Evaluation of community pharmacy service mix: Evidence from the 2004 National Pharmacist Workforce Study

Objectives: To describe the mix of pharmacy services being offered in different types of community pharmacy practices and to identify factors associated with a community pharmacy offering pharmacy services. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Community pharmacies (independent, chain, mass merchandiser, and supermarket pharmacies). Participants: Pharmacists practicing full-time or part-time who worked in community pharmacies and responded to the 2004 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey. Intervention: Mailed survey from the 2004 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey, which included core content questions for all sampled pharmacists and supplemental surveys that included workplace questions for a selected subsample of pharmacists. Main Outcome Measures: Type and frequency of pharmacy services being offered in a community pharmacy, including dispensing and product-related services (e.g., specialty compounding), and pharmacist care services (e.g., immunizations, smoking cessation, health screening, medication therapy management, wellness screening, nutritional support, and disease management services). Results: Four pharmacist care services were reported as being offered at more than 10% of community pharmacy practices: immunizations, smoking cessation, health screening, and diabetes management. The number of pharmacist care services offered at a community pharmacy was positively associated with having at least three pharmacists on duty, innovativeness of the pharmacy, status as an independent pharmacy, and status as a supermarket pharmacy. More than one half of the community pharmacy practices did not offer any of the eight pharmacist care services included in a pharmacy service index. Conclusion: Pharmacy services were reported at relatively few community pharmacies, and were associated with pharmacy innovativeness, pharmacist staffing levels, and pharmacy setting. Some community pharmacies are offering pharmacy services as part of their business strategy, while others are dedicated to dispensing services. Continued study of pharmacy service availability in community pharmacies is needed to improve our understanding of our capacity to deliver such services, including medication therapy management services.