Exploring the Role of Pharmacy in Modern Healthcare

Abstract

Pharmacy has a long history of supporting what is now known as healthcare in the United States of America. The pharmacist profession has evolved from curing with compounds to counseling patients, managing chronic diseases, immunizing, and contributing to public health outcomes. Pharmacists are the drug experts of the healthcare team and can use their extensive knowledge to influence disease outcomes using preventative, therapeutic, and rehabilitative pharmaceutical care. While medication dispensing and managing the medication-use process are fundamental aspects of pharmacy, assessing what contributes to medication safety and efficacy is a complicated combination of socio-cultural and economic factors at the macro level, along with the healthcare system, patient, and environmental influences at the micro level. To better understand all the factors that affect pharmacy, you must be able to take a step-by-step approach in which pharmacy has a measurable impact. Measuring clinical outcomes can tell you what a pharmacist does and if it is done well, and the subsequent impact on the patients' medication.