Individual medication management system (IMMS) implementation in pharmacists' opinion.

Many countries of the world including Poland, are taking actions for improving the role of the pharmacist as a health care professional. One of those is implementation of pharmaceutical care (PC), as a documented specialist medical service, which also includes pharmacist interventions, such as preparing Individual Medication Management System (IMMS), to enhance patient's adherence. Because of the chance to monitor the dosage and to detect and prevent drug problems occurrence, IMMS is thought to be an opportunity for individualized, effective and safe patient's pharmacotherapy. The aim of the study was to define pharmacists' attitudes toward IMMS. The study included also the evaluation of pharmacist-physician cooperation to determine whether IMMS can improve partnership among health care professionals for proper patient's care. The survey was conducted in Poznań, between June 2011 and March 2012. An anonymous questionnaire was delivered personally to pharmacists. Each questionnaire was provided with a short information brochure attached and presentation of demos how to use IMMS. The survey covered 129 pharmacists (76.7% women and 23.3% men) where 48.8% had up to 5 years length of service as a pharmacist, 24.8% - 6-10 years, 14.9% - 11-20 years and 11.5% - 21 and more years. Most of the participants did not have specialization (80.6%) and only 5.4% had Ph.D. degree. Survey confirmed that 64.8% of pharmacists (p < 0.0001), mainly with the shortest length of service (p = 0.02268) and without specialty (p = 0.00244) didn't cooperate with physicians, but 68.8% of respondents emphasized that the range of cooperation could increase by IMMS application (p < 0.00001). About 50.0% of respondents' considered that patients would be interested in IMMS usage (p = 0.00079) and in 71.9% opinions, it would attach the patient to specific community pharmacy (p < 0.00001). This statement was confirmed by respondents with the shortest length of services (p = 0.00659). Proposed dosing system also improved patient's care serving by family or carers in pharmacists' opinion (p < 0.00001). A majority of pharmacists (85.3%) indicated also that IMMS would have a positive influence on PC implementation in Poland (p < 0.00001) and 69.0% of them confirmed that this service should be refunded by the National Health Fund (p < 0.00001). According to the scale of non-compliance, implementation of IMMS as a part of PC can be a chance both for patients and their physicians to increase the safety and effectiveness of therapy and for pharmacists, who are intended to highlight their role as a part of health care system.