Introducing clinical pharmacy specialists into interprofessional primary care teams: Assessing pharmacists' team integration and access to care for rural patients.

ABSTRACT: Clinical pharmacy specialists (CPS) were deployed nationally to improve care access and relieve provider burden in primary care.The aim of this study was to assess CPS integration in primary care and the Clinical Pharmacy Specialist Rural Veteran Access (CRVA) initiative's effectiveness in improving access.Concurrent embedded mixed-methods evaluation of participating CRVA CPS and their clinical team members (primary care providers, others).Health care providers on primary care teams in Veterans Health Administration (VHA).Perceived CPS integration in comprehensive medication management assessed using the MUPM and semi-structured interviews, and access measured with patient encounter data.There were 496,323 medical encounters with CPS in primary care over a 3-year period. One hundred twenty-four CPS and 1177 other clinical team members responded to a self-administered web-based questionnaire, with semi-structured interviews completed by 22 CPS and clinicians. Survey results indicated that all clinical provider groups rank CPS as making major contributions to CMM. CPS ranked themselves as contributing more to CMM than did their physician team members. CPS reported higher job satisfaction, less burn out, and better role fit; but CPS gave lower scores for communication and decision making as clinic organizational attributes. Themes in provider interviews focused on value of CPS in teams, relieving provider burden, facilitators to integration, and team communication issues.This evaluation indicates good integration of CPS on primary care teams as perceived by other team members despite some communication and role clarification challenges. CPS may play an important role in improving access to primary care.

De-implementing Inhaled Corticosteroids to Improve Care and Safety in COPD Treatment: Primary Care Providers' Perspectives.

BACKGROUND: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is among the most common medical diagnoses among Veterans. More than 50% of Veterans diagnosed with mild-to-moderate COPD are prescribed inhaled corticosteroids despite recommendations for use restricted to patients with frequent exacerbations. OBJECTIVE: We explored primary care providers' experiences prescribing inhaled corticosteroids among patients with mild-to-moderate COPD as part of a quality improvement initiative. DESIGN: We used a sequential mixed-methods evaluation approach to understand factors influencing primary care providers' inhaled corticosteroid prescribing for patients with mild-to-moderate COPD. Participants were recruited to participate in qualitative interviews and structured surveys. PARTICIPANTS: We used a purposive sample of primary care providers from 13 primary care clinics affiliated with two urban Veteran Health Administration healthcare systems. MAIN MEASURES: Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. Qualitative findings informed a subsequent survey. Surveys were administered through REDCap and analyzed descriptively. Key qualitative and quantitative findings were compared. KEY RESULTS: Participants reported they were unaware of current evidence and recommendations for prescribing inhaled corticosteroids; for example, 46% of providers reported they were unaware of risks of pneumonia. Providers reported they are generally unable to keep up with the current literature due to the broad scope of primary care practice. We also found primary care providers may be reluctant to change inherited prescriptions, even if they thought inhaled corticosteroid therapy might not be appropriate. CONCLUSIONS: Inhaled corticosteroid prescribing in this patient population is partly due to primary care providers' lack of knowledge about the potential harms and availability of alternative therapies. Our findings suggest that efforts to expand access by increasing the number of prescribing providers a patient potentially sees could make it more difficult to de-implement harmful prescriptions. Our findings also corroborate prior findings that awareness of current evidence-based guidelines is likely an important part of medical overuse.