Medication management surrounding transitions of care: A qualitative assessment of community pharmacists' preferences (MEMO TOC)

Background: Multiple medication changes during hospitalization increase the risk of errors upon discharge. Community pharmacists may face barriers to providing pharmaceutical care because of the lack of clinical information and communication from hospitals. Studies implementing handover to community pharmacists upon hospital discharge reported improved patient outcomes, but interventions were time-consuming. Methods: One-on-one interviews and a focus group were conducted to identify community pharmacists' barriers to providing care to patients recently discharged from hospital and to determine their preferences for hospital discharge prescriptions. Transcripts were qualitatively analyzed using an inductive semantic approach. Results: Four one-on-one interviews and an 8-participant focus group were conducted. Participants described barriers to providing care to discharged patients, including lack of communication, incomplete prescriptions, and limited clinical information. Participants identified that the most valuable information to include comprised laboratory values, hospital contact information and annotation of medication changes. These items would improve their abilities to provide timely and high-quality pharmaceutical care. Interpretation: Our results were similar to prior literature identifying a lack of communication and clinical information as barriers to providing care to recently discharged patients. Unexpectedly, study participants did not rate medication indication as a strongly preferred information item. Conclusions: Hospital discharge prescriptions lack information, which makes it challenging for community pharmacists to provide pharmaceutical care. Discharge prescriptions should include additional clinical information.