Tools for Advancing Pharmacy Practice

Objective: To explore how pharmacists integrated the Chat, Check and Chart (CCC) tools in community practice and to identify barriers and facilitators to use. Design: Concurrent nested mixed-method study. Open-ended, semi-structured qualitative interviews on tools use and a quantitative survey were completed via telephone. Setting: Community-based pharmacy practice. Participants: 39 community pharmacists consented to interviews 2 months after the CCC training workshop; 22 completed an interview. Intervention: Workshop training on CCC tools and workplace implementation strategies. Main outcome measures: Barriers, facilitators and implementation strategies for CCC tools. Results: More pharmacists were implementing or had made patient assessment part of their practice (54%) than documentation of patient care (36%). Integration was facilitated by patient success, collaborative worksite, personal beliefs, and provincial regulations. Lack of routines, patient expectations, reimbursement, and time were familiar barriers. Strategies to overcome these barriers included practicing new habits, using technology, starting small, using physical reminders, and recognizing benefits. Conclusion: Patient care tools for assessment and documentation had both positive and negative effects on patients, pharmacists, and community pharmacies because of demands on time, lack of resources, and limited personal, external, and patient expectations of pharmacists’ care. Findings resulted in Alberta College of Pharmacists academic detailing of the CCC tools during onsite pharmacy assessments to help pharmacists meet or exceed provincial practice standards.