The pharmacist’s growing role in patient care and whole-person wellness

Pharmacists take a lead role in whole-person care

Whole-person care centers around the concept of treating a patient’s total wellbeing – physical, mental, and emotional – as well as creating care goals and connections with their healthcare providers and care team. It represents a departure from taking a more disease-based approach that focuses solely on treating symptoms and their underlying condition.

Pharmacists are emerging as key contributors to whole-person wellness plans and valuable resources for this kind of strategic approach to long-term treatment.

Health centers nationwide are expanding the remit of pharmacists to include whole-person disease management for common chronic conditions. In the case of Aspire Indiana Health, its program partners pharmacists with other care team members to build a personalized patient care plan that includes medication management alongside nutrition and lifestyle support and other health coaching.

Diabetes management has been one of areas in which many healthcare organizations have seen the greatest value in integrating pharmacists as resources for collaborative whole-person care plans. UPMC Health Plan in Pittsburgh relies on pharmacists within its diabetes program to take on responsibilities of:

• Long-term medication planning and goal setting.
• Facilitating full medication reviews, including assistance with Medicare or other financial issues.
• Counseling related to social drivers of health and encouraging disclosure of potential barriers to care.
• Connecting members to healthcare and community resources.
• Contacting outside pharmacies and providers if patients/members need assistance.

Trust in pharmacists drives role expansion

“The patient today has much more responsibility to understand their own healthcare and make really difficult decisions around their healthcare,” explains Garry Marshall, Senior Director of Pharmacy Strategy at Wolters Kluwer, Health. “We are experiencing a primary care physician (PCP) shortage and a nursing shortage. One of the most accessible healthcare providers right now is a pharmacist, and in most cases, they absolutely signed up for it.”

Wolters Kluwer’s Pharmacy Next surveys gathered insights into patient and consumer views of pharmacists and revealed that patients consider pharmacists among the most trusted healthcare providers. Those surveys reveal:

• 58% of consumers say they are likely to visit a local pharmacy as their first step for non-emergent care.
• 81% of Americans say they trust a pharmacist or advanced practice provider to offer care when they or loved ones are ill.
• 72% said they would be open to having medications prescribed by a specially trained pharmacist rather than a doctor. That number increases in younger populations – with 78% of Gen Z respondents and 80% of Millennials stating the same.

In fact, 61% of survey respondents believe that within five years, most primary care services will be provided at sites such as pharmacies and retail clinics rather than at the traditional doctor’s office.

How will the shifting care landscape impact pharmacists?

While burnout among health professionals has been a challenge for a number of years, both the COVID-19 pandemic and its after-effects brought many pharmacists closer to the frontlines, leading to reports of increased burnout and fatigue. While there are signs that burnout among pharmacists is slightly improving in recent years, adding more duties and patient care responsibilities may exacerbate the issue for many pharmacists. Strategic implementation of technology can help alleviate workload challenges to reduce pharmacist burnout and allow more time to focus on patients.

The importance of this shift in the pharmacy landscape is not lost on educators, who are increasingly emphasizing clinical and patient care in advanced pharmacy training. For example, at the University of Rhode Island (URI) College of Pharmacy, courses and lectures include topics such as integrative health, holistic care, and mindfulness. But professors also advocate for pharmacy students to invest time in self-care – such as yoga, meditation, or therapeutic painting – to teach coping mechanisms and help preemptively address some of the stressful tendencies that may emerge in the professional world and lead to burnout.

“We need to invest in taking care of patients before things are broken, really have a more proactive approach instead of fixing things when people already feel sick, sad or defeated,” explains Ginger Lemay, a clinical professor at URI. “I’m trying to prevent that by educating people and showing them additional ways of doing things for themselves and their patients.”

eBook: Aligning care and teams for today’s healthcare ecosystem

As hospital pharmacy teams become more integral members of the care team and assume a lead role in whole-person health, they need to maintain alignment with other providers throughout their organizations and with patients to promote continuity and help reduce potentially harmful variability in care. Learn how unified solutions can support pharmacy teams and help organizations improve communication and standardize care across the patient journey in our eBook, “The value of aligned drug information in a shifting pharmacy landscape.”