(1219) Assessment of Practice Transformation Within a Statewide Clinically Integrated Network of Community Pharmacies

Objectives: The objective is to assess community pharmacy practice transformation within a statewide clinically integrated network (CIN) of pharmacies. Practice transformation in the community setting is the ongoing initiative to elevate the pre-existing dispense-only model of pharmacy practice to include provision of enhanced patient care services, such as monthly disease-state encounters, adherence services, and social determinants of health screening and referral services. The Pennsylvania Pharmacists Care Network (PPCN) is a statewide CIN of 218 community pharmacies across Pennsylvania that collaborates with several health plan partners to provide these enhanced services and pharmacies receive reimbursement from the health plans for the care. Because each pharmacy has implemented patient care services in a variety of different ways and times, the network must first understand where each one lies along the continuum of practice transformation in order to further assist its member pharmacies in this advancement. Therefore, each network pharmacy will complete a self-assessment tool that will capture pertinent information about the pharmacy and payer program participation in order to assess practice transformation at both the individual pharmacy and network-wide levels.

Methods: A self-assessment tool, previously developed by University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy and PPCN, will be used to capture pharmacy-specific practice transformation data. Using display logic, this tool contains up to 35 questions consisting of various formats, including multiple-choice, open-ended, and select-all-that-apply. Practice transformation will be assessed through questions addressing the practice transformation concepts that are noted in the literature and the national practice transformation program, Flip the Pharmacy, including but not limited to: (1) medication synchronization; (2) the appointment-based model; (3) patient care service provision in workflow; and (4) provider collaboration. We will utilize complete target sampling and electronically deploy the tool to all 218 participating PPCN pharmacies through Qualtrics software. Distribution and data collection will occur between November and December 2023, and pharmacies will be encouraged to complete the self-assessment by email communications and network-wide newsletters. Additional outreach to the individual pharmacies will also be conducted during the data-collection window by student pharmacists, network coaches, and PPCN leadership to support pharmacies with completion of the self-assessment tool. Data obtained through the tool will be aggregated with other existing network data (e.g. pharmacy demographics, payer program participation) and characterized using descriptive statistics. Where appropriate, Pearson correlations will be utilized to assess the relationship between practice transformation and other pharmacy variables such as length of time in the network and participation in the Flip The Pharmacy program. Pharmacies will be provided with their individual results along with overall network performance of practice transformation for feedback and evaluation. This project was categorized as quality improvement by the University’s Institutional Review Board.

Results: Project is currently in progress. Data collection and analysis are ongoing.

Conclusions: The results of this project will provide a three-fold implication: (1) benefit to the individual pharmacies, (2) benefit to PPCN at the organizational level, and (3) benefit to additional CINs similar to PPCN. At the individual level, results of the self assessment will provide community pharmacies with a snapshot of their own practice transformation and, through annual completion of this tool, can be used to track their progress and set future practice transformation goals. On a network level, completion of the tool will allow PPCN to collect data across all participating members and also assess large-scale practice transformation, enabling the network to identify areas of weakness and implement strategies that facilitate growth. Nationally, the self-assessment used by PPCN can be adopted by fellow CINs so that they are able to facilitate and assess practice transformation within their own network of community pharmacies.