Karen Dahri, BSc, BScPharm, PharmD, ACPR, FCSHPAlves da CostaFvan MilJWFAlvarez-RiscoA, editors. Springer International Publishing, 2019. ISBN-13: 9783319925752. Hardcover, 506 pages. $248.50 ($211.23 for CSHP members; see below).
The Pharmacist Guide to Implementing Pharmaceutical Care is intended as a comprehensive reference for pharmacists who want to incorporate pharmaceutical care into their practice. The book’s 3 editors are all pharmacists with extensive experience in clinical practice and research. In addition, 67 authors contributed to the various chapters within each of the 8 parts.
Part I (chapters 1 and 2) seeks to establish a standardized definition of pharmaceutical care. Part II (chapters 3–12) addresses aspects of the pharmaceutical care process that are directly related to the patient, such as conducting medication reviews and adherence. Part III (chapters 13–17) describes pharmaceutical care in different regions of the world. Part IV (chapters 18–21) outlines implementation strategies in different settings, such as the community, nursing homes, and hospitals. Part V (chapters 22–25) describes the role of pharmaceutical care in the dispensing of medications. Part VI (chapters 26–33) examines the provision of pharmaceutical care to patients with specific conditions. The remuneration of pharmaceutical care is described in Part VII (chapters 34–38), and part VIII (chapters 39 and 40) looks at teaching pharmaceutical care in both the university and health care settings.
The book starts off strongly as it tries to establish a standardized definition of pharmaceutical care that could be used anywhere in the world. However, although the book seeks to be a comprehensive guide to all aspects of pharmaceutical care, the editors could have streamlined some of the content. For example, readers interested in methods for guideline development have other sources for this information, and the content in chapter 9 could therefore have been less detailed. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 discuss quality indicators, the Economic, Clinical, and Humanistic Outcomes (ECHO) Model, and the development of core outcome sets, respectively. However, the information in these chapters would have been better placed in chapter 18, which ends with only a brief mention of assessing the success of implementation of pharmaceutical care. The current state of pharmaceutical care around the world is discussed in part III. Chapter 16, concerning Latin America, is one of the most interesting: that practice environment is quite different from the other geographic areas mentioned, and the chapter’s authors describe their deep exploration of the root cause of these differences. It is unclear why part III makes no mention of Africa. Furthermore, the other chapters in part III have considerable overlap and could have been reframed to focus on the similarities and differences in the various geographic areas described. Part V describes pharmaceutical care in the dispensing of prescription and nonprescription medications, information that could have been presented more briefly in part II, as an aspect of the pharmaceutical care process. In part VI, which separately addresses the management of various conditions, much of the therapeutic content could have been eliminated, as this is available from other sources that evaluate new evidence and update their recommendations annually, such as GOLD (the Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease; https://goldcopd.org) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and GINA (the Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention, Global Initiative for Asthma; https://ginasthma.org) for asthma. The remaining material describing important disease-specific outcomes that have been identified in the literature, such as the excellent description at the end of the chapter on pharmaceutical care and cardiovascular disease, is likely to be of more relevance to readers.
Overall, the editors and authors of this book should be commended for taking on such an ambitious project. The book provides readers with a snapshot of where pharmaceutical care is internationally and offers multiple examples of practices and initiatives. Pharmacists who practise in areas where pharmaceutical care is not very advanced or who wish to further their practice of pharmaceutical care may find specific parts of the book useful as a starting point for their own learning. For example, pharmacists who have been tasked with implementing a new program at their practice site may find the information about program evaluation and quality indicators useful.
The Pharmacist Guide to Implementing Pharmaceutical Care and other products and publications are available to CSHP members at a reduced rate through CSHP’s website, https://www.cshp.ca/bookstore-members. Members will be asked to log in before being allowed to proceed to CSHP’s virtual bookstore.
Competing interests: None declared. ( Return to Text )
Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, VOLUME 72, NUMBER 2, March-April 2019