Need a flu jab? Let's try pharmacy: patient characteristics and experiences with pharmacy immunisation services.

OBJECTIVES: New Zealand pharmacists have been providing immunisation services since 2011. Literature from other developed countries reports the positive experience of people with community pharmacy immunisation services resulting in expansion of the scope of pharmacy practice. However, there is a dearth of such data in a New Zealand context. Therefore, we aimed to understand patients' experiences with pharmacy immunisation services in New Zealand. METHODS: A self-administered questionnaire developed after considering the aims and objectives of the study, and previously published literature was delivered to 14 pharmacies covering a range of socio-economic areas across New Zealand. The survey assessed patients' experiences in a community pharmacy setting and measured their satisfaction using a 5-point Likert scale. KEY FINDINGS: Out of the 364 survey participants, 60.7% were female, 76.9% were of European ethnicity and 43.4% belonged to the age group of 45-64 years. Convenience (65.4%) and accessibility (44.8%) were cited as the most common reasons for choosing a community pharmacy to receive vaccinations. Over 90% of the respondents reported that they were satisfied with the pharmacy immunisation services, were vaccinated professionally, would choose a community pharmacy again next time for vaccination and would like to see pharmacists administering other vaccines. CONCLUSIONS: The pharmacy immunisation services were highly valued by patients because of the associated convenience and professionalism demonstrated by the pharmacists. A possible expansion of pharmacist-administered vaccination services to a wider range of vaccines will not only improve access to immunisation but will also potentially escalate immunisation rates.

In this digital age, how easily accessible is pharmacist vaccination information? The case of New Zealand.

Background: Pharmacist-led vaccination that has the potential to ease the vaccination burden from general practitioners, is comparatively a newer service in New Zealand. However, to reap the maximum benefits out of this service, a consistent and effective promotion approach using various online platforms is indispensable. Objective: To identify what online information the general public can find about which pharmacies across NZ provide vaccination services. Methods: Every pharmacy in NZ was reviewed online to determine what vaccination information they advertised, then a sample of pharmacies were randomly selected from six District Health Boards (DHBs) to be called and confirm if the information they stated online was accurate. Results: Whilst the majority (more than 70%) of pharmacies did provide information about their services online, only 31% of the pharmacies had vaccination information on their websites, 20% on Healthpoint, and 13% had the information on social media. The telephonic survey revealed various information discrepancies in more than a quarter of the sample. Conclusions: A lack of online presence across multiple pharmacies is a pressing issue. Also, currently, NZ pharmacies do not have a very high online presence advertising vaccination services. Improving the amount and quality of this information is pertinent at this time as when COVID-19 vaccination drive may commence anytime, and the pharmacy sector will be well placed to conduct vaccinations on a large scale.

Experiences of pharmacy staff during the introduction of the checking technician role in New Zealand.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the experiences of the participants in a study introducing a Pharmacy Accuracy Checking Technician (PACT) role, and specifically their perceptions of any advantages and disadvantages. METHODS: Self-administered surveys were distributed during the introduction of a checking technician role in eight community and four hospital pharmacy sites. Surveys were conducted at three time points; at baseline, at mid-point and a final data collection. Questions covered staff perceptions on; technicians' ability to take on this role, impact on workflow, impact on pharmacists' time spent with patients and any perceived advantages or disadvantages. KEY FINDINGS: Three hundred and fifty-five responses were received from participants. There was significant support for the introduction of this new role, and the greatest advantage identified was an increase in time available to pharmacists to increase potential clinical activities. Many staff felt that this role could easily fit into their current workplace and workflow with minor adjustments. There was a perception that this new role would increase safety and decrease errors as a result of the separation of clinical and checking tasks. Respondents identified a need for more technicians; however, conversely concern was expressed of a negative impact on the number of pharmacists' jobs. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the disruption caused by the training process, the respondents believed this new role to be beneficial to both staff and patients, and that the new model would allow for increased error identification and enhanced safety.

Introducing a checking technician allows pharmacists to spend more time on patient-focused activities.

