Investigation of the current situation of pharmaceutical clinics in medical institutions in China / 中国药房

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE To investigate the current situation of pharmaceutical clinic service in medical institutions in China and provide experience and suggestions for promoting the development of pharmaceutical clinics. METHODS Questionnaire survey was used to investigate the development of pharmaceutical clinics in medical institutions of 31 provinces （autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government） in March to April 2023， and the descriptive analysis was conducted. The regression analysis was carried out for the influential factors of pharmaceutical clinic service. RESULTS A total of 1 368 questionnaires were distributed in this survey and 1 304 valid questionnaires were collected with the effective response rate of 95.32%. A total of 463 medical institutions carried out pharmaceutical clinic service， the rate of which was 35.51% （463/1 304）； the rates of pharmaceutical clinics in tertiary， secondary， primary and other medical institutions were 52.80%， 17.18% and 5.88%， respectively. The frequency of opening pharmaceutical clinics was 3.17 days per week on average， with an average of 5.99 visiting pharmacists in each medical institution. Among the visiting pharmacists， clinical pharmacists accounted for the vast majority （88.68%， 2 459/2 773）. There were various categories of pharmaceutical clinics， including joint clinics and pharmacist-independent clinics； among pharmacist-independent clinics， pharmaceutical specialty/specialty disease clinics were the main ones， accounting for 89.72% of the total number of pharmaceutical clinics. The value of pharmacists in pharmaceutical clinics was manifested in various forms， among which the proportion of medical institutions charging pharmaceutical clinics was 10.80%. The main experiences in developing pharmaceutical clinics were to attach importance to discipline construction and personnel training. The main difficulties in developing pharmaceutical clinics were low compensation levels and a shortage of talent.The number of clinical pharmacists， the number of visiting pharmacists in pharmaceutical clinics and additional compensation were positively correlated with the amount of pharmaceutical clinic services（P＜0.05）. CONCLUSIONS In recent years， pharmaceutical clinics have made significant progress； in the future， it is still necessary to further strengthen discipline construction and talent cultivation， pay attention to the value embodiment of pharmacists， to promote the healthy development of pharmaceutical clinics.