TY - JOUR
T1 - Pharmacy in transition
T2 - A work sampling study of community pharmacists using smartphone technology
AU - van de Pol, Jeroen M
AU - Geljon, Jurjen G
AU - Belitser, Svetlana V
AU - Frederix, Geert W J
AU - Hövels, Anke M
AU - Bouvy, Marcel L
N1 - Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/1
Y1 - 2019/1
N2 - INTRODUCTION: The nature of community pharmacy is changing, shifting from the preparation and distribution of medicines to the provision of cognitive pharmaceutical services (CPS); however, often the provision of traditional services leaves little time for innovative services. This study investigated the time community pharmacists spend on the tasks and activities of daily practice and to what extent they are able to implement CPS-related services in daily practice.METHODS: Self-reporting work sampling was used to register the activities of community pharmacists. A smartphone application, designed specifically for this purpose, alerted participants to register their current activity five times per working day for 6 weeks. Participants also completed an online survey about baseline characteristics.RESULTS: Ninety-one Dutch community pharmacists provided work-sampling data (7848 registered activities). Overall, 51.5% of their time was spent on professional activities, 35.4% on semi-professional activities, and 13.1% on non-professional activities. The proportion of time devoted to CPS decreased during the workweek, whereas the time spent on traditional task increased.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study shows it is feasible to collect work-sampling data using smartphone technology. Community pharmacists spent almost half of their time on semi-professional and non-professional activities, activities that could be delegated to other staff members. In practice, the transition to CPS is hampered by competing traditional tasks, which prevents community pharmacists from profiling themselves as pharmaceutical experts in daily practice.
AB - INTRODUCTION: The nature of community pharmacy is changing, shifting from the preparation and distribution of medicines to the provision of cognitive pharmaceutical services (CPS); however, often the provision of traditional services leaves little time for innovative services. This study investigated the time community pharmacists spend on the tasks and activities of daily practice and to what extent they are able to implement CPS-related services in daily practice.METHODS: Self-reporting work sampling was used to register the activities of community pharmacists. A smartphone application, designed specifically for this purpose, alerted participants to register their current activity five times per working day for 6 weeks. Participants also completed an online survey about baseline characteristics.RESULTS: Ninety-one Dutch community pharmacists provided work-sampling data (7848 registered activities). Overall, 51.5% of their time was spent on professional activities, 35.4% on semi-professional activities, and 13.1% on non-professional activities. The proportion of time devoted to CPS decreased during the workweek, whereas the time spent on traditional task increased.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This study shows it is feasible to collect work-sampling data using smartphone technology. Community pharmacists spent almost half of their time on semi-professional and non-professional activities, activities that could be delegated to other staff members. In practice, the transition to CPS is hampered by competing traditional tasks, which prevents community pharmacists from profiling themselves as pharmaceutical experts in daily practice.
KW - Work sampling
KW - Community pharmacy
KW - Pharmacy research
KW - Smartphone
KW - Cognitive pharmaceutical services
U2 - 10.1016/j.sapharm.2018.03.004
DO - 10.1016/j.sapharm.2018.03.004
M3 - Article
C2 - 29550281
SN - 1551-7411
VL - 15
SP - 70
EP - 76
JO - Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy
JF - Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy
IS - 1
ER -