Impact of an ambulatory care pharmacist in an occupational health clinic.

OBJECTIVES: To describe and evaluate a novel practice setting for a pharmacist within an occupational health clinic.

SETTING: Ambulatory care facility.

PRACTICE DESCRIPTION: Implementation and evaluation of a new practice site embedding a clinical pharmacist into the workplace to provide ambulatory care services, such as comprehensive medication management, disease state management, and immunizations to a broad diversity of patients.

PRACTICE INNOVATION: A clinical pharmacist provides pharmacy services as part of a collaborative occupational health clinic at a large, self-insured company. The pharmacy services are open to employees and family members with any chronic disease states, elevated biometric results, or medication questions, with the goal of improving patient care on a consistent basis. During visits, the pharmacist works to identify and resolve drug-related problems by educating the patient or reaching out to the patient's health care provider and to develop strategies with the patient to achieve desired health care outcomes. The pharmacist assists with patient outreach events and immunizations during the flu clinic.

EVALUATION: Identification of drug-related problems, resolution status, patient satisfaction via survey results, immunizations provided.

RESULTS: In 4.3 years of operation, the pharmacist conducted 604 visits with 172 patients. During these visits, the pharmacist identified 611 drug-related problems, of which 49.4% have been confirmed as resolved. All patients who completed the patient satisfaction survey said that they would recommend the pharmacy services to others. For the past 3 years, the pharmacist and pharmacy students immunized approximately 1000 patients each year during the company flu clinic.

CONCLUSION: An occupational health clinic is a unique and convenient location for a pharmacist to provide ambulatory care services to employees and family members, as long as methods to identify patients and appropriate sources of referral exist. The pharmacist was able to help patients resolve approximately 50% of identified drug-related problems, and patients were highly satisfied with services provided.