Blog 18: 2 Hour Meeting Answer #3

1. How can a clinical pharmacist best provide quality patient consultations?

2. My third answer is the patient being the pharmacist through follow up care.

3. In about a week or a month, a follow up care is necessary to really ensure that the patient's understanding and health. Each follow up care is different and customized to the patient depending on their disease state and drug regimen. The whole point of the follow up care is to review the first consultation but having the patient being the clinical pharmacist. They can do this by explaining what the drug regimen is to you. This can prove further understanding of the drug regimen and to make sure the patient isn't missing anything.

4. The source that helped me was talking to Robert Ngo. He is a clinical pharmacist. From him, I then did further research on the importance of follow up care. One article that showed how important follow up care was an article called, "Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative Change Package." It talked about the goals of clinical pharmacy and what can be improved. Follow up care was under those categories.

5. I plan to do more research on follow up care so that I'll be able to talk more about how important follow up care can be to a patient and how it can contribute to having a quality patient consultation.

Blog 17: 4th Interview Questions

1. How can a clinical pharmacist best provide quality patient consultations?

2. How do you follow up with the patient?

3. What is the hardest part of patient consultations?

4. What's the difference between a regular pharmacist and a clinical pharmacist consultation?

5. What exactly do you talk to the patient about during the consultation?

6. What do you think is the most important thing a patient must understand?

7. How do you come up with the drug regimen for the patient?

8. What do you consider a quality consultation?

9. How often of the time does the patient really listen to you? Why do you think some patients adhere to the medication better than others?

10. What do you think are the reasons for a patient to not follow through with the drug regimen?

11. What conditions are your patients usually under? Is it multiple diseases or just a disease with many medication needs?

12. What things do you take into consideration when planning into the drug regimen?

13. How do you come up with the drug regimen?

14. What are the different duties that a clinical pharmacist does based on their location?

15. What are the steps you go through in the actual consultation?

16. What specific things do you explain to the patient in the consultation?

17. Why do you think it's important for a patient to have a quality consultation?

18. Are there any extra things as a clinical pharmacist can do to really make sure the patient understands?

19. In the consultation, what is the patient usually most confused about?

20. Are there usually any follow up problems with the drug regimen? How do you address those problems? 

Blog 16: 2-Hour Meeting Answer #2

1. My essential question is, "How can a clinical pharmacist best provide quality patient consultations?"

2. My second answer to my essential question is adherence rather than compliance. 

3. This means that the patient must be fully aware of the disease state and drug regimen. They not only have to be fully aware but be motivated and encouraged by the clinical pharmacist to follow through.  According to my third interview, who is both a clinical pharmacist and a retail pharmacist, most, if not all the patients he consults knows nothing about the disease state and drug regimen. By telling the patient of the disease state they are in, they will not only know why they have to take the drug regimen but what is happening to them.  As a clinical pharmacist, it is their job to let the patient know how serious their disease is and what could possibly happen if they don't comply with the drug regimen. According to ACCP, in a paper published called "Clinical Pharmacist Competencies,"  a clinical pharmacist needs to be able to educate patients so that they can improve the patient's outcomes.  Therefore, it's extremely important to have the patient understand the disease and drug regimen to optimize the patient's outcomes just from a quality consultation. 

4. My most important source that helped me prove this answer was my 3rd interview and a paper published by the ACCP.

5. I plan to continue my study of answer 2 by studying more about what a clinical pharmacist does and cases of clinical pharmacists actually consulting the patient. I also plan to talk to the person I interviewed for my 3rd interview and try to work out a time where I could possibly observe a consultation.

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1. I plan on continuing taking my nutrition class up at Cal Poly Pomona.

2. I will not only be attending lectures for 4 hours a week but have supplemental assignments, reading, and quizzes that will surpass my 30 hour requirement.

3. My independent component relates to my working EQ because as a clinical pharmacist you must take into consideration of the food as well as the lifestyle of the patient when planning for a drug regimen. By knowing the basic knowledge of how the body works and how nutrition affects it, I will be able to have more knowledge of what a clinical pharmacist does and how they can best give a quality patient consultation.