Impact of Incorporating Pharmacy Technicians Into a Clinical Pharmacy Workflow on Aspirin Prescribing in Patients With Ischemic Vascular Disease

Figures

• 

  Figure 1.. Clinical pharmacy team workflow. This figure illustrates the workflow of the pharmacy technician outreach and clinical pharmacist follow-up interventions. Pharmacy technicians attempted to contact each patient by telephone up to 2 times and left voicemail messages requesting a return call for each attempt. During outreach, pharmacy technicians used standardized call scripts and electronic medical record (EMR) documentation templates to assess current aspirin use and offer scheduling of a clinical pharmacist phone visit if appropriate. Abbreviations: ASA, aspirin; IVD, ischemic vascular disease; Rx, prescription order; Tech, clinical pharmacy technician.

• 

  Figure 2.. Patient flow diagram. This figure depicts the patient identification, exclusion, outreach, and outcomes associated with the pharmacy—led intervention. Numbers represent the total number of patients in each group. No show indicates the patient did not answer the phone for their appointment. Abbreviations: ASA, aspirin; BPA, best practice advisory; clin pharm, clinical pharmacist; med, medication; tech, clinical pharmacy technician.

• 

  Figure 3.. Percentage of patients with aspirin orders with and without clinical pharmacy intervention. The percentage of patients with aspirin orders placed by a clinical pharmacist increased significantly following implementation of the intervention compared with the control group (P < .001). The highest prescribing rate was observed among patients successfully reached by the pharmacy technician. *Overall reached includes patients who were already taking aspirin but it was added to the chart by the pharmacist and patients who were newly initiated on aspirin by a clinical pharmacist.