What constitutes an effective community pharmacy?—development of a preliminary model of organizational effectiveness through concept mapping with multiple stakeholders

• Published in: International journal for quality in health care Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 324 - 332
• Main Authors: Scahill, S.L., Harrison, J., Carswell, P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Oxford University Press 01-08-2010
• Subjects: Adult; community pharmacy; concept mapping; Consensus; Delphi Technique; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Models, Organizational; multi-constituent; organizational effectiveness; Organizational Objectives; Pharmacies - organization & administration; Pharmacies - standards; Program Evaluation; Quality Indicators, Health Care - standards; Quality of Health Care - standards; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1353-4505; 1464-3677
• DOI: 10.1093/intqhc/mzq033

Objective To develop a multi-constituent model of organizational effectiveness for community pharmacy. Design Using Concept Systems® software, a project with 14 stakeholders included a three stage process: (i) face to face brainstorming to generate statements describing what constitutes an effective community pharmacy, followed by (ii) statement reduction and approval by participants, followed by (iii) sorting of the statements into themes with rating of each statement for importance. Setting Primary care in a government-funded, national health care system. Participants A multi-constituent group representing policy-makers and health care providers including; community pharmacy, professional pharmacy organizations, primary health care funders and policy-makers, general practitioners and general practice support organizations. Results Statement clusters included: ‘has safe and effective workflows’, ‘contributes to the safe use of medicines’, ‘manages human resources and has leadership’, ‘has a community focus’, ‘is integrated within primary care’, ‘is a respected innovator’, ‘provides health promotion and preventative care’, ‘communicates and advocates’. These clusters fit into a quadrant model setting stakeholder focus against role development. The poles of stakeholder focus are ‘internal capacity’ and ‘social utility’. The poles of role development are labelled ‘traditional safety roles’ and ‘integration and innovation’. Conclusions Organizational effectiveness in community pharmacy includes the internal and external focus of the organization and role development. Our preliminary model describes an effective community pharmacy and provides a platform for investigation of the factors that may influence the organizational effectiveness of individual community pharmacies now and into the future.