The Role of Home Care Pharmacists in the Edmonton Zone: A Retrospective Study.

Abstract

Background: Despite the rising demand for home-based health care services in Canada and the increasing medical complexity of elderly patients, there is limited literature exploring the role of home care pharmacists and the clinical activities they perform.

Objectives: The primary objective was to describe the types and frequencies of clinical activities (both interventions and recommendations) performed by home care pharmacists upon initial consultation. The secondary objective was to determine which patient characteristics resulted in the highest number of clinical activities.

Methods: This study was a retrospective review of adult patients who had an initial in-person or telemedicine consultation with home care pharmacists from June 2018 to May 2019 in the Edmonton Zone of Alberta Health Services.

Results: Of the 355 patients whose records were screened, 318 (89.6%) were included in the analysis. Of these, 191 (60.1%) were female, and the median age was 79 years (interquartile range [IQR] 68-86 years). The median numbers of medical conditions and medications were 6 and 10, respectively. Of the total of 1172 clinical activities, there was a median of 3 (IQR 2-5) per patient, irrespective of the patient's medical conditions, including those with the most common conditions. The most common activities were patient counselling (n = 160, 13.7%), collaboration with another health care professional (n = 157, 13.4%), and deprescribing (n = 140, 11.9%). Across all activities, pharmacists performed a total of 562 interventions and made 610 recommendations. Each additional year of age and each additional medication on a patient's medication list resulted in an increase in the number of clinical activities (by 0.01 for each additional year of age [p = 0.003] and by 0.03 for each additional medication [p < 0.001]).

Conclusions: Home care pharmacists in the Edmonton Zone performed a wide range of clinical activities, particularly for older patients and those with more medications. Further research is required to evaluate the outcomes of pharmacist consultations.