Gabapentin
Loren Bonner
Pharmacy organizations continue to address this issue. In one of the latest examples, APhA and the National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations (NASPA) teamed up to release Pharmacist’s Fundamental Responsibilities and Rights (www.pharmacist.com/pharmacistsresponsibilities), a tool to initiate and facilitate conversations between pharmacy staff and their employers about workplace expectations needed to fulfill a pharmacist’s responsibilities.
harmacists are experiencing high levels of occupational stress, burnout, and moral distress, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this trend.
“There is a direct relationship between workplace conditions and the ability of pharmacists to safely and effectively serve their patients,” said Sandra Leal, PharmD, MPH, APhA President. “Responsibilities and rights do not exist in a vacuum without the other.”
Leal said the principles outlined in the tool, which are embodied by the Oath of a Pharmacist and the Pharmacist Code of Ethics, should enhance the pharmacy workplace and improve patient safety.
“The Fundamentals document is the result of a lot of meaningful work by the committees and important feedback from pharmacists and pharmacy staff from across the country,” said Rebecca P. Snead, RPh, CAE, FAPhA, executive vice president and CEO of NASPA.
“Our profession cannot care for patients if our well-being is in jeopardy. We hope that the Fundamentals document will serve as an important road map for improvement in the workplace and enhanced patient safety.”
New reporting portal
The pharmacy profession knows that the well-being of pharmacy staff affects patient safety. While work has been done to identify and understand medication errors—including near-misses—and characterize the root causes, there is a lack of understanding—especially in peer research—about the workplace factors that affect this. To address this need, APhA and NASPA have developed the Pharmacy Workplace and Well-being Reporting (PWWR) portal, a confidential and anonymous way pharmacy personnel can report positive and negative experiences in pharmacy practice as well as suggested solutions.
An individual’s PWWR report will be collected and analyzed by the Alliance for Patient Medication Safety, a recognized and listed Patient Safety Organization, extending the strong confidentiality and privilege protections of the federal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 to each report.
Only aggregated, non-identifiable data from all reports will be made available to qualified researchers for the purposes of education and the development of best practices and recommendations to enhance the pharmacy workplace.
The PWWR submission portal (www.pharmacist.com/pwwr) is open to pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and student pharmacists across all practice settings. It is available at any time; individuals can report as often as situations arise, and there is no deadline for submissions.
A validated screening tool
In July 2019, APhA launched the Well-Being Index for Pharmacy Personnel (WBI), a validated screening tool developed by the Mayo Clinic. APhA worked with the Mayo Clinic to adapt its WBI specifically for pharmacy personnel.
Roughly 7,600 individuals have assessed using the WBI at press time. According to Alex Varkey, director of pharmacy at Houston Methodist Hospital and chair of APhA’s Well-being Initiative Steering Committee, 32.12% of the respondents who used the tool before the COVID-19 pandemic were at risk of high distress, with that percentage roughly between 34% and 32% throughout the pandemic.
Researchers from Mayo Clinic have found that pharmacists who are at a high risk for distress also have a:
- 3-fold higher risk of low quality of life
- 8-fold higher risk of burnout
- 2.5-fold higher risk of high fatigue
- 2.5-fold higher risk of intent to leave their current job
- 2-fold higher risk of medication error
Pharmacy personnel should know that the WBI is anonymous, free, and provides individualized feedback on how assessors’ well-being compares to their peers. They will also be connected to tools and resources that can help them. It is recommended that individuals assess often to track their well-being over time.