A systematic scoping review of implementation of telepharmacy during COVID-19

Syed Arman Rabbani; Shrestha Sharma; Asiya Mahtab; Faheem Hyder Pottoo; Sathvik B. Sridhar

doi:10.7324/JAPS.2023.113646

Abstract

This systematic scoping review aimed to examine the literature on expanding role of telepharmacy services during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Four electronic databases, PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, and Cochrane, were searched to identify published studies that reported implementation of telepharmacy services since the start of pandemic (31st December 2019 to 31st May 2022). Twenty-eight studies met the inclusion criteria comprising 15 cross-sectional studies, 12 studies sharing experience and practice related to telepharmacy services, and one pre-post intervention study. Studies reported establishment and implementation of various novel telepharmacy models in different settings; primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary care hospitals, hospital and community pharmacies, and specialized care centers. Telepharmacy provided pharmaceutical care to patients with COVID-19, chronic diseases, HIV infection, cancer, cystic fibrosis, and patients on anticoagulants. Pharmaceutical care services like patient counseling services (19 studies), medication order review and medication reconciliation (15 studies), drug therapy optimization (11 studies), adverse drug reaction monitoring and management (7 studies), medication adherence assessment (5 studies), and drug-related problem monitoring (4 studies) were delivered using telepharmacy. Based on the identified evidence, telepharmacy proved beneficial in delivering a range of pharmaceutical care services to the patients during the current pandemic. However, there is a need for more rigorous evidence on the reliability, safety, and effectiveness of telepharmacy in comparison to the traditional face-to-face healthcare delivery model.

Keyword: Telepharmacy COVID-19 pharmaceutical care patient counseling drug therapy optimization

Citation:

Rabbani SA, Sharma S, Mahtab A, Pottoo FH, Sridhar SB. A systematic scoping review of implementation of telepharmacy during COVID-19. J Appl Pharm Sci, 2022. https://doi.org/10.7324/JAPS.2023.113646

Copyright: © The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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