| abstract |
A pharmaceutical care practitioner has a n ongoing relationship with a patient in a series of encounters. The practitioner generates an assessment, including demographics of the patient, resulting in a set of indications for pharmacotherapy. The practitioner evaluates medications for appropriateness, effectiveness, safety, and compliance, and recommends or selects medications (including dosage, duration, frequency, etc.) for each indication in a care plan. The practitioner evaluates outcomes from the medications. Items from the assessment, plan, or outcomes are coded as searchable terms in a patient database employed by the practitioner for generating the care plan. The patient database may be consolidated among many different practitioners for greater statistical power. Agreements between practitioners and third-party providers may permit practitioners to override or allow actions not normally permitted by patients' plans, such as drug substitution, dosage adjustment, or choice of source. A computer-based documentation system accesses or contains databases such as patient information, medication products, legal criteria, or insurance criteria. The system may also produce documents or reports, such as care plans, assessments, claims, invoices, statistical analyses, or practice guidelines. |