Pharmacy Diagnosis: Patient’s Health Assessment of Family Pharmacist to Monitor Drug-Related Out-comes

Abstract

Pharmacy diagnosis is a new role in pharmaceutical care to explore, evaluate, prevent and solve drug-related problems by inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation. Moreover, it is an early assessment before adverse effects from medicines is illustrated or patient complains about a serious sign or symptom. In case of early assessment, pharmacists or family pharmacists who taking care of patients in community can establish a medication use plan to maximize benefit to patients. Examples of pharmacy diagnosis are: observation of abnormal signs or symptoms such as dysphagia during antipsychotic medica-tion; skin palpation to monitor edema in patients on cardiovascular medicines; abdominal percussion to assess abnormal symptoms in patients who use gastrointestinal drugs; and auscultation with a stethoscope to detect rate and rhythm of the heart in patients who take digitalis, theophylline, etc. This article empha-sizes on gathering and presenting necessary diagnosis and patient health assessment skills for pharmacists, to explore, evaluate and monitor drug-related outcomes. This can help pharmacists work collaborately with the other health care professionals and further enhance pharmaceutical care.