Essential Components of Pharmacist-Prepared Home Care Reports to Facilitate Information Sharing from the Pharmacy Pharmacist to Other Professionals

Abstract

In this study, we assessed the information sharing practices between pharmacists and multidisciplinary healthcare professionals such as doctors, care managers, and nurses, and others. We evaluated the effectiveness of “home medical care management guidance reports” and “home-visit drug management guidance reports” prepared by pharmacists. We also identified factors that could enhance collaborative practices. To improve the reports, we introduced a new report form with an overview column and a reply column. We used the SOAP format in the new reports. We found that the response rate for reports from X pharmacy was significantly higher than that of Y pharmacies. A survey revealed that X’s reports contained more categories (median of 3 versus 1 in Y’s reports). Pharmacy X’s reports had a smaller proportion of pharmacotherapy details, and a larger proportion of information regarding patients’ living and health conditions, as well as environmental factors. We also found that the character count in X’s assessment column was significantly greater (168.5 versus 60), and notably less in the overview sections (12 versus 22) when compared to Y’s reports. Suggestions and guidance constituted a significantly larger portion of X’s reports (29.8% compared to 10.8% in Y’s). Questionnaire feedback from other healthcare professionals to whom the subject pharmacies send reports highlighted the importance of pharmacist-provided information on health and living conditions, based on pharmacological knowledge. Based on these results, to enhance health information sharing, pharmacists should integrate assessments of pharmacotherapy with health and living conditions and effectively communicate this information to other professionals.