Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative

Objective: To describe the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Patient Safety and Clinical Pharmacy Services Collaborative (PSPC). The primary goal of the PSPC is to integrate the healthcare delivery system across multiple partners and providers that target high-risk, high-cost, complex patients, producing improvements in both health outcomes and patient safety through the integration of clinical pharmacy services.

Methods: Using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Breakthrough Series model, safety-net communities select multidisciplinary teams of healthcare providers to participate in intensive series of Learning Sessions and Action Periods. Drawing from the leading practices of high performing organizations, teams work together to rapidly learn, test, implement, and track their patient care to achieve established Collaborative goals. Each PSPC team identifies and targets their high-risk, high-cost patient population. Nearly half of the target populations identified by teams—spanning urban, rural, hospital and health center settings—include patients with diabetes.

Results: Teams have demonstrated improved health outcomes and patient safety in high-risk, high-cost, complex patients. Among patients with diabetes, teams in the PSPC over a 12-month period, have dramatically improved A1Cs. Teams also track and share results in the identification of potential Adverse Drug Events (pADEs) and ADEs.

Conclusion: Managing the delivery of clinical pharmacy services integrated with primary health care creates a new service with a new kind of performance. PSPC teams can now generate both safety and health improvement to panels of high-risk patients—including diabetic patients—whose needs are beyond the reach of the current, traditional delivery system.