Remote pharmacy service in primary care: the implementation of a cloud-based pre-prescription review system

Abstract Objectives We aimed to describe the implementation of a cloud-based pre-prescription review system in the pharmacy practice of Chinese community health centers (CHCs), which currently have few qualified pharmacists. Setting This study was performed at 22 community healthcare centers in Futian District, Shenzhen, China. Practice description The cloud-based pre-prescription review system featured reviews by remote clinical pharmacists and targets the prevention of inappropriate prescription in primary care. Practice innovation A pre-prescription system was developed and deployed in the cloud, which is linked to CHCs, and a consortium of qualified clinical pharmacists located in tertiary hospitals. All prescriptions were mandatorily reviewed before printing and payment. First, prescriptions were reviewed using cloud-based rational drug use software. Then any detected potentially inappropriate prescriptions were reviewed by the remote pharmacist. The pharmacist consortium also modified review rules to improve efficiency and accuracy. Evaluation The frequency and proportions of potentially inappropriate prescriptions identified by review software and remote pharmacist consortium were descriptively analyzed. Results During the 6-month study period (July 1, 2019, to December 31, 2019), 340,117 prescription entries from general practitioners in 22 community healthcare centers were reviewed. Of these, 6,479 (3.0%) unique potential entries were suspended for pharmacist review, of which 3,230 (49.9%) needed correction from prescribers in the CHCs. The most common corrections were related to improper administration routes or drug-drug interactions, or had no justified indications. Conclusions Inappropriate prescription is not uncommon in CHCs. The cloud-based prescription pre-review model proposed in this study can serve as an important tool for the prevention of inappropriate prescription in primary care. The pre-prescription review system also provided opportunities for pharmacists to participate in the enhancement of patient care in primary care.