Blood pressure kiosks for medication therapy management programs: business opportunity for pharmacists.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To develop an economic model based on the use of pharmacy-based blood pressure kiosks for case finding of remunerable medication therapy management (MTM) opportunities. DESIGN: Descriptive, exploratory, nonexperimental study. SETTING: Ontario, Canada, between January 2010 and September 2011. PATIENTS More than 7.5 million blood pressure kiosk readings were taken from 341 pharmacies. INTERVENTION A model was developed to estimate revenues achievable by using blood pressure kiosks for 1 month to identify a cohort of patients with blood pressure of 130/80 mm Hg or more and caring for those patients during 1 year. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Revenue generated from MTM programs. RESULTS: Pharmacies could generate an average of $12,270 (range $4,523-24,420) annually in revenue from billing for MTM services. CONCLUSION: Blood pressure kiosks can be used to identify patients with elevated blood pressure who may benefit from reimbursable pharmacist cognitive services. Revenue can be reinvested to purchase automated dispensing technology or offset pharmacy technician costs to free pharmacists to provide pharmaceutical care. Improved patient outcomes, increased patient loyalty, and improved adherence are additional potential benefits.