{"title":"A qualitative study on pharmacists’ perceptions about service innovation","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.hlpt.2024.100898","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Expanded services provided at pharmacies show numerous improvements in health outcomes. However, attempts at implementing new services in pharmacies are met with several barriers, among which is the failure to update the pharmacist's role.</p></div><div><h3>Objective</h3><p>This study aimed to explore pharmacists’ perceptions about the role of pharmacies and the effects of, and barriers to, service expansion.</p></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><p>Four focus groups were conducted with pharmacists from across Portugal, and an inductive content analysis was applied to the transcribed sessions.</p></div><div><h3>Results</h3><p>The content analysis results were organized into three main categories: the Role of Pharmacy, Potentialities of Service Innovation, and Service Innovation. The results emphasize the importance of enhancing pharmacists’ training, establishing supportive legal frameworks, prioritizing funding for technological advancements, promoting interprofessional collaboration, and embracing innovative practices to advance healthcare innovation and improve patient outcomes.</p></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><p>The identification of several tasks indicates that, in pharmacists’ perspectives, the Role of Pharmacy ranges from dispensing medication to aiding/monitoring patients at various stages of their health conditions. Expanded services were associated with several emergent Potentialities of Service Innovation, namely, enhancement of health outcomes and help to main healthcare facilities dealing with an increased number of patients. For Service Innovation, several factors emerged that need consideration, such as the conditions and the difficulties found associated with new service implementation. These pertain to pharmacists, legislation, and resources.</p></div><div><h3>Public Interest Summary</h3><p>Background: Expanded services provided at pharmacies show numerous improvements in health outcomes. However, several barriers should be addressed. Objective: This study sought to explore pharmacists’ perceptions about the role of pharmacies and the effects of, and barriers to, service expansion. Methods: A content analysis was applied to four focus groups conducted with pharmacists from across Portugal. Results: The three main emerging categories were: The Role of Pharmacy, divided into assessment, referrals, therapy monitoring, educating/informing, prescribing, and registering; Potentialities of Service Innovation, divided into proximity, improvement, and competitiveness; Service Innovation, divided into conditions for implementation, implementation difficulties, activation of the new services, and adherence-promoting factors. Conclusion: The pharmacy role goes beyond dispensing medication. Tied to this expanded role, pharmacists identified several advantages that the services could provide and several barriers to Service Innovation. Factors that promote adherence need more extensive study.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48672,"journal":{"name":"Health Policy and Technology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211883724000613/pdfft?md5=11d49cca380593e77280af303b498829&pid=1-s2.0-S2211883724000613-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Health Policy and Technology","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211883724000613","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HEALTH POLICY & SERVICES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background
Expanded services provided at pharmacies show numerous improvements in health outcomes. However, attempts at implementing new services in pharmacies are met with several barriers, among which is the failure to update the pharmacist's role.
Objective
This study aimed to explore pharmacists’ perceptions about the role of pharmacies and the effects of, and barriers to, service expansion.
Methods
Four focus groups were conducted with pharmacists from across Portugal, and an inductive content analysis was applied to the transcribed sessions.
Results
The content analysis results were organized into three main categories: the Role of Pharmacy, Potentialities of Service Innovation, and Service Innovation. The results emphasize the importance of enhancing pharmacists’ training, establishing supportive legal frameworks, prioritizing funding for technological advancements, promoting interprofessional collaboration, and embracing innovative practices to advance healthcare innovation and improve patient outcomes.
Conclusions
The identification of several tasks indicates that, in pharmacists’ perspectives, the Role of Pharmacy ranges from dispensing medication to aiding/monitoring patients at various stages of their health conditions. Expanded services were associated with several emergent Potentialities of Service Innovation, namely, enhancement of health outcomes and help to main healthcare facilities dealing with an increased number of patients. For Service Innovation, several factors emerged that need consideration, such as the conditions and the difficulties found associated with new service implementation. These pertain to pharmacists, legislation, and resources.
Public Interest Summary
Background: Expanded services provided at pharmacies show numerous improvements in health outcomes. However, several barriers should be addressed. Objective: This study sought to explore pharmacists’ perceptions about the role of pharmacies and the effects of, and barriers to, service expansion. Methods: A content analysis was applied to four focus groups conducted with pharmacists from across Portugal. Results: The three main emerging categories were: The Role of Pharmacy, divided into assessment, referrals, therapy monitoring, educating/informing, prescribing, and registering; Potentialities of Service Innovation, divided into proximity, improvement, and competitiveness; Service Innovation, divided into conditions for implementation, implementation difficulties, activation of the new services, and adherence-promoting factors. Conclusion: The pharmacy role goes beyond dispensing medication. Tied to this expanded role, pharmacists identified several advantages that the services could provide and several barriers to Service Innovation. Factors that promote adherence need more extensive study.
期刊介绍：
Health Policy and Technology (HPT), is the official journal of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine (FPM), a cross-disciplinary journal, which focuses on past, present and future health policy and the role of technology in clinical and non-clinical national and international health environments.
HPT provides a further excellent way for the FPM to continue to make important national and international contributions to development of policy and practice within medicine and related disciplines. The aim of HPT is to publish relevant, timely and accessible articles and commentaries to support policy-makers, health professionals, health technology providers, patient groups and academia interested in health policy and technology.
Topics covered by HPT will include:
- Health technology, including drug discovery, diagnostics, medicines, devices, therapeutic delivery and eHealth systems
- Cross-national comparisons on health policy using evidence-based approaches
- National studies on health policy to determine the outcomes of technology-driven initiatives
- Cross-border eHealth including health tourism
- The digital divide in mobility, access and affordability of healthcare
- Health technology assessment (HTA) methods and tools for evaluating the effectiveness of clinical and non-clinical health technologies
- Health and eHealth indicators and benchmarks (measure/metrics) for understanding the adoption and diffusion of health technologies
- Health and eHealth models and frameworks to support policy-makers and other stakeholders in decision-making
- Stakeholder engagement with health technologies (clinical and patient/citizen buy-in)
- Regulation and health economics
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