Implementation of an integrated ambulatory care pharmacist collaborative care workflow model in specialty clinics in a large academic health system.

PURPOSE: Ambulatory care and specialty pharmacy practices are rapidly growing in tandem with the accelerated development of advanced therapies for complex disease states. A coordinated and standardized interprofessional team-based approach is critical to providing high-quality care to specialty patients on complex, expensive, and high-risk therapies. Yale New Haven Health System dedicated resources to the creation of a medication management clinic under a unique care model that integrates ambulatory care pharmacists within specialty clinics who coordinate with centralized specialty pharmacists. The new care model workflow encompasses ambulatory care pharmacists, specialty pharmacists, ambulatory care pharmacy technicians, specialty pharmacy liaisons, clinicians, and clinic support staff. The strategies employed to design, implement, and optimize this workflow to meet the increasing demand for pharmacy support in specialty care is discussed. SUMMARY: The workflow incorporated key activities from highly diverse existing specialty pharmacy, ambulatory care pharmacy, and specialty clinic practices. Standard processes were developed for patient identification, referral placement, visit scheduling, encounter documentation, medication fulfillment, and clinical follow-up. Resources were created or optimized to support successful implementation, including an electronic pharmacy referral, specialty collaborative practice agreements to facilitate pharmacist-led comprehensive medication management, and a standardized note template. Communication strategies were developed to facilitate feedback and process updates. Enhancements focused on eliminating documentation redundancies and delegating nonclinical tasks to a dedicated ambulatory care pharmacy technician. The workflow was implemented in 5 ambulatory rheumatology, digestive health, and infectious diseases clinics. Pharmacists utilized this workflow to complete 1,237 patient visits, serving 550 individual patients over 11 months. CONCLUSION: This initiative created a standard workflow to support an interdisciplinary standard of specialty patient care that is robust to accommodate planned expansion. This workflow implementation approach can serve as a road map for other healthcare systems with integrated specialty and ambulatory pharmacy departments undertaking similar models for specialty patient management.

Implementation of an integrated pharmacist collaborative care model in specialty disease state clinics.

PURPOSE: To expand health-system specialty pharmacy (HSSP) clinical continuity by implementing a specialty integrated model for clinical services in target sites. SUMMARY: After evaluation of baseline clinical continuity and institutional goals, select clinics were identified as target sites to which to expand this integrated approach of a medication management clinic (MMC). In this MMC model, the key steps included engaging stakeholders, workflow training, optimization of the electronic health record, service evaluation, compliance with regulatory standards, and development of marketing strategies. The initial focus was development of innovative collaborative practice agreements (CPAs) to expand the scope of ambulatory care pharmacists' practice. Analysis of existing specialty and ambulatory workflows and technology was completed before development of the integrated workflow. Existing credentialing policies were updated to support expanded practices, and marketing collaterals were developed to support growth of pharmacy referrals. Meetings with stakeholders took place to ensure smooth transitions into integrated areas. Primary endpoints included clinical continuity, as determined by prescription orders placed within the health system sent to the HSSP, and number of signed referrals to MMC. Secondary endpoints included disease state-specific clinical outcomes as well as overall outcomes such as medication adherence, laboratory test adherence, immunization rates, and patient and clinician satisfaction. An MMC model was successfully implemented in 5 target specialty practices. Specialty clinic CPAs were developed for rheumatology and digestive health (including viral hepatitis). Since implementation, clinical continuity increased 23% and referrals exceeded the target at 165%. Data on secondary endpoints are currently being collected to evaluate quality of pharmacy services. Pharmacy services have enhanced patient care and received positive feedback from clinicians. CONCLUSION: Expansion of integrated decentralized pharmacists into target practices has increased clinical continuity and the number of pharmacist referrals. Clinicians have regarded pharmacists as vital members of the team. Creation of additional specialty CPAs will be needed to support further growth in other clinics.