Pharmaceutical Practice: Patient Assessment

1817 Words4 Pages

Over the last decades, pharmacy practice has evolved into a patient cantered care profession which aims to improve health outcome of the patient. Within the pharmaceutical practice model, the role of pharmacist is not restricted into just dispensing the right medication but to achieve an overall better outcome for the patient. Patient assessment is a vital part of this pharmaceutical model and is focused on gathering patient-specific information, evaluating that information, identify drug related problems and formulating a pharmaceutical care plan. (Jones and Rospond, 2009)

This essay is structured on a hypothetical scenario and is intended to highlight the way in which a pharmacist can access a patient. This patient assessment aims to identify the correct diagnosis and give further advices on the next steps that the patient must follow.

A 60 Years old men named Mr.P enters a pharmacy and ask to speak with the pharmacist about his cough which was lasting for more than three weeks. The pharmacist politely asks the patient to follow him to his consultation office in order to ask him some questions. Initially the pharmacist will take a normal history taking from the patient .More specific the pharmacist first asks the reason Mr. P seek care. Mr. P explains that he had a cough for three weeks. The pharmacist then, asks from Mr. to give further details about his cough; he asks him about the time he first experienced the cough, how it had progressed over time and what impact it had on his life .Mr. P. answers that the cough started suddenly three weeks ago but by the time it had become worse. His life had started to get more difficult as sometimes he experienced coughing while driving or doing other operations. He was ...

... middle of paper ...

... A, (2007). The new tuberculosis. The British Journal Of General Practice. 1 (57), pp.94–95.

Jones, M.R ,Rospond, M.R (2009). Patient Assessment in Pharmacy Practice. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. 1

MeReC (2003) Primary care aspects of tuberculosis. MeReC Bulletin 14(3), 9-12

Morice, A.H., McGarvey, L., Pavord, I., (2006). Recommendations for the management of cough in adults. Thorax. 61 (1), pp.1-24

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, (2011). Referral guidelines for suspected cancer. 1st ed. London : NICE guideline,pp.15-17.

Pathways.nice.org.uk. 2013. Lung cancer - NICE Pathways. [online] Available at: http://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/lung-cancer#content=view-info%3Aintroduction-source&path=view%3A/pathways/lung-cancer/treatment-and-supportive-and-palliative-care-for-lung-cancer.xml [Accessed: 28 Nov 2013].

Open Document