Impact of Incorporating Pharmacy Technicians Into a Clinical Pharmacy Workflow on Aspirin Prescribing in Patients With Ischemic Vascular Disease
Licamied C. Macklin, Morgan P. Stewart, Kathryn P. Lin, Leticia R. Moczygemba, Leslie SimienBackground:
Federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) use core quality measures to guide care and secure funding. One core measure is “Ischemic Vascular Disease (IVD): Use of Aspirin or Another Antiplatelet.” A pilot program at an FQHC utilized the clinical pharmacy team to improve appropriate aspirin prescribing. Clinical pharmacy technicians identified eligible patients through a best practice advisory (BPA) in the electronic health record and contacted individuals with IVD not prescribed aspirin to schedule a clinical pharmacist appointment. Pharmacists then conducted medication reconciliations and ordered aspirin when indicated. This study evaluated the impact of incorporating pharmacy technicians into the clinical pharmacy workflow on the IVD quality measure.
Methods:
This retrospective chart review compared aspirin prescriptions ordered from June to November 2023 between patients contacted by pharmacy technicians and those who were not. Demographics, outreach attempts, aspirin orders, and diagnosis codes were collected. Descriptive statistics and Fisher’s exact test were used for analysis.
Results:
Pharmacy technicians attempted to contact 65 eligible patients, with 49 successfully reached. Aspirin was prescribed for 3.1% of control patients vs 30.6% in patients successfully contacted by the pharmacy team (
Conclusion:
A clinical pharmacy team significantly increased aspirin therapy among eligible patients with IVD, demonstrating the value of pharmacy team involvement on quality metrics. Future research should explore expanded integration of clinical pharmacy team services to enhance patient care.