(1212) Patient Satisfaction with Enhanced Patient Care Services Within a Clinically Integrated Network of Community Pharmacies

Objectives: The objectives of this study are to: 1) Assess patient acceptability of enhanced services and 2) Assess patient satisfaction with their overall care experience at pharmacies participating in payer programs within a clinically integrated network. The Pennsylvania Pharmacists Care Network (PPCN) is a clinically integrated network of over 200 community pharmacies in Pennsylvania that provide patient-centered, community-based care. The PPCN has several active payer programs through which pharmacies are reimbursed for services including social determinant of health screenings and referrals, comprehensive medication reviews, disease state management, medication adherence packaging services, medication synchronization, and home delivery of medications. While it is known that these services benefit patients, there are no studies that have quantified the acceptability of these services or general patient satisfaction with pharmacies in a clinically integrated network. While several studies have examined patient satisfaction with community pharmacies, the majority have either focused on experience receiving prescription drugs or have been exploratory in nature. Quantifying acceptability of services and patient satisfaction will help identify opportunities for improvement and will support sustained integration of clinical services into community pharmacy practice. Our project also sets the stage for continued research as additional pharmacies, including corporate community pharmacies, also expand their enhanced services.

Methods: This is a quantitative, cross-sectional survey study of patients at community pharmacies within one large clinically integrated network. Subjects will be patients with Medicaid insurance who received patient care services at an included pharmacy through a payer program. We will use a two-step random sampling strategy including approximately 20 PPCN pharmacies and approximately 30 patients at each. The Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA) and the TFA-based questionnaire developed by Sekhon et al. were used as a basis for survey item development around acceptability of specific services. Published surveys on patient satisfaction related to community-based pharmacy practice were used to inform survey item development around overall patient satisfaction. Survey items will be further refined through research team discussion and pilot testing. The survey items address the patient’s frequency of use of their pharmacy, the services they have received to date, their acceptability of these services, and their satisfaction with their overall pharmacy experience. Items include multiple-choice, Likert-scale, and select open-ended questions.

The survey deployment plan has been developed using principles of Dillman’s Tailored Design Method. Researchers will work with personnel at each pharmacy to contact eligible subjects and to provide the electronic survey. A small incentive will be provided to subjects for completion of the survey. Descriptive statistics will be used to characterize the data. Responses to Likert-scale questions for acceptability of each service and for overall satisfaction will be converted into total numerical scores. Means and standard deviations for scores will be calculated. Means of scores will be compared across services using t-tests, with a p-value of 0.05 considered significant. Content analysis of responses to open-ended survey items will be performed. This project will be submitted for review by the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board.

Results: Research in progress.

Conclusions: The community pharmacy business model is evolving, including further integrating enhanced services. Results of the survey could be used by other pharmacies or networks in payer conversations to share the desirability and perceived benefit of a service to patients. The survey could also be modified for additional enhanced services based on the needs of a single or group of community pharmacies. This could be beneficial both at the local, individual-pharmacy level and at the level of networks or corporations for strategic planning, payer and partner engagement, and quality improvement.