Building capacity to implement cognitive pharmaceutical services: Quantifying the needs of community pharmacies.
BACKGROUND
Community pharmacy is an industry undergoing a transformation, evolving from a traditional product supply orientation to a business capable of incorporating services. The theoretical framework of organizational flexibility is used to understand how pharmacies' capacity can be built to provide services and identify key areas needing improvement.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the needs of pharmacies that were important and the elements requiring improvement when implementing and delivering services.


METHODS
A mail survey of 2006 Australian community pharmacies was used to identify needs for service implementation. A 25-item scale was used to measure the level of importance (importance measure) of the items and the level of improvement (improvement measure) when implementing services. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to assess the construct validity and reliability.


RESULTS
Responses were received from a total of 395 community pharmacies, with 355 usable responses (17.7%). Factor analysis yielded 3 factors on the importance measure, explaining 42.6% of the variance: (1) planning and performance (item loading range 0.749-0.455; Cronbach's alpha 0.806), (2) people and processes (0.829-0.392; 0.713), and (3) service awareness and infrastructure (0.723-0.310; 0.705). For the improvement measure, 46.9% of the variance was explained by 3 factors: (1) planning, performance, and service awareness (0.827-0.447; 0.858), (2) infrastructure (0.900-0.637; 0.822), and (3) people and processes (0.903-0.311; 0.707).


CONCLUSIONS
The analyses showed that there are gaps in the capacity of community pharmacy that could be addressed through business and management programs. The theoretical framework of organizational flexibility was useful in highlighting the key areas for stimulating change. To effectively implement services and sustain service delivery, more sophisticated planning and performance monitoring systems are required, supported by changes to infrastructure and staff mix. The critical area for policy makers is the speed at which programs can be restructured to include these issues to encourage the widespread implementation of services.
Feletto
Eleonora
E
Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, Bank Building (A15), Science Rd, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. elle@pharm.usyd.edu.au
Wilson
Laura Kate
LK
Roberts
Alison Sarah
AS
Benrimoj
Shalom Isaac
SI
D001315:Australia; D003157:Community Pharmacy Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000639:trends; D003625:Data Collection; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D010595:Pharmacists / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000639:trends; D024382:Professional Role; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results