Be more proactive to convince medics, pharmacists urged

Pharmacists need to communicate more positively and proactively, as half of their recommendations are ignored, says a prominent Australian academic.

Speaking at the 2018 International Pharmaceutical Federation Congress in Glasgow, Carl Schneider, a lecturer in pharmacy practice at the University of Sydney, Australia, said there was a perception that pharmacists were not “even physically present” and often their only interactions with other professionals were about errors.

In the session designed to look at the communications skills pharmacists needed to be listened to by their medical and other healthcare colleagues, Schneider recommended that the profession must be more “proactive and start conversations”.

He said: “We are very good at identifying issues, we are not good at giving recommendations. We need to change what we talk about; we need to start with a positive proactive message.”

Schneider cited evidence that more than 50% of therapeutic recommendations from pharmacists were not actioned by prescribers, saying: “Frame the conversation as a mutual patient concern. You are both there for the patient.”

He recommended that pharmacists used the ‘Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation’ (ISBAR) method to communicate with colleagues and tried “motivational interviewing” to speak with patients more effectively.

Although, answering a question from the floor about how to deal with a high-handed consultant colleague, Schneider said: “Additional evidence is not going to persuade them. So you may find that it is another colleague or even patients who do.”