Implementation of personalized medicine services in community pharmacies: Perceptions of independent community pharmacists

Objectives: To evaluate the perceptions of independent community pharmacists within a regional independent community pharmacy cooperative on implementing personalized medicine services at their pharmacies and to gauge the pharmacists' self-reported knowledge of pharmacogenomic principles. Design: Descriptive, exploratory, nonexperimental study. Setting: American Pharmacy Services Corporation (APSC), 2011-12. Participants: Pharmacists (n = 101) affiliated with the independent pharmacies of APSC. Intervention: Single-mode survey. Main outcome measures: Independent community pharmacists' interest in implementing personalized medicine services, perceived readiness to provide such services, and perceived barriers to implementation. Results: 101 completed surveys were returned for data analysis. The majority of pharmacists surveyed (75%) expressed interest in offering personalized medicine services. When asked to describe their knowledge of pharmacogenomics and readiness to implement such services, more than 50% said they were not knowledgeable on the subject and would not currently be comfortable making drug therapy recommendations to physicians or confident counseling patients based on results of genetic screenings without further training and education. Respondents identified cost of providing the service, reimbursement issues, current knowledge of pharmacogenomics, and time to devote to the program as the greatest barriers to implementing personalized medicine services. Conclusion: The majority of independent community pharmacists are interested in incorporating personalized medicine services into their practices, but they require further education before this is possible. Future initiatives should focus on the development of comprehensive education programs to further train pharmacists for provision of these services.