Objectives: To determine pharmacist awareness of medication therapy management (MTM), confidence in and intentions to provide MTM, related training needs, and barriers to MTM provision; and to assess pharmacist and practice site characteristics that are related to confidence in providing MTM.
Design: Nonexperimental cross-sectional study.
Setting: May 2006 in Texas.
Participants: 1,833 Texas community pharmacists who were affiliated with the Texas Pharmacy Association.
Intervention: an anonymous, self-administered online survey was e-mailed to participants.
Main outcome measures: Awareness of MTM legislation, confidence in providing MTM, intentions to provide MTM, and barriers to MTM provision. Pharmacist and practice site characteristics were also collected.
Results: The response rate was 11.8% (n = 157). Overall, pharmacists (>75%) were aware of the three criteria for targeted beneficiaries. They were confident in providing medication therapy review (MTR), creating a personal medication record (PMR), and performing intervention and referral but were only somewhat confident in creating a medication action plan. Pharmacists disagreed or were neutral about having adequate documentation systems for MTM. The majority of respondents intend to become MTM providers (74%) and were interested in additional training (78%). Independent pharmacists, those with adequate documentation systems, and those who had previously provided patient care services were more confident regarding MTM provision.
Conclusion: Pharmacist intentions to provide MTM indicate that they are eager to expand their roles as patient care providers. Pharmacist confidence in providing MTR, creating a PMR, and performing the intervention and referral suggest that pharmacists already have many of the skills necessary to provide MTM; however, more education about creating action plans and using documentation systems may help pharmacists become successful MTM providers.