Pharmacists’ Changing Roles, Influencing Collaborative Care Models

These days, a growing number of pharmacists are going above and beyond filling prescriptions. As more patients need help managing their medications to prevent or treat chronic illness—an additional time pressure for stretched physicians—the prescribing pharmacist is playing a key role on the patient care team. In addition to prescribing medications and working with patients to adjust dosing, these pharmacists can also conduct health screenings and give vaccinations.
This expansion of the pharmacist’s role is proving invaluable for patients with such conditions as heart disease. For example, heart attack victims can reduce their risk of another episode with common drugs…