The Role of the Pharmacist in Patient Care

Book excerpt: The goal of a high quality, cost-effective and accessible health care for patients is achieved through constructing a team-based and patient-centered health care delivery system. The expanded role of pharmacists uplifts them to patient care from dispensing and manufacturing or marketing of drugs. Along with doctors and allied health professionals, pharmacists are increasingly recognized as an integral part of the patient care team. Furthermore, colleges of pharmacy need to revise and up-date their curricula to accommodate the progressively increasing development in the pharmaceutical education and the evolving new roles of practicing pharmacists in patient care settings. This book focuses on the expanded role of the pharmacists in total patient care including prescribing, dispensing, compounding, administering and monitoring of drugs at home, hospital, community, hospice, critical care, changeover and other care settings. The sector is emerging in both developed and under-developed countries. Overburdened by patient loads and the explosion of new drugs physicians turned to pharmacists more and more for drug information especially within institutional settings. And today’s patient care pharmacists are taking more interests in medication review and reconciliation, patient education and counseling, creating drug therapy regimen and monitoring compliance. The purpose of this book is to guide the pharmacists in their daily interactions with patients and to ensure collaboration with other health professionals. The contents are mostly based on recently published articles related to patient care, with most recent ideas and activities followed by the patient care pharmacists around the globe. However, a pharmacist implements the care plan in collaboration with other health care professionals and the patient or caregiver. Along with professional guidelines, the book discusses the concepts and best practices of patient interaction, patient rights, and ethical decision-making for the professional pharmacist, apprentice and student. In every chapter, the role of pharmacists in that chapter specific issues are detailed explicitly so that a professional pharmacist or a student can figure out his or her do’s and don’ts in that specific situation. Moreover, further reading references are listed as future recommendations. So, the book is an archive of potential references too. Among so many books about patient care, either doctors’ or nurses’ roles are highlighted. The proposed book highlights the pharmacists’ roles and responsibilities to the most, separated from those of doctors and nurses, with the most recent information obtained from most publications in several journals, books, bulletins, newsletter, magazines etc.