What are the barriers to communication between pharmacists during transitions of care?

Several barriers to communication exist between pharmacists during transitions of care (TOC) across healthcare settings, reports a US study.

A group of researchers distributed a survey to a convenience sample of pharmacists in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Texas in the US. They then obtained the following information from the respondents: demographics, practice settings, and clinical services, as well as their methods, preferences, and barriers to communication during TOC.

A total of 308 responses were analysed. Most of the pharmacists who responded to the survey practiced in inpatient pharmacy (39.3 percent) and outpatient community pharmacy (23.4 percent). More than half of them (57.8 percent) were involved in TOC services.

Most of the respondents reported electronic health record (EHR) as their primary method of communication to receive (66.2 percent) and send (55.5 percent) information to perform TOC services. EHR was also the most preferred method of communication to receive (75.4 percent) and send (75.5 percent) information during TOC.

Pharmacists cited the following reasons for not utilizing patient health information: lack of information (38.4 percent), incorrect information (36.7 percent), delay in receiving information (36.7 percent), and lack of time (34.5 percent).

Additionally, the most common challenges in providing TOC services were poor communication during handoffs (44.2 percent) and difficulty obtaining needed patient medical information (43.9 percent).

“This provides an opportunity for future research to develop interventions to improve communication between pharmacists at different practice settings,” the researchers said.