Pharmacist-Physician Linkages Needed To Improve Chronic Condition Care

Partnerships between physicians and community-based pharmacists are needed to create community-clinical linkages to improve care for consumers with chronic health conditions. In such partnerships, pharmacists go beyond filling prescriptions to provide team-based disease management via pharmacist-directed medication therapy management (MTM), collaborative drug therapy management (CDTM), health assessments, referrals to physicians, or triage into primary care after identifying medication-related problems. Community-clinical linkages can be effective and sustainable without the need for an additional payment because the services provided are often with the scope of the health care professionals’ daily activities.

These are the findings of . . .