Improved Safety and Patient Satisfaction: A Pilot Medication Therapy Management Program in a Community Pharmacy

Abstract

Objectives: Quantify how many interventions were made during a pilot MTM program at a Costco pharmacy and assess patients’ attitudes towards MTM services offered at their local pharmacy. Methods: Contacted patients by phone and offered MTM services over 10 weeks. The patients are insured patients referred by Outcomes MTM and filled at least 50% of medications at Costco. Successful interventions were tallied and questionnaires administered to collect data on patients’ background knowledge of MTM, rating of how helpful and beneficial MTM services conducted by local pharmacy were, how frequent patients would like such services, how much they were willing to pay for such services, and demographic information. Results: Due to low response rate no meaningful statistical differences were able to be observed. However interesting trends started to emerge; more adherence related interventions, adequate compensation for a dedicated MTM pharmacist, and that MTM is unknown to most patients but do find it useful. Additionally we were able to observe challenges and difficulties with implementing MTM services at a store level. Conclusions: The original aim of the study was not able to be adequately achieved due to low response rate. However the trends that emerged let us make some subjective conclusions; adherence related interventions were fairly common, a dedicated MTM pharmacist may be a feasible in a community setting, most patients are unaware of what MTM is but do find it useful after the service, and challenges to implementing an MTM service from the store level.