retrieved and assessed. Results Twenty studies were reviewed. Five broad themes were identified describing study findings, three were specific to clinicians: their views on the effect MI answers had; actions they took; and influence on their decision making. A fourth theme centred on patient utilisation of advice, and the fifth on ‘process measures’ attempting to determine MI worth. Discussion Studies report on positive patient outcomes as a direct result of MI advice. Clinicians and patients acted upon the advice provided. Clinicians also reported using MI advice as a ‘safety net’, to check, reassure or confirm what to do. MI advice also demonstrated economic worth, although these studies are old. Conclusion MI Service advice appears to affect clinician and patient outcomes. However, study design limitations require findings be viewed cautiously.

A mixed methods study on medicines information needs and challenges in New Zealand general practice

“…This study provides contemporary insight into the needs and challenges that GPs have in finding information to support optimal medicines use. It confirms they have regular needs with their most common searches being about dose, interactions and side effects [ 10 , 18 , 19 ]. It also suggests that outside this common core of medicines information needs, GPs are challenged by variation, complexity, ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’.…”

Experience and perspectives of users and non-users of the Ask your pharmacist teleconsultation platform

“…The AYP platform may also be a useful and credible medication-related information source for other healthcare and social services professionals. Similarly, in a study by Ruter and Ruter, 26 a pharmacy information service was perceived by healthcare professionals as a “safety net” and enabled them to check, reassure or confirm what actions to take regarding the use of medications.…”

Effect of Drug Information Service on Clinical Outcome of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Padang, Indonesia

“…Few studies have examined the impact of drug information on patient outcomes. A review by Rutter et al 15 from 20 studies concluded that drug information service affects patient outcomes positively. Previous studies and a review article also shows that pharmaceutical care intervention, which includes providing medication information to patients with T2DM, had a positive impact on clinical outcome [16][17][18] .…”