title: Process indicators of quality clinical pharmacy services during transitions of care.
abstract: The American College of Clinical Pharmacy charged the Public and Professional Relations Committee to develop a short white paper describing quality measures of clinical pharmacists' patient care services in transitional care settings. Transitional care describes patient movement from one health care setting or service to another. Care transitions are associated with an increased risk of adverse events for patients. Pharmacists play an important role in ensuring that medication errors and adverse events are minimized during these transitions, largely through the reconciliation of medications and assurance of continuity of care. Quality measures are often divided into three domains: structure, process, and outcome. Given the typical nature of the pharmacist's role, process indicators are best suited to evaluate quality clinical pharmacist services. However, process indicators relevant to pharmacists' activities are not yet fully described in the literature. The committee searched available literature describing quality measures that are directly influenced by the pharmacist during care transitions. This white paper describes these process indicators as quality measures of clinical pharmacists' services, identifies the transitional settings and activities to which they are most applicable, and provides the published sources from which indicators were derived. For process indicators that could not be found in published sources, we propose relevant measures that can be adapted for use in a given setting. As pharmacists become more involved in diverse and emerging patient care areas such as transitional care, it will be critical that they use these types of measures to document the quality of new services and reinforce the need for pharmacist participation during transitions of care.
authors.affiliation: American College of Clinical Pharmacy, Lenexa, Kansas 66215, USA. j.kirwin@neu.edu
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kirwin
authors.forename: Ann E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Canales
authors.forename: Michael L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Bentley
authors.forename: Kathy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bungay
authors.forename: Tammy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Erica
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dobson
authors.forename: Renee M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Holder
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lilliston
authors.forename: Rima A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Mohammad
authors.forename: Sarah A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Spinler
mesh_terms: D003157:Community Pharmacy Services / Q000592:standards*; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000592:standards*; D016903:Drug Monitoring; D006801:Humans; D059065:Medication Reconciliation; D010595:Pharmacists; D010601:Pharmacology, Clinical / Q000379:methods*; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D024382:Professional Role; D058996:Quality Improvement; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D012957:Societies, Pharmaceutical; D014481:United States