Background: The trend toward outpatient treatment with multiple prescription medications has established a more prominent role for community pharmacists and case managers in HIV care. Nevertheless, little is known about how these two professionals work together or their interest in collaborating to improve medication adherence in HIV/AIDS.
Design: A cover letter and self-administered questionnaire were mailed in February 2000 to all 575 North Carolina pharmacist-managers of pharmacies providing services in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program and all 115 case managers working in agencies certified for HIV/AIDS case management.
Results: Completed questionnaires were returned by 440 pharmacists (77%) and 94 (85%) of the case managers. In the last 60 days, pharmacists and case managers each reported having less than one contact per patient with the other. Nevertheless, 62% of pharmacists were interested in ways to facilitate collaborations with case managers and 82% agreed it would be acceptable for case managers to supplement pharmacists' adherence counseling activities. Similarly, only 12% of case managers reported asking pharmacists to counsel a client about adherence and 28% reported relying on pharmacists to provide adherence counseling. However, 81% of case managers were interested in enhanced collaborations with pharmacists, 80% were interested in pharmacies that specialize in HIV, and 64% were interested in reimbursement for pharmacists to provide HIV medication counseling.
Conclusions: Although communication between community pharmacists and HIV/AIDS case managers is somewhat inconsistent, there is strong interest by both professionals to collaborate in HIV care. A new framework for case manger-pharmacist collaboration in HIV/AIDS will be presented.
Learning Objectives: To describe the communication patterns, collaboration, and coordination of care between case managers and community pharmacists caring for people living with HIV disease. To delineate and characterize the informational needs of case managers and community pharmacists caring for people with HIV disease. To describe interest in collaboration between community pharmacists and HIV case managers in assisting individuals with adhering to their medication regimens.
Keywords: Adherence, HIV/AIDS
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.