BACKGROUND: Internationally there is an increasing focus on the clinical and cognitive services that pharmacists can provide. Lack of time has been identified as a barrier to pharmacists increasing their clinical activities. Within the pharmacy workplace there are many tasks that can only be performed by a pharmacist. The final accuracy check of a dispensed prescription is currently the sole responsibility of pharmacists in New Zealand. This takes up a significant amount of time during a pharmacist's work day. The introduction of a checking technician role has been suggested to allow pharmacists more time to do more patient focused work. AIM/OBJECTIVE: To investigate the amount of time pharmacy staff spend on specific activities and to establish whether the introduction of a checking technician into twelve pilot sites increased the amount of time that the pharmacists could spend on patient focused activities. METHODS: This study utilised a self-reported work sampling technique in twelve pilot sites, selected from both the hospital and community settings. Work sampling using an electronic device was conducted at two time-points (before the implementation of a Pharmacy Accuracy Checking Technician (PACT) role and when the PACT was in place). Data was collected at 10 min intervals for the period of five days, a working week. Tasks were grouped into patient focused, dispensing and personal activities. RESULTS: The introduction of the PACT into the pilot sites saw a mean increase of 19% in pharmacists' patient focused activities and a mean 20% decrease in dispensing activities. CONCLUSION: The introduction of a checking technician role into New Zealand pharmacies demonstrated the potential to provide pharmacists with more time to spend on patient focused activities.

Can they do it? Comparing the views of pharmacists and technicians to the introduction of an advanced technician role.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the opinions of pharmacists and technicians regarding the ability of New Zealand technicians to take on an advanced checking technician role. METHODS: A survey was developed to investigate the opinions regarding the introduction of this new role. The questions covered are: perceived ability to take on the role, training requirements and competence. Surveys were sent to pharmacists whose contact details are available for research purposes (n = 2095) and to all pharmacies in New Zealand (both community and hospital) for the attention of technicians (n = 858). The results were analysed using IBM SPSS and thematic analysis of comments was conducted. KEY FINDINGS: A total of 1221 surveys were returned (pharmacists = 736 and technicians = 485). The majority of the technicians (83%) believed that 'some' technicians could work in a CT role, compared with 73% of the pharmacists. Over two-thirds (69%) of the technicians felt comfortable checking a prescription at their current level of training compared with 53% of pharmacists. Both groups' comfort increased with further specific training for the technicians. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of both of these groups supported the change in roles. Pharmacists were less confident that technicians could take on this role now, but were more comfortable after extra training had been completed. The technicians, however, were confident they could take on this role now but would take on extra training if needed.

Could it be done safely? Pharmacists views on safety and clinical outcomes from the introduction of an advanced role for technicians.

BACKGROUND: There is ample evidence that pharmacists' interventions in patient care improve patient outcomes; however, community pharmacists do not necessarily have the time available to undertake these roles. One way to address this problem is to enable technicians to take on a greater role in the mechanical aspects of the dispensing process. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the opinions of New Zealand pharmacists regarding the potential introduction of an advanced technician's role into the New Zealand pharmacy setting. METHOD: The survey was sent to all pharmacists registered with the New Zealand Pharmacy Council who had indicated a willingness to receive research-related requests (n = 2095). The full survey consisted of yes/no questions and five-point Likert scale questions regarding opinions. A number of the questions allowed respondents to make free-text comments. One of these questions focused on the separation of the clinical and mechanical aspects of the dispensing process. The free-text responses to this question were subjected to thematic analysis. RESULTS: Of 2095 surveys mailed out 736 were returned, yielding a return rate of 36%. Many of the respondents took the opportunity to make comments to individual questions in the overall survey and 400 pharmacists provided additional comments to the specific question regarding the separation of the clinical from the mechanical process of dispensing. The comments received centered on three key themes: Improvements to clinical outcomes, the impact, both positive and negative, on dispensing errors, and the need for quality procedures to minimize the safety risk. CONCLUSIONS: The pharmacists were of the opinion that the separation of clinical from mechanical parts of the dispensing process would increase the time available to spend interacting with patients. Coupled with more time dedicated to a clinical assessment of prescriptions they could appreciate this would improve clinical outcomes for the patients. Clear and stringent guidelines and standard operating procedures were proposed to ensure that safety standards do not change.