Motivational Interviewing & Pharmacology

Research estimates that patients failing to take their medications or failing to take them as prescribed costs the U.S. healthcare industry $100 billion to $300 billion annually.

As the scope of pharmacy services shifts toward a greater emphasis on direct patient care, the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education and the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy stress motivational interviewing as an essential skill for pharmacists and the delivery of pharmaceutical care.

We need to make sure that healthcare professionals have skills in motivational interviewing and health coaching. In the past we’ve been quite paternalistic in the way that we provide information, nit the answer isn’t just telling somebody “you need to lose weight” or “you need to stop smoking” — most people know that those behaviors aren’t good for them.

Compared with other U.S. population groups, Native American communities experience growing inequities in health care outcomes. This is due in part to inadequate access to comprehensive health services. To help address this gap, the Red Lake Indian Health Service (IHS) Hospital developed a solution: embed pharmacists into the health care team.

Medication therapy management (MTM) is a comprehensive way to enhance medication use, improve adherence, and reduce the risk of adverse events

The project included 99 pharmacies, which implemented various tactics in order to engage adult customers who were eligible to receive influenza, pertussis, pneumococcal, and/or herpes zoster vaccines using new notification and motivational interviewing processes